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?

Very true, BUT exceptions will be made for women who hitherto have not been exclusively sexually or romantically attracted to biological women. Otherwise I would have missed out on a couple of relationships with wonderful women who didn't previously meet those strict criteria.

They do now, obvs..😏

I mean, look at me - I didn't discover Jammy Dodgers until well into adulthood. Life is full of delightful surprises

Must admit I cant remember how far back people started using that word. More than a few years.

I think the implication is people who are too easily swayed, or worse maybe, too worried about not being seen to be "on message" so talk and write like they are true believers.

Although to be fair to the Guardian. They aren't "captured" they are full on TWAW etc., to the extend that really competent and good women journalists were bullied out of the "news" paper for not quietly accepting that they had no rights as women.

I should have realised. 🙄Sorry @cariadlet !

Isn't it just because it's too hard? When I was a teen it was gay, lesbian, bi. I've lost track of the letters and colours on the flag. I'd probably just say gay for lesbian. I'd avoid using any label, it doesn't really matter anyway.

Thanks!

No problem. Sarcastic posts work in GC WhatsApp groups where everyone knows each other but can fall flat on this board because TRA trolls do sometimes pop up and say the same things but actually mean them.

I think Captured comes from Institutional Capture ; the phenomenon whereby departments of government were co- opted by lobby groups acting for Private corporate interests. Classic example being a health service being dominated by pharmaceutical companies. I think the term originated in the USA.
Open to correction!

Unfortunately 'drinking the kool-aid' is associated with the Jonestown massacre in 1978 where over 900 members of a cult died by drinking poison contained in a soft drink.
The expression pre-dates the Jonestown massacre, but when I hear the expression 'drinking the kool-aid', it has echoes of Jonestown, so I use 'captured' instead - but that's just me, I'm not saying 'drinking the kool-aid' shouldn't be used.

Older contributors will know that the expression 'drinking the kool-aid' derives from the Acid Tests conducted by the Merry Praksters in the mid 1960s where large groups of people legally consumed LSD shared in Kool-Aid. Tom Wolfe's book The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test documents these parties. It's a much better metaphor that people have become insane after embracing Gender Ideology as if they had taken LSD rather than committed suicide.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Electric_Kool-Aid_Acid_Test

I don't remember it going out of fashion. Sapphic has disappeared, however. Maybe due for a comeback?

Irony.

I hate the expression "drinking the kool aid" because of its origins. Those poor people didn't commit suicide; they were murdered. It isn't voluntary when someone is pointing a gun at you.

If someone I know uses that expression, I always pick them up on it. It's surprising how often people use it without knowing anything about the massacre.

Has anyone else got this thread mixed up in their mind with the LGBTQ digestives thread?
I've even mentioned Jammie Dodgers in both threads... a bit like a wormhole in space, but more biscuity😄

@cariadlet that’s a really important point - a large number of the deceased were minors.

As I already pointed out upthread ‘drinking the kook-aid’ is a reference to taking LSD not to committing suicide.

I agree that the phrase first dates back to that book but it was popularised after the JonesTown massacre and that's what it's most closely associated with so I think it's fair to describe that as its origins as a common expression.

If you google the phrase, the overwhelming majority of linked articles are about Jonestown.

The correct original use of the phrase as meaning someone mentally deranged by LSD is the perfect metaphor.

BTW For even greater accuracy the Jonestown massacre didn’t even involve Kool-Aid & many were murdered by gunshot.

That application refernences 'gender identity', not sex.

It's interesting as they say they are looking for 'girls', but there is no mention of Single Sex Exemptions.

Would any male that wanted to apply and was rejected on the basis of not being 'a girl' be able to sue for discrimination?

https://eu.castitreach.com/ag/twofour11/ikag2/welcome.html

https://archive.ph/vB2pp

I remember an English graduate student using it to refer to herself, as it was around 2008 and living in a trendy US college town. As a lesbian, who prized how ancient and historic our history is, I was really dismayed at throwing it away.
Then I saw 'queer' all-inclusive events and worried that our wonderful women-only culture was being destroyed. And I feared, quite rightly, that the younger lesbians were being detached from the great and wise advice of their older lesbian sisters.
And sadly I was right about it all. You can only get young naive lesbians to accept men (transwomen) as sexual partners by separating them from the older no-bullsh*t ones and painting the latter as vile Terfs and passe.
I love Sapphist too!

Yep - am I a lesbian because the only time a woman has touched my vagina was when the consultant "manually manipulated" the baby out of my pelvis? (I barely make 5'4" but it took three people to hold me down for that!)

(Being a bit facetious, apologies, I use the word lesbian for my homosexual sisters 😀 queer is for idiots or people throwing insults)

I always thought that the ‘Kool-aid’ expression had come from the Jonestown massacre. It works as a metaphor because it suggests that people who swallow GI are naïve and have been gaslit by a cult. Interesting to learn that the origins of the phrase came from a different historical moment, thank you.

My DD is 20 and a lesbian. I don’t think she uses the word lesbian for herself but she definitely doesn’t use ‘queer’. When men chat her up, she says ‘No thank you, I’m into women’.

This.

A well-known groomers and abusers' tactic. Separate your victims from protective, more knowledgeable and experienced support, and then set the ground in their heads for how you would like to use them.

To set my stall out - the word lesbian should absolutely not be eradicated and the meaning should not be warped. That being said, forgive my wilful naiveté but I would assume queer includes bisexual women, too. If I had children with a woman, I would feel like I'd really benefit from an antenatal group with other same-sex attracted women. I would feel like an intruder in specifically lesbian spaces (because I would be, I suppose) but I nonetheless have a lot of shared experiences with other women who exclusively date women. Particularly when I have a female partner (or am trying to meet one). I'm not saying I'd presume to be welcome in this example (that's not for me to decide) but I'd be interested to know whether people would consider there's an argument that I'd have a place there.

Also, sapphic is coming back into use in the context of 'sapphic smut' novels. Maybe it'll be the start of a mainstream comeback!?

Doc Stock used to have something like 'Sapphist Sophist, and vice versa' on one of her pages.
Too clever by half, that woman!