Being a lesbian is the least weird thing about me. An integral part of overcoming internalised homophobia many moons ago was recognising that homosexuality exists in many mammal species and throughout human history. Perhaps that’s why I started the lesbian_herstory Instagram in the first place: as a place to remind myself and other lesbians that we aren’t alien or deviant by sharing photographs of us through the years.
Scientists are finally jumping on board a theory I’ve had for many years – that most humans are bisexual. I’m a lesbian – a female homosexual – and this isn’t me coming out as bi. The point of this observation is that, while lesbianism is less common than bisexuality, same-sex attraction itself is not “queer.” It’s likely the biological norm.
Many lesbians have similar experiences of “straight” people confessing their own same-sex attraction to them while in the safety of someone same-sex attracted. In fact, two of my elderly relatives privately admitted to same-sex feelings when I came out 14 years ago. But it’s supposed to be a secret. We live in a heteronormative world. Many don’t experience enough same-sex attraction to risk straying from the heterosexual label. That includes when responding to surveys that gauge the natural diversity of human sexual orientation.
I’m going to take a controversial leap ahead with this and theorise that the reason so many homophobic “straight” people think we “make a choice” to be gay or lesbian is because they must experience sexual attraction to both sexes, choosing to pursue the one their religion, family and/or society says is the moral, correct choice. Humans love a herd and hate rejection. The genuinely heterosexual people in my family understand that my homosexuality isn’t a choice because they know what it’s like not to be attracted to one of the sexes, too. Homosexuality and heterosexuality are what the non-fluid members of society are born as. It’s not deep.
You would think that pointing out the mundanity of same-sex attraction in human nature would excite the same-sex attracted community. We aren’t a mutation or alien, but perhaps more common than heterosexuality itself! That’s not always the case. Lesbian, gay and bisexual people are expected to shape their identities around being unique as if their life is a Myspace bio in 2006 (that one’s for the 30-something millennials out there). The LGBT is now the “queer community.”
“Queer” is still used as a slur against same-sex attracted people in English-speaking countries. People still use “queer,” not as a slur, but with its original meaning: “odd, strange, weird,” in a bad way. As in, “that house is queer”: it doesn’t suit the person’s taste, is potentially haunted, and is so ridiculous to them that they don’t understand how anybody could like it. It’s not just an older person thing either; I worked with a woman in her early-20s who used “queer” in the non-slur way more than my grandmother does.
While there’s a narrative out there that the LGBT has been “reclaiming queer” – if you can re-claim something that was never yours – since the gay rights movement of the 70s, queer had never, in the last 200 years, been used LESS in literature than it was from 1970-1990. Activists worked against the concept of homosexuality being “queer.” And the idea there’s a global “lesbian renaissance” today? Another myth. The use of “lesbian” is at a 35+ year low. As “lesbian” declines, “queer” grows.
When I started a conversation about the word “queer” on the lesbian_herstory Instagram stories recently, I was met with a lot of support, but some ridicule intended to suppress the conversation. One white woman called wanting lesbianism to be seen as natural to humans rather than “queer” white supremacy, implying she saw people of colour as “queering race.” Most of the world isn’t white. If anything, that would make white people “queer,” considering it means abnormal. It was a weirdly racist thing for her to say.
Her argument comes from the shared belief among queer-identified people that the rest of us refuse to get on board with: instead of criticising what our oppressors think of us by rejecting the term “queer,” we’re expected to celebrate our stigma in the form of taking pride in being oppressed, marginalised and non-normative.
Some tame critiques came in the form of questioning the validity of my research, particularly the accuracy of my results. These people are used to being in echo chambers where lesbians – if they’re allowed to use that word – people please by agreeing with whoever might hurt them or eject them from the tribe for disagreeing. Female socialisation teaches us to submit, smile and be nice, taking the back seat unless we want to be abused. Don’t be fooled by a lesbian’s mullet and carabiner; she has still experienced the trauma of being raised as a female in a heteropatriarchal society. I can’t put my name and face to this project because I get death and rape threats for organising a space where lesbians defend themselves.
