Self-help Articles

by Abby Dees

One of the most common questions I hear as a gay person is, “What do you like to be called? Lesbian? Gay? Homosexual?” I appreciate the question because I know there are so many different terms out there, including LGBT, LGBTQQ, even LGBTQQITT.

I feel a twinge of sympathy when a straight person wants to show open-mindedness about non-straight people but then sort of hiccups around the actual words: “Oh, I have a nice friend at work who is a … a... is, you know, gay.” I’m glad they try, but it can be awkward for both of us.

If you’ve been there before, allow me to offer some tips. I’ve followed the gay naming debates for years, and I’ll admit that while there’s still disagreement among us, there are some basic background and guidelines you can rely on:

Let's start with the word homosexual. Seems like this one's pretty straightforward, so to speak. You've got your heterosexuals and your homosexuals. You may have noticed, however, that we homosexuals don’t use the word much. This is because homosexual has a lot of negative cultural baggage that heterosexual just doesn’t. Until 1973, Homosexuality was an APA-recognized mental disorder. To a certain generation, homosexual calls to mind Joe McCarthy and the sentence: "Are you now or have you ever been a...." Today, homosexual evokes US military's current ban on openly acting like one. And it’s a pretty cold and clinical way to describe our lives.

The next word up is “Gay.” This is your general, all-purpose safe word – mostly. I remember as a kid hearing adults complain about how gay people “ruined a perfectly nice word” by claiming gay as their own. In fact, there’s evidence that gay in this sense goes back to the 1900s among gay people themselves. With the rise of the gay rights movement in the 70s, gay became the preferred – happier, if you will – alternative to the more fraught homosexual.

But when female activists noticed that their concerns were being sidelined to the men’s, they pushed for their own recognition. Hence the three-word name: Lesbian and Gay.

This is where all the confusion begins. If you’re lesbian, are you gay too? Or does gay just refer to men? Things only got more complicated when bisexuals (now usually called just bi – or rejecting all labels!) understandably felt excluded from a gay and lesbian community. Similarly, transgender people fought for inclusion in the movement based on the idea that we were all in some way breaking society’s strict gender rules. That’s when we started talking about the LGBT or GLBT community.

Believe me, none of these changes happened with out a good ol’ family squabble! Since the community doors have opened, you’ll now hear references to intersexed people (people with indeterminate or both sex organs), two-spirit people (a Native American term for people with both gender characteristics), questioning (people who are still figuring it out). Obviously, none of these terms are interchangeable.

In response to the ever unwieldy evolution of our names, a number of young activists and academics in the 90s started calling themselves simply queer, to mean all or any of the above, and reclaiming a derogatory word as our own. The problems were, first, that lots of people still didn’t like being called queer by anyone for any reason, and second, straight people really can’t say queer without raising a few queer eyebrows.

If we can’t figure it out, what is a straight person to do? First of all, when referring to someone individually, some words should be avoided completely. Specifically, homosexual, queer or anything with a pejorative history. If someone says you can use those words, that’s fine, just don’t assume someone else will be OK with it too.

When you’re talking about the whole gamut of gay, lesbian, trans, bi, queer, etc., people, you usually can’t go wrong by saying the LGBT community or the LGBT movement.

While most of us, male and female, still use the word gay generically, keep it in the back of your mind that lots of people may actually prefer another word, such as bi or lesbian. And of course, remember that many LGBT people don’t consider themselves gay. Until they tell you, you just don’t know.

If in doubt, it’s always OK to ask, “What term would you like me to use?” If someone asks you to use a particular term, just roll with it and thank them for the clarification.

Finally, there is perhaps nothing more dispiriting as when someone automatically lowers their voice or avoids saying anything altogether, such as, “I’m totally OK with you being a … you know.” To everyone on the planet, the names we use to identify ourselves reflect our dignity and pride. And this is the bottom line.

About the Author:

Abby Dees is a civil rights attorney and editor for St. Lynn’s Press who has been actively involved in lesbian, gay and bisexual rights and awareness work for 25 years. She was inspired to write the book Queer Questions Straight Talk because she felt like she had something to offer to change the tone of the public conversation about lesbian, gay and bi lives. Abby's goal in writing the book was to help fill the communication gap between the LesBiGay and Straight communities, based on the idea that understanding comes through communication.

Queer Questions Straight Talk is a book that takes a good look at the frequent questions that many in the LesBiGay community often hear, but may not know how to deal with -- as well as new questions that can open the door to understanding. She's gathered this information through her own life experience and as well as interviews with a wide variety of people. Abby feels QQST can help both LesBiGay individuals and also their straight loved ones who want to support them but don't quite know how. "The point," she says, "is not to get everyone to agree but to simply to communicate, respectfully and lovingly."