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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (March 2, 1984)
I N S I G H T Labels: are lesbians gay? “The learned m an hath got the lady gay." — Shakespeare. 225 Pass. Pilgr. by Dennis Peterson Now that the new Steering C om m ittee is in the process o f form ing, it is appropriate to reexam ine the Lesbian and Gay Pride Week vs. Gay Pride Week controversy. In 1982 I w rote an article about the use o f lesbian/gay in general. I disliked the usage on several grounds. W hen I served on the LGP “83 S teering C om m ittee I was the only one to vote fo r Gay Pride instead o f Lesbian and Gay Pride. I w ould like to present the article again in a slig htly altered form as a springboard for discussion and close with an explanation of why I now th in k LGP is preferable, although I still shun the expression lesbian/gay. As a struggling p o e t m ainly struggling to be a good one, I rejoice when I find a person w ho can pick ju st the rig ht w ord to express a tho ug ht: no t w ords that are flowery, scholarly, in, o r shocking, necessarily, but w ords that m ake m e ask m yself, why did the person say it ju st that way and no other? I have becom e irked by that new hybrid beast, the lesbian/ gay, w hich rears h e r/h is androgynous head w ith increasing frequency in activities, organizations, and speech patterns. I would like to share som e thoughts engendered by th is phrase, w hich m ay be helpful in pro m o tin g greater exactness in the labels we apply to o u r gay sisters and brothers. G roup labels are m ore than words we coin to identify: they have history, tone, and ex clusivity. The history o f a group label im posed 6 fro m w ith o u t is usually a m ixture o f insult and m isunderstanding. “ C hretien” (French for “ C h ristia n ") was o rigin ally an insulting pun on "c re tin " (id iot). Because C olum bus blun dered on to th is con tine nt in search o f India, he called the native population “ Indians.” The ton e o f a g ro u p label sets a m ood: hom osex ual, lesbian, gay, fairy, queer, dyke, faggot — the m ood shifts fro m clinical through hum an to derogatory. Tone changes throug h history: to call a person “ black" and not "co lo re d " w ould have angered m ost m em bers o f that g ro u p in earlier tim es. Tone changes with speaker: a gay m ig h t call a fellow m em ber a "q u e e r" in good hum or. Tone changes with situation: a gay m ig h t alter tone o f voice and show ho stility by saying “ queer." Tone is sub jective: one individual m ig h t prefer to be called "he aring im p aired" to “ deaf," another m ig h t feel ju s t the opposite. Som e group labels have exclusivity, that is, they are used to label all people that are not in “ th e " group: barbarian (o rig in a lly m eaning non-Greek), ge ntile (non-Jew ), infidel (non-M uslim ), or stra ig h t (non-gay). M inorities have adopted special labels for them selves as part o f th e ir process o f libera tio n , let m e call them identity labels, finding the labels applied to them by outsiders offen sive and inaccurate. Tone is im proved when we speak o f “ native A m ericans" instead o f “A m erican Indians" w hich when thoughtfully considerd is a laughable hybrid. A m ericans": history is appealed to, stressing th a t they were here before us. "N ative we are rem inded o f o u r exclusivity since they have been given so little say in de te rm in in g A m erica s policies. Identity labels, w hen picked w ith care, can say a good cans": “Native Ameri deal. Let us consider "lesbian/gay" using the criteria o f history, tone, exclusivity, and, a new one, specificity, w hich we shall define when the tim e com es. H isto ry “ Lesbian is derived from Sappho o f Lesbos, a Greek lyric poet w ho lived about 600 BC and wrote about wom en with such intensity o f em otion that it appears that she was sexually involved with them . I have not fou nd a w ork that traces the history o f the w ord, but the O xford E nglish D ictionary gives the first example o f its use by quoting a work fro m 1870. The related term “ S apphism " was also used, appearing in a work from 1 8 0 0 .1 have heard that the term was coined because o f a m isunderstanding o f the term hom osexual. “ H om o" in “ hom osexual" com es fro m the Greek, where it means "the sam e" (hence, "sexually attracted to the sam e sex"), and not from the Latin, where it m eans “ m an" (and consequently "attracted to m e n” ). The latter m eaning would make straight wom en "hom osexual." John Boswell traces the history o f "hom osexual” and “ gay" in Despite echoes o f antiquity, "hom osexual" was coined by a physician nam ed Benkert in 1869. It was m eant to be a clin ica l term to replace “ invert," w hich im plies that such individuals invert the typical sexual roles, m en “ playing" wom en, and vice versa. M ost o f the term s com peting at the tim e were even m ore grotesque. “ Gay," on the other hand, in the form "gay" was used in Proven cal in the thirteenth century, to describe the laid-back behavior o f fem ale male Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality. and courtesans. "Le sbia n/g ay” links words o f a very differe nt history. Tone The etym ology o f “ lesbian” gives it a !<ter- ary if not clin ical tone. The tone o f “ gay” is co llo q u ia l and im plies looseness, as in "gay ba chelor” o r "gay Paris,” one o f the reasons som e lesbians do not want to be labelled gay. This does not m ean that “ gay" need have only negative connotations. The lightness of its tone cou ld im ply the loosening o f gender roles seen in the hom osexual com m unity. N ot ju st in sexual perform ance, but in gestures, clo thin g, and speech patterns. There is no term fo r gay m en that has the sam e tone as "lesbian." At least a phrase like “ d yke /fa g g o t" w ould be consistent in tone, bu t perhaps to o inflam m atory. (I belonged to a social g ro u p called DAFT: Dykes and Fag gots Together.) Exclusivity "Le sbia n" has typically been used to exclude anyone w ho is not a hom osexual w om an. “ G ay" has been used to exclude any one w ho is not hom osexual, m an or woman. "L e sb ia n /g a y" therefore has unbalanced ex clusivity. We can see this particularly in the phrase “ lesbians and gay m en." W hy is it necessary to specify m en if lesbians are not gay? If a large num ber o f B lack w om en de cided to resurrect the term "Negress," a parallel expression w ould be “ N egress/ Black." a m ore obvious m isbalance o f tone and exclusivity, since a “ Negress' is Black, ju st as a lesbian is gay. If a gay w om an chooses to em phasize her double burden as gay and as w om an by calling herself a lesbian Just O ut. M arch 2-M arch 16