I don’t claim to represent institutionalised academia. I’m some random lesbian in poverty who is not welcome in academia because I refuse to lie. I know because I’ve been in it. If you want to talk about accuracy, then read this: the word lesbian is rarely used in academia anymore, but when it is, it can mean anyone. Even if the academy were interested in researching actual lesbian lives, academics would have to be so vague about what they mean when they say “lesbian” – to avoid being called an exclusionary gatekeeper – that they’d end up writing a paper on “queer people,” not lesbians. At this point, it’s very obvious to me that the erasure of using the word “lesbian” in favour of something fluid and all-inclusive is what non-homosexual members of the LGBT+ want because they’ve made sure institutions follow suit. How’s that for accuracy?
I hear from hundreds, sometimes thousands, of actual lesbians from all over the world. Female homosexuals. I only use statistics from straightforward, direct questions that don’t lead or have an angle. If the conversation gets interesting, I test ideas sent to me privately by polling them to our viewers. Those answers aren’t used for anything formal – they exist to start a conversation. They’re usually controversial, nonconformist and demand yes or no responses to shake out the monolithic “queer” politics and fence-sitting the community’s grown accustomed to. You’ll be hard-pressed to find anywhere that more accurately represents actual lesbians’ thoughts on any given topic.
Speaking of lesbian perspectives, let’s get into what lesbians really think about using “queer,” being referred to as “queer,” and the “queer community” being the new term for the “LGBT+.”
Referring to the self as “queer.”
I’ve never been asked if I consent to being referred to as “queer,” a slur defined by deviance and abnormality, even though the LGBT community I supposedly belong to has been rebranded the “queer community” anyway. Straight people on TV and in offices are referring to me when they say “queer people,” and that’s assumed to be a win for gay rights. I’d be laughed at if I went to HR. Sometimes they’re even referring to themselves as “queer” for having more than one partner or having kinky sex. Homosexuality is now sorted into the “sexually strange” category. Just where homophobes like us to be.
What lesbians want isn’t considered when it comes to rebranding the LGBT as the “queer community” and then pressuring us to identify ourselves that way, too–or else. I mean, we are viewed as a porn category for men to jack off to. Does that mean men with a lesbian kink get to call themselves “queer,” too? Are they deviant enough? Or is that too normal? Where does our oppression end, and “protecting kinks” or calling us sexually deviant for being homosexual in the form of “queer” start?
How do I know lesbians aren’t being listened to? I run an Instagram profile that has become a space for lesbians to answer polls or respond long-form in DMs or Google Form links with their honest thoughts. Since 2019, I’ve been entrusted with their Instagram handles while they answer polls and DM me, and I never betray that trust by sharing who the person behind the thought is, even if I hate what they’re saying. Overcoming our female-socialised people pleasing – and fear of losing friends and jobs, which happens to outspoken women – we can have lesbian-related conversations that are usually mundane but so controversial to queer-identified people. As I mentioned earlier, I don’t put my name or face on the profile because I get death and rape threats. That’s where we’re at with the policing of lesbians from those who supposedly see us as part of their community.
Recently, we chatted about whether we’re comfortable with being referred to as “queer.” More than half of lesbians said they don’t refer to themselves as queer. Over 800 people responded to the question, “LESBIANS ONLY: do you refer to yourself as “queer”?” on the lesbian_herstory Instagram and 56% said “No.” Similarly, more than half of lesbians don’t like being referred to as queer. Over 800 people responded to the question, “LESBIANS ONLY: do you like being referred to as “queer”?” on the lesbian_herstory Instagram and 52% said “No.”
*The lesbians who gave long answers through a Google Forms link were informed that the name, age, and location they provided would be used in this article, which is why some are more ambiguous than others. They only revealed what they were comfortable sharing.
For some lesbians, it’s the lack of specificity in its all-inclusiveness that turns them off the word queer. Marie, 28, from Germany, said, “[queer is] way too unspecific to my reality. I’ve met too many heterosexual “queers,” opposite-sex attracted people that wore funky clothing and had funny pronouns and thought that was what makes them queer. I’m a lesbian and I’m very proud of it.” Some would call Marie divisive and mean for believing it’s crucial that, as a lesbian who is disempowered by heteropatriarchy, she must have specific language to describe her reality. For thinking a word that can mean anything ultimately means nothing to her at all.
