Why are gay women called lesbians

Why is it that, amidst all the exciting new victories for the LGBT community, all the flamboyant explosion of pride month celebration, ‘lesbian’ remains a stigmatised word?

Perhaps this stigma’s very being will come as a surprise to some. From 1983 to 2020, British support for queer relationships has more than quadrupled. When I told my mum my thought for this article, she wrinkled her brow and asked me, “Is there any shame around the word ‘lesbian’?” If you examine the experience of lesbians themselves, it would certainly sound so. For long of professional statistic evidence, I surveyed 120 women-loving women and found that, whilst just 33% felt “very comfortable” with calling themselves lesbian, but a far more significant 70% were “very comfortable” being labelled gay. One female commented that ‘lesbian’ sounds “a bit slimy”, whilst multiple wrote that the word evoked “disgust”. So, okay then, women who adore women prefer to be called ‘gay’. A rose by another name smells much, much sweeter. Why? The very fact I had to resort to my own statistics indicates a wider failure to participate with this issue.

"When it doesn’t stink of bitter misandry

Glossary of Terms: LGBTQ

Definitions were drafted in collaboration with other U.S.-based LGBTQ community organizations and leaders. See acknowledgements section.

Additional terms and definitions about gender culture and gender expression, transgender people, and nonbinary people are ready in the Transgender Glossary. 

Are we missing a term or is a definition outdated? Email press@glaad.org

*NOTE:  Ask people what terms they use to describe their sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression before assigning them a label. Outside of acronyms, these terms should only be capitalized when used at the origin of a sentence.
 

LGBTQ
Acronym for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual , and queer. The Q generally stands for queer when LGBTQ organizations, leaders, and media apply the acronym. In settings offering support for youth, it can also stand for questioning. LGBT and LGBTQ+ are also used, with the + added in recognition of all non-straight, non-cisgender identities. (See Transgender Glossary ) Both are acceptable, as are other versions of this acronym. The term “gay community” should be avoided, as it does not accuratel

List of Gay terms

A-D

A

Abro (sexual and romantic)

A synonyms used to explain people who contain a fluid sexual and/or romantic orientation which changes over time, or the course of their life. They may use different terms to describe themselves over time.

Ace

An umbrella term used specifically to describe a lack of, varying, or occasional experiences of sexual attraction. This encompasses asexual people as adequately as those who identify as demisexual and grey-sexual. Ace people who exposure romantic attraction or occasional sexual attraction might also leverage terms such as gay, bi, dyke, straight and lgbtq+ in conjunction with asexual to depict the direction of their romantic or sexual attraction.

Ace and aro/ace and aro spectrum

Umbrella terms used to describe the wide group of people who trial a lack of, varying, or occasional experiences of affectionate and/or sexual attraction, including a lack of attraction. People who identify under these umbrella terms may describe themselves using one or more of a wide variety of terms, including, but not limited to, asexual, ace, aromantic, aro, demi, grey, and abro. People may also utilize terms such as gay,

The History of the Synonyms 'Gay' and other Queerwords

Lesbians may have a longer linguistic history than gay men. Contrary to the incomplete information given in the OED, the word lesbian has meant “female homosexual” since at least the early eighteenth century. William King in his satire The Toast (published 1732, revised 1736), referred to “Lesbians” as women who “loved Women in the same Behavior as Men love them”. During that century, references to “Sapphic lovers” and “Sapphist” meant a girl who liked “her hold sex in a criminal way”. For centuries before that, comparing a lady to Sappho of Lesbos implied passions that were more than poetic.

Unfortunately we don’t know the origins of the most common queerwords that became popular during the 1930s through 1950s – gay, dyke, faggot, queer, fairy. Dyke, meaning butch queer woman , goes back to 1920s black American slang: bull-diker or bull-dagger. It might go back to the 1850s phrase “all diked out” or “all decked out”, meaning faultlessly dressed – in this case, like a man or “bull”. The word faggot goes back to 1914, when “faggots” and “fairies” were said to join “drag balls”. Nels Anderson in