Can’t we say lesbian anymore?

[sellotape12]

Was just reading a Guardian review of some TV show and it describes a female character as ‘secretly queer.’ Then I popped to the local café where there’s a leaflet for a ‘queer antenatal group.’ Can’t we just say gay? Or lesbian?
The normalisation of a more ambiguous piece of language implies shame in the original word. Additionally, it just makes it all look like trend rather than biological truth. And that’s just counterintuitive surely?

I was more than a bit irritated yesterday by the press release English Heritage put out to announce the blue plaque for the Gateways Club. There was the word "lesbian" large as life on the plaque itself , but the release cited only Lgbtq etc women repeatedly. I was lucky enough to have gone to the Gates just a few times before it closed in 1985 and a good friend of mine was enough of a regular to have been featured in the documentary that Toksvig fronted for BBC4. No-one I met in there would have gone along with that kind of mealy-mouthed forced teaming.

In modern parlance "queer" means a straight person with spicy haircut.

The queer antenatal group will also be for women who describe themselves as non-binary or transmen or for women with trans identified male partners.

But yes, there has been loss of lesbian spaces because of this rebranding as 'queer'..

'Lesbian' went out of fashion a long time ago, it had association with dungarees, man-hating and woolly jumpers, allegedly. We were 'gay women'. 'Queer' is more recent.
Now that the very definition of lesbian is under attack from TRAs, it seems to have regained some status

You’re forgetting men who want to breastfeed

Under the beliefs of GI - if you say lesbian and you're male, then everyone claps and shouts stunning and brave.

If you say lesbian and you're female, you are suggesting that you are an evil homosexual who would reject a man as a sexual partner on the grounds of his sex instead of his inner stated self as an identified as woman.

So you're obviously bad and naughty and evil. GOOD women say queer, which does not imply any vaginal gatekeeping or boundaries that would inconvenience men in the use of women's bodies.

Under the SC - lesbians are women, end of. But obviously very naughty for saying so. (They don't care.)

That's the problem with reading the Guardian.

And if that's what you want to do just write in and say they are out of date using the word queer.

That was a lifestyle fashion movement and everybody knows this.

They need to up date their house style guidance.

I am by the way being quite serious.

If a news paper, even one as captured as the Guardian makes such a basic error just write in and say how stupid it makes them look.

And support the growing number of groups who are proud and make a point of using the word lesbian.

Stupid copy writers and publicists using the word queer just show they aren't competent to do the job.

🙄 queer ante-natal group

😃 Those who have thought it so important to distinguish themselves from other types of women by categorising them into groups are in for a shock when they enter the labour ward. In there they will cease caring about the correct descriptor for themselves : gay, lesbian, queer, non binary etc
as they discover we.all labour in the same way.

The lesbians I know all call themselves lesbian but they are the bigoted kind who are only attracted to other adult human females.

Why is it bigoted for a female to be solely attracted to adult females?

It was irony. Or possibly sarcasm. I never quite know the difference. I was aiming for the vibe of Ricky Gervais talking about women, the old fashioned bigoted kind and the new ones who have a penis.

If you check out my posts, you'll see I'm GC.

Because they are denying the validation of a man's special inner self expression as a woman and his experience of sex with a woman who will only have sex with another woman - the ultimate prize of achieved 'womanhood' - and doing dreadful rotten things like wanting to follow their own wishes, feelings, sense of sexual attraction, enjoying sex, wanting sex with someone capable of the slightest respect for them or interest in them as a person with feelings .

As opposed to doing their duty and providing free sex work. Remember that his 'lady dick' will have an entirely different 'mouth feel' to a man's dick, you cannot say that you don't want it until you've tried it, and you need to 'learn to cope' with essentially straight sex as a social duty.

I wish I was joking or exaggerating here: this is quoted verbatim from men.

Oooh I forgot 'sexual racism'.

Edited because I just realised you are joking. Sorry!

DD is 19 and a lesbian. She never refers to herself as queer. She is away currently and texted to tell me that she is "the only gay in the village" but that is only for our personal amusement rather than a preferred 'label'.

No problem!

OP, I have absolutely noticed this as well. As a young lesbian, I had a brief period where the word was relatively commonplace, but more and more recently it has been replaced with queer. I have seen several views on why this is, but the one that rings most true for me (that PPs have commented on) is to blur the boundaries that SSA women set for themselves.

See the BBC referring to the new series of I Kissed A Girl as looking for "Queer women" not SSA women.

Yes, because we’re women.

As a queer person, yes, you can absolutely call yourself lesbian. Queer (for most) is just a group comprising of LGBT folk. Some people don't like it and that's fine. It's a bit of a social faux pas to call someone queer who has stated that they don't like the word.

Thanks for telling us what we can and can’t say 🙄

Remember that his 'lady dick' will have an entirely different 'mouth feel' to a man's dick, you cannot say that you don't want it until you've tried it,

Damn @TheOtherRaven . I'm not one for trigger warnings, but I was just about to have my tea 😬

Why do I keep seeing the word captured. Is it like they ‘drank the kool aid’ so to speak? When did this become a thing?

Yes, that's what captured means - when an organisation/group no longer applies critical analysis to ideas, but accepts ideas wholesale because they are fashionable, and come with a label and a flag attached ..🙄

Lesbian is a word with a very simple meaning. A biological woman who is exclusively sexually or romantically attracted to biological women. That's it. The end.

If you don't fit the definition then you ain't lesbian and stay the fuck away.