Worth of Words: Lesbians, Womxnhood, and Language
About the Series: Worth of Words
It’s been often said that words have power; they are the vessels of how we perceive and construct reality and our everyday lives. Yet, this power becomes nuanced when looking at just how those words come across—how they’re spoken, why they’re written, when and where they’re read. Moreover, they vary across different cultures, geographies, and times, meaning there’s a lot more to unpack than what our own lived experiences can say. Worth of Words was created to do just that—to tell the stories of our words, our accents, our voices, and our various languages, ranging from the variations of Blackness in speech and code-switching to how language impacts queer identities. Our camp counselors shared their stories, both visually and audibly, so you can read and listen to their experiences on the power, and possible harm, of words.
Note from the Author
Unless otherwise specified, when I say “woman” I am also referring to woman-aligned non-binary and genderqueer folks.I also mention several words historically used as slurs as reference in this piece. If this is something that you don’t feel comfortable with, feel free to skip this one!
In 1992, French radical feminist Monique Wittig published a collection of essays entitled The Straight Mind and Other Essays. In the book, Wittig put forth a fascinating and controversial idea. Building off of Simone De Beauvoir’s famous statement that “one is not born, but becomes a woman,” Wittig proclaimed that because the concept of ‘woman’ is deeply tied to the concept of ‘man’ and to a heteronormative society at large, herself and other lesbians like her could not call themselves women.
Wittig’s theory is quite radical, and I mention it because it serves as a key example of the unique relationship that lesbians have with words. Many aspects of our identities—from the terms we use to describe ourselves, to our pronouns, to the slurs that have been used against us— are closely tied to language.
Most people, especially those involved within the LGBTQ+ community, have heard of the terms ‘butch’ and ‘femme.’ These identifiers first emerged at the beginning of the 20th century as a way to classify the gender expression of lesbians within the gay community, with butches presenting as more traditionally masculine, and femmes presenting as more traditionally feminine.
Unfortunately, as empowering as they often are, identifying labels can also can also cause harm. In the bar culture of the mid-century, couples who did not conform to a butch-femme dynamic (i.e. one masculine partner and one feminine partner) were ridiculed by other lesbians. It was expected that a “tough, aggressive butch” would naturally pair with a softer, more “passive” femme, and if this didn’t happen, the couple was mocked and deemed to be confused. This began to change with the dawn of the feminist movement in the early 1970s. Rather than being celebrated, butch/femme couples were criticised for upholding patriarchal standards. Lesbians were encouraged to strive for a more androgynous aesthetic, which meant that most of them ended up presenting more butch than femme. As LGBT people became more visible after the Stonewall rebellion, these butches became the societal representation of the entire lesbian community.
Now, as a baggy-jeans-and-t-shirt-wearing lesbian with a shaved head, I’ll be the first to
admit that both within the LGBTQAI2S+ community and outside of it we continue to have many preconceved notions about all lesbians being butch or masculine. I’ve often heard stories from femme women who, when they come out to someone, are told that they’re “too pretty to be a lesbian.” Not only are statements like this ignorant, they can also be extremely discouraging to someone who is just beginning to explore their sexuality.
Here’s the thing: to be a lesbian is to be a woman who is attracted solely to other women. That’s it! It doesn’t matter where you fall on the femme/butch spectrum, what pronouns you use, or who you’ve dated and/or slept with in the past.
If a butch lesbian feels more comfortable using he/him pronouns, binding, getting top surgery, or doing other things to present as being more masculine, they can! Womanhood is a complicated thing, and doesn’t, and sometimes shouldn’t, equal femininity. I myself am currently trying to figure out what womanhood means to me, and in the process I’ve been trying out they/them pronouns to see what feels right. I still identify with womanhood and feel a deep connection to the generations of incredible women who came before me, but I don’t always feel super feminine. In situations like this, a pronoun other that “she” can be helpful to myself as well as to others who may not understand my complicated relationship with my own identity as a woman.
So obviously, womanhood is a hugely diverse spectrum, and there are lesbians with all sorts of backgrounds, including those who were assigned male at birth. Trans lesbians are a hugely important part of the community! That said, people who identify as men cannot be lesbians, and as trans men are most certainly “real men,” they can’t join the club. Here’s what a trans man has to say on what it’s like for him to be called a lesbian.