Lesbians who resist the obfuscation of our particular struggle in the quest to dilute the LGBT+ into one “queer” puddle – by simply referring to themselves as lesbian instead of “queer” – are accused of being conservative, heteronormative and bigoted. Ironically, the encouraged vitriol against lesbians reveals another problem of reducing the diversity among the LGBT to one “queer” blob: it ignores the varying levels of power within the community. Females are expected to sit down, shut up and listen. The fact lesbians aren’t attracted to males at all makes us even more detestable because it’s disbelieved that females can be born without an orientation geared towards males. Therefore, we’re seen as making a decision to exclude people from our dating pool. We’re the second sex, our existence supposedly dependent on the first one. Gay male orientation might be seen as deviant, but it’s believed. Calling yourself “lesbian” instead of “queer” – in the face of queer-identified identity cops – is revolutionary at this point.
When “queer” is used in place of lesbian, then fluidity and openness are implied and prioritised–with female homosexuality being judged as exclusionary. Maya, 27, NYC, USA, says she only refers to herself as “lesbian” or “gay” for this reason. “When women who experience same-sex attraction call themselves queer, I assume that means there is room for men in their sexuality. There is no room for men for me, so I like to succinctly convey that through the use of the word lesbian.” Other lesbians, including Hailey (mentioned later in this article), built on this by saying “queer” feels deliberately vague, which doesn’t help in getting to know someone or what they want–particularly when it comes to dating.
Some lesbians rely on the vagueness of “queer” to avoid using “lesbian,” which is still stigmatised and fetishised. Leo, 26, Wisconsin, USA, says, “I sometimes refer to myself as queer when I’m in situations where I don’t feel comfortable using the word lesbian to describe myself, probably because of internalized lesphobia.”
Lesbians who were very firm in their lesbianism and spoke about previously overcoming internalised homophobia used “queer” less. Alana, 40, Oregon, USA, says, “Queer never seemed like a good fit for me. It seems overly vague and I have a pretty rock solid sense of my own sexuality. I prefer to use specific language whenever possible.”
Other lesbians simply said “yes,” they do refer to themselves as “queer.” When they expanded, they said it aligned with who they were. And that’s okay.
Referring to the LGBT community as “queer.”
I don’t care if the LGBT identify themselves, individually, as queer. It is no skin off my nose—their decision. Just like if a woman refers to herself as a “bitch” or a “slut”–I don’t think doing so is necessarily healthy because being outspoken and loving sex shouldn’t be seen as bitchy or slutty, but whatever. I’m not advocating for some authoritarian unified belief. I’m not proposing you be punished and rejected from the herd for disagreeing. I’m sharing nonconforming positions from lesbians that are not allowed in “queer” spaces, where it seems to me that there is only one permitted line of thinking. The Orwellian irony is not lost on me.
Many lesbians accept that some people refer to themselves as queer, seeing it as its own separate group and identity that exists within the LGBT+ but doesn’t encompass all of it. I did not hear from anybody who said others shouldn’t identify as “queer” themselves, despite the fact lesbians are shamed for not identifying that way. Dandi, 20s, USA, says, “Queer is one space inside the LGBT community, not all of it. I’m not queer and every single person who identifies as part of the LGBT community doesn’t have to identify as such if it isn’t accurate to their individual experience.”
Considering most lesbians don’t refer to themselves as queer and don’t like it when they are referred to as queer, calling the LGBT the “queer” community forces an uncomfortable slur and set of politics on people who want nothing to do with it. Interestingly, however, 53% of 800+ responders in a lesbian_herstory poll, asking “LESBIANS ONLY: do you refer to the LGBT community as the “queer community”?” said they do, despite most not referring to themselves as “queer,” and taking issue when being referred to as such. Some clarified that they call the LGBT the “queer community” to evade scrutiny and punishment from their peers. Hailey, 20s, USA, says she only uses “queer” in reference to the community when it would “stand out if [she’s] the only one saying LGBT.”
