The University of Washington (which is up the road from me) Q Center has a glossary of terms.
A note about these definitions: Each of these definitions has been carefully researched
and closely analyzed from theoretical and practical perspectives for cultural sensitivity,
common usage, and general appropriateness.
There’s something odd here. Look.
Gay – 1. Term used in some cultural settings to represent males who are
attracted to males in a romantic, erotic and/or emotional sense. Not all men who
engage in “homosexual behavior” identify as gay, and as such this label should
be used with caution.Lesbian – Term used to describe female-identified people attracted romantically,
erotically, and/or emotionally to other female-identified people.
Notice a certain…asymmetry?
Comments
24 responses to “Carefully researched and closely analyzed”
I would like to take extreme exception to this:
“cisgender – describes someone who feels comfortable with the gender identity
and gender expression expectations assigned to them based on their physical
sex.”
In my opinion: bull-fucking-shit.
They got “cotton ceiling” in there too?
So I don’t even get to be a lesbian now?
It’s not the point of the OP, but hasn’t “gay” always been gender neutral? (Example.)
Gay certainly has a stronger association with men.
I always thought it was gender neutral, but either usage has changed or I was just wrong.
There’s a reason it’s called LGBT and not just GBT
I always thought gay (adjective) was gender neutral. Gay (noun) is a word I dislike and don’t use. “Lesbian” I have no issue using as either part of speech; I’m not sure why the difference. It seems to me that many writers do avoid the noun version of “gay” and prefer to say “gay people”, “gay men”, or perhaps “gay men and lesbians”, rather than “gays”. The definitions in the OP do not indicate whether they are referring to adjective or noun, and it isn’t abundantly clear which is meant, but I think noun.
Well, when I was a yoof, there was a campaign for ‘Gay Rights’. That most certainly was gender neutral. It was some time later that the phrase LBGT became publicly common usage and it confused me slightly that previously gay women were now lesbian, but that gay men stayed gay. I’m only an observer from the outside, so I make no judgement.
amrie @3, it depends on stuff….
Actually, re #4, my fault — I hadn’t yet checked the source and it goes on to give a second gender neutral definition.
Another one caught my eye:
Hmm. I think that may be a slightly controversial definition of what constitutes gender oppression. ;-)
@10, so does this mean that I can set feminist ideals aside and act like and ignorant doofus scumbag toward cisgender woman with both impunity and a clear conscience? I wont be guilty of gender oppression AT ALL? Interesting. I may have to re-evaluate my entire stance on ethics and world view. Or not.
Silent Bob– Gawdfuckingdamn but they got that one so wrong I’m sure it was deliberate. I am sure there must be steam coming out of my ears.
So so wrong:
Male Lesbian – A male-bodied person who identifies as a lesbian. This differs
from a heterosexual male in that a male lesbian is primarily attracted to other
lesbian, bisexual or queer identified people…
Oh, look – a helpful invitation at the bottom of the page: “Any updates or corrections can be submitted to eli@trans-academics.org. Thank you.”
Shall we write en masse?
Douglas Hofstadter talks about how ‘gay’ went from gender neutral to associated with men in his essay on the ‘slippery slope of sexism’. I certainly remember when ‘gay’ referred to both men and women, but was later told ‘if you just use gay then lesbians will feel left out’.
Seconded, thirded, fifthed: in my yoofdom when the terminology started (hell, I remember so far back that gay meant lighthearted joy…) it was gender neutral.
Then, at least from outside, it looked like enough gay men, not all but enough, preferred keeping the girl cooties off themselves, so the term became more focused on men. The transition is ongoing. You can still refer to gay women without everyone around you doing a double take, yet it’s more often used in a way that means males.
I didn’t see “non man” there.
I have a bunch of cats and one of them doesn’t self-identify as a cat and since whatever you say you are, you are, we have problems because he (and he’s fixed so don’t get me started on gender issues here and fortunately he hasn’t brought it up) because he hasn’t how he will identify himself. Now that’s a language issue.
I’m old enough to remember this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJsP7Y-41_Y
I’m also old enough to remember a time when people would say “I’m feeling a bit queer today” meaning they were feeling a bit under the weather.
I have a feeling that the word “gay” was used as a code word when male homosexual acts were illegal in the UK. I only became aware of this usage when I went to university in the late 60’s. I have always assumed it originally only applied to men because why would women need a code word when homosexual acts between women were legal?
So 99 44/100% of the Earth’s population are to stand on tiptoe, waiting for an infinitesimal minority (within the very small minority) of trans-gender people sort out their Officially Correct Terminology.
Something IS deeply rotten in Big Time Feminism if such tosh can be used as a weopon to crush and exlude real feminists.
For what it’s worth, non-gay men who have sex with men are a category of interest in Public Health, whereas non-gay women who have sex with women are not so much.
Re “gay”– my understanding is that the term did originally refer to men (going back to the 19th century.) It became gender neutral for a time, and is still sometimes used that way, but lesbians had their own word, their own subculture and their own traditions, so they wanted that acknowledged in the terminology.
#21
I wonder if that stems at least partially from the ‘all women are a bit gay’ trope?
#23: It’s more to do with the fact that a virus doesn’t care how you identify.