Finally, if a woman doesn’t come out until she’s in her forties, after being married to a man for 20 years, she’s still a lesbian! Compulsory heterosexuality is something faced by many of us, and is one of the reasons why it took me 17 years to figure out my own sexuality.
Because our society continues to view womanhood through a male lens, it is extremely difficult for people to grasp the idea that there are women who simply don’t want to have sex with men. This becomes extremely obvious if we consider the fact that gay men are rarely told that they “just haven’t met the right girl yet,” while lesbians are constantly told to “just give guys a chance.”
It’s also not only homophobes who are saying these things. In fact, as I write this piece, there is a group of people on twitter insisting that women who are in some way, shape, or form attracted to men can call themselves “bi/pansexual lesbians” and use slurs typically associated with lesbians (ie “dyke.”)
I generally try to be fairly open minded when it comes to how people identify themselves, but I have a hard time with this situation. Not only is the idea of a bisexual lesbian lesbophobic—it promotes the harmful idea that lesbians just “haven’t found the right guy,”—it also erases the identities of bi/pansexual people, who already face a huge amount of prejudice. As the LGBT community evolves, it’s especially important to remember that words have meaning and history behind them. Words like “lesbian” and slurs like “dyke” have always been used to refer to women who are solely attracted to other women and their inacessability to men.
Speaking of “dyke,” I have a bit of a funny history with the word. My family is dutch, and that fact, combined with a sheltered upbringing, means that I spent the first 16 years of my life thinking that a dyke was just a dam used to keep land from flooding. It wasn’t actually until I came out to myself and began to research lesbian history that I discovered the much more interesting colloquial meaning of the word, and was once again reminded of the strength and resilience of the lesbian community. As it turns out, “dyke” was first used as a slur against (mostly black) masculine lesbians in the 1920s. Medium user Gloria Bates explains that “at its birth, dyke was a unique infusion of misogyny and homophobia” and that “by condemning someone as a dyke, an assailant was attempting to point out the victim’s “manliness” and justify any resulting violence.” Much like many other slurs, dyke has now been reclaimed by some lesbians, particularly those whose gender expression is more masculine than feminine. In some ways, the word is actually quite unique in that it encompases both gender and sexuality.
I’m still not quite sure if “dyke” is something that fits my own gender expression and way of seeing myself, but I do know one thing: I would never refer to anyone using a slur (dyke or otherwise) unless I explicitly knew that they were comfortable with it. This is why I always revert to the acronym LGBTQAI2S+ or its varitions, or other, more specific terms such as “sapphic,” that badass ode to the mother of all LGB women, rather than using “queer” when I write; I don’t want to trigger people who read my work, or refer to a person that I mention or quote using a word that is or was offensive to them.
In the end, as fraught as lesbian history is, our terminology has served to foster community among a group of women who are often misunderstood, mocked, and ridiculed by the outside world. When other people appropriate these terms for themselves, they contribute to the erasure of this history and the further spread harmful ideas. One of the main things that makes the LGBTQ+ community so special is its diversity. Lesbians are only one part of a wider community, and each group has its own unique linguistic subculture. Furthermore, there is an incredible amount of diversity within each letter of the acronym. The “L” alone encompasses women who love women, non-binary folks who love women, women who love non-binary folks, and non-binary folks who love non-binary folks. I truly believe that there is a space among us for every not-cis and/or not-straight person, but not everyone needs to identify in the same way. I even made a little rhyme to help people figure out if they can call themselves lesbians:
Bi, pan, or a man?
Guess what!? You’re not a Lesbian!
Okay, maybe it needs a bit of work, but the point remains. Lesbians are women who are
only attracted to other women, and our relationship with language is spectacularly unique. It has grown out of our complicated relationship with gender and femininity, and has been passed down through generations of women. Most of all, it needs to be treasured, protected, and nurtured for our future lesbian siblings.
About the Author
Jocelyn Diemer (they/them) is extremely excited to be heading to the University of Victoria in the fall, where they will study writing and English literature. An eating disorder survivor, Jocelyn loves to talk and write candidly about their complicated relationship with their body. When they’re not fawning over middle-aged actresses or writing a piece of top-notch journalism for their local newspaper, Jocelyn loves to annoy their friends with niche memes and random historical facts.
