Taking my cue from my blogging idol, Dan Savage, I confess to you, my readers, that this column is written under the influence of a beautiful wheat beer consumed while sitting at the open window of the Rainbow Village Cafe in the heart of queer Toronto. That is the setting for this exciting edition of what I would like to call Dick, Dyke, or Queen: Your Field Guide to the Queer and Fabulous.
The Field Guide (if you will) is not just about identifying specifies of wild queers, but identifying yourself. Now here’s where my slightly-inebriated analogy loses cohesion, so bear with me. Also, if there is anyone who is offended by political incorrectness, turn back now. This is your only warning.
Gay men come in all shapes, sizes, colors, and birth sexes. Gender identity is a completely different kettle of fish (to quote RuPaul: “And honey, it ain’t trout!”), and now isn’t the time for it. These are how people appear and how I refer to them in my articles. I am a font of information, yes, but a selfish font of information nonetheless!
Twink: Generally refers to the young, slim boys fond of taking off their shirts on dancefloors and act as candy for older men. The term comes from the sponge cakes that are, like them, delicious and full of cream.
Bear: I’ll give my short answer: Big, gay, and hairy. These large men are big and proud of it, often part of the leather community. Bears are such a presence that they have their own flag and you can find bear paraphernalia at any Pride event. Coincidentally, both of Geek’s Dream Girl’s new gay staff writers are bears – what are the odds?
Cub: The partner of a bear who doesn’t fit the physical description of a bear himself.
Otter/Wolf: A subset of bear that follows the ‘gay and hairy’ but may leave out the ‘big’ part of the descriptor.
Queen: Ah, queens. I love queens. I spent a lot of time around queens. This is a fairly broad term, it can be modified to refer to gym queens, dance floor queens, bar queens, anyone who is the fabulous ruler of his domain. It can also refer to drag queens, whether in or out of drag. Queens can be in full drag, such as for a performance, or in a minimalist drag for running errands, or no drag at all when they aren’t