While some people who are against using “queer” are still in favour of substituting it with another word that dilutes our diversity, like “the rainbow community,” respecting difference is pivotal to ending oppression. Naming differences isn’t the enemy. Spelling out the acronym – and not being lazy by saying “it’s just too much of a mouthful” – is vital in communicating that, while the LGBT might come together over specific issues, we are different groups of people who have our own struggles, definitions and desires. The individual letters can unite and disband wherever they see fit, whereas “queer,” or even “rainbow,” fantasises that we are all exactly the same… and should be stuck together permanently.
Calling the LGBT the “queer community” is more about politics than it is about reality. If you are a “normal” lesbian with a wife, two kids, a dog, and a white picket fence – getting to have that in 2025 was only a dream to those even just decades ago – then you’re deemed “heteronormative.” You’re not “queer” enough. Artémis, 34, France, says, “not every LGBT person is queer. You can be a gay man or a bisexual person and still fit into the heteronormative frame, have integrated lesbophobia/homophobia and the will to belong to heteronormativity by trashing gender non-conforming/queer folks.” Sometimes what’s viewed as “trashing” is just questioning things before blindly agreeing. It’s natural, knowing our history and lives, that gay and lesbian people will question anyone who thinks they’re the authority–even if the “authority” is informal, unlawful and intra-community.
Some lesbians criticised how, on the one hand, “queer” is a political strategy that includes everyone “weird” – even if they’re not LGBT – but then, on the other hand, the entire LGBT is now called “the queer community,” so we ultimately are forced into being seen as “queer” against our will, removing all freedom to articulate our thoughts and identity. Dylan, 24, California, USA, says, “Queer is defined as away from the norm so I see lots of discussion on [the idea that] kink is queer, furries are queer, polyamory is queer, certain politics are queer. Maybe true, maybe not, but ultimately what the word even means is debatable, open-ended, not 100% clear. I don’t want to be vague about being a lesbian, I want it to be fully known that I am a woman and I’m attracted to other women, no ifs ands or buts.”
When calling the LGBT the “queer community,” wifed-up lesbians with kids in the suburbs are pushed out of their own community for wanting the simple things in life. They’re considered stale and conservative. It’s a new binary of “normal” and “weird,” except the attempt is to empower “weird,” even if it means ostracising members of your community – who experience material oppression regardless of how “heteronormative” you think they are – for wanting what all humans can desire irrespective of sexual orientation. Instead, the urge to marry and have kids is seen as a heterosexual thing; the LGBT must be “queer” – deviant, abnormal, odd, unnatural, alien and weird. Internalised homophobia, much?
Some lesbians wrote in to say that they don’t use “queer” to refer to themselves but do believe they belong to a “queer community.” Fae, 25, USA, says, “I use queer as a general term but not as my identity, I belong to the queer community, but it is not my sexuality.” She also only uses “queer” among fellow LGBT people, as opposed to suggesting straight people be allowed to call the LGBT the “queer community”: “I think it’s important to reclaim terminology. However, it makes me extremely uncomfortable for straight people to use the term queer. Akin to other slurs, it should be reserved for our community to reclaim, not for straight people.” I respect the nuance, but referring to the LGBT as the “queer community” includes referring to non-consenting people with a slur and concept they’re uncomfortable with.
Let’s not forget it is a slur. Unlike “dyke,” which is specific to lesbians – and usually only used to refer to oneself or consenting friends – referring to the LGBT as “queer” is non-consensual. Imagine calling women “the bitch community.” Young lesbians are still voicing that the word “queer” was used as a slur against them, despite the narrative among many queer-identified people being that it was only used as a slur long ago. Jack, 21, Detroit, USA, says, “I was targeted with this word growing up in a conservative area.” Alluding to the word’s definition, she said she doesn’t refer to the LGBT as “the queer community” because “we are not abnormal or unnatural,” saying, “I won’t speak for trans people, but being same-sex attracted is literally the most boring thing in the world. We’re literally just people attracted to other people.”
Lesbians who aren’t comfortable with “queer” being used to refer to them, including when used to reference the entire LGBT community, are met with outright homophobia. Jack continues, “When I tell my friends and peers that I find the word triggering if it’s repeated too many times, they ignore it or interrogate why I have an issue with it. I think we’re seen as puritanical, boring, or outright bigoted if we don’t use this slur.”
