I also cannot offer anything as formal or definitive as the other pieces on this blog. Not only does most of what I know on this subject come from personal experience (we just never got to talking about queer theory in Concrete (which, in fact, is a real course in real life (this counts as embedding, right?))), but there really is no Right Answer when it comes to these things. Like many parts of language, what is á la mode in this realm is constantly evolving and up for debate.
All this being said, getting affirming language right should be just as critical of a goal for the LGBT movement as civil rights. Though the difference between “gay marriage” and “same-sex marriage” (not everyone taking advantage of our success in New York is “gay”) or “congresswoman” and “congressperson” (a person’s gender should be irrelevant) may seem trivial, these things eventually add up to alienation, misrepresentation and reification of antiquated, problematic paradigms (I’ll explain more later, promise!). Feminist theorist Marilyn Frye perfectly illustrates why the seemingly innocuous should not be ignored in her essay “_blank”>Oppression (a quick read, but pretty much my manifesto when it comes to advocacy of any kind). She’s focusing on sexism here, but the thesis can really be applied to any oppressed minority:
Cages. Consider a birdcage. If you look very closely at just one wire in the cage, you cannot see the other wires. If your conception of what is before you is determined by this myopic focus, you could look at that one wire, up and down the length of it, and be unable to see why a bird would not just fly around the wire any time it wanted to go somewhere. Furthermore, even if, one day at a time, you myopically inspected each wire, you still could not see why a bird would gave trouble going past the wires to get anywhere. There is no physical property of any one wire, nothing that the closest scrutiny could discover, that will reveal how a bird could be inhibited or harmed by it except in the most accidental way. It is only when you step back, stop looking at the wires one by one, microscopically, and take a macroscopic view of the whole cage, that you can see why the bird does not go anywhere; and then you will see it in a moment. It will require no great subtlety of mental powers. It is perfectly obvious that the bird is surrounded by a network of systematically related barriers, no one of which would be the least hindrance to its flight, but which, by their relations to each other, are as confining as the solid walls of a dungeon.
AW, SNAP. So many phrases, so much vernacular — the lexicon of the LGBT Movement itself! — are all called out by this paragraph. My original goal for this post was to explore all of the “wires” I encountered in a typical day as a Professional Gay, but it became apparent once I started that I could cover a ton of ground just by analyzing how the word “gay” is used.
“Gay” is probably the most misused word I hear day to day. From the Human Rights Campaign’s Style Guide:
I mean, listen. Do some women identify as “gay”? I have not met any, but I’m sure there are some who do! And in those cases, it is important to honor their identification. Whatever people identify as, that is what they are. If they want to make up their own sexual orientation identity, then that is fine (and pretty cool, if you ask me). I know plenty of men who are “sexually and affectionally attracted” to only other men who instead identify as “queer.” How that word’s been re-appropriated is for another post, but the point is that it is up to the person to decide how they identify.
But almost always, “gay” should only be used to refer to men. Like, when you read the word “gay,” what is the mental image that comes to mind? I am going to go out on a limb and guess it’s a guy (who is white and kind of muscular, thanks to limited diversity in the media).
With this in mind, we arrive at our first wire: “Gay” being used as an umbrella term for all non-straight sexual orientations, or the LGBT Movement as a whole. Two weeks ago, the expo for LGBT-friendly businesses my non-profit organizedwas profiled in the local newspaper under the headline “Gay Expo Expanding…” This makes a white gay male the face of a much more diverse demographic — one in which he is actually the minority. It also overlooks the fact that this movement deals not just with sexual orientation, but with gender identity as well.
Put simply, when “gay” is used this way, it makes invisible anyone who identifies differently. It literally ignores their identity, which is pretty de-legitimizing.
I also can’t discuss “gay” without calling out Every High School Student In America For Some Reason. Using “gay” for anything you don’t like is just very stupid and damaging. “I don’t mean it like that! Nobody thinks of it that way and anyhow, it isn’t hurting anyone. Shouldn’t you be more worried about something like anti-LGBT violence?” — Every High School Student. Well first off, thank you for using “LGBT.” It shows you’re at least trying. But you cannot honestly think that “gay” was just chosen haphazardly to represent negative things. “No, seriously, We All got together and put every word ever in a hat and the one We picked just also happened to represent a historically oppressed minority. It just happened that way. I don’t know why older folks keep telling me that I “don’t live in a vacuum” because what do vacuums have to do with this and how would I even fit inside one let alone live in it.”
I understand this is sort of like shooting juvenile arguments in a barrel. (First simile on a linguistics blog! Nailed it.) But all the same, this is a really pervasive issue in schools (I’ve even heard of adults using this. Eek.), and for teens this is as nuanced of an issue as the first I described. So yes, Wire #2: Using “gay” for, like, everything bad.
Hope this gets some gears turning, and I’m definitely open to questions.
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