There is an imaginary “out-of-touch old person” who queer-identified people blame for resisting “queer.” While photographer Stuart Linden Rhodes, a gay man who is known for photographing the 90s Northern England gay scene, recently posted about his resistance to reclaiming “queer” – older people still do have a voice that should be respected – stories like Jack’s show that the ageist assumption is incorrect. So do responses on the lesbian_herstory polls: After over 700 results, 30% of lesbians who are under 30 years old said they’re not into the word “queer,” which was the highest percentage. 25% under 30 said they are into it. 24% of lesbians over 30 said they’re not into queer, and 22% said they are. I know 30 isn’t old, but I wanted to prove to the very young lesbians that other lesbians in their age group disagree with them on “queer.” They’re just not allowed to say so… if they want to keep their friendship group, professional reputation and safety intact.
The young queer-identified people pushing the ageist narrative that it’s “only older generations” who hate the word “queer” also need to acknowledge that to grow up in the 80s or 90s doesn’t make someone 120 years old–and people who are 120 deserve to be heard, anyway. Kate, 40s, UK, says, “The word has always been used as a slur against lesbians and gays. Growing up in the 80/90s, it was used to other us. To tell us we are weird and outside the norm. It was snarled at us (in my case with a punch attached). I absolutely despise the word; I recoil when I hear it used…The descriptors of lesbian, gay and bisexual are enough.”
On the other hand, some believe that referring to themselves and the community as “queer” is an act of taking ownership of our oppression. O, 41, France, says that she uses “queer” personally and as an umbrella term for the LGBT to “reclaim that historical stigma terminology.” I can understand why lesbians who don’t live in a country where English is the dominant language think “queer” is merely a slur from the distant past. Karima, 36, also from France, said that “the word queer has only arrived in France in the last 10 years,” and she “built [her] identity before that,” saying she sees it as “more of a concept than an identity.”
I’ve spoken to some lesbians who speak English as a second language (ESL), who didn’t know what the definition of “queer” is; they just thought it was some agreed-upon word to vaguely refer to not being gender-conforming and/or straight. Anon, late 20s, Russia, says, “I think it might be a language barrier for me. First of all, here the word queer (квир in Russian, pronounced kvir, so basically just the translation of the English word) is and never was a slur, people here just kinda adapted it when it started getting used a lot in English-speaking community. Many people don’t even know it’s a slur. I’m familiar with the history and everything though and I understand that some people don’t want to be described that way. Personally, I won’t be offended if someone in a conversation with me will say queer as a way of referring to all LGBT people; I will correct them if they call me specifically “queer”.”
It’s easy to understand how ESL lesbians don’t have the same relationship with the word. Its definition, history and criticisms aren’t always known or considered when translating a term that seems to be agreed upon universally. But that’s not true of all lesbians from ESL countries, either. Angela, 25, Poland, says, “[queer] is a word strongly associated with queer theory, which I disagree with. It also amplifies the belief that homosexuality is something weird, different and edgy.”
I find it harder to understand how a disempowered group of people, in this case the LGBT, has any material power to “reclaim” their oppression–as if we ever owned it to “re”-claim. “Queer” is used to refer to us because we are not only seen to be ridiculously strange but contemptibly so. It’s never been a compliment. It’s used to oppress us. Using the language used to oppress us doesn’t magically empower us. If anything, it contributes to our disempowerment.
Members of the community calling the LGBT “queer” feels more like a delusion born out of hopelessness, like being imprisoned and drawing a beautiful landscape on cell walls to cope. You cannot take what the oppressor believes about you and turn it around as some “gotcha!” You can only pretend. But life is not a video game. It won’t do the oppressor any damage. Look at Trump; the oppressors have full HP. They’re laughing. You’re confirming that they’re right, which makes them stronger. And now they’re socially permitted to call us “queer” – via the LGBT being rebranded as “the queer community” – in a supposedly less homophobic world. Are you addicted to the struggle?
As Audre Lorde said: “The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change. And this fact is only threatening to those women who still define the master’s house as their only source of support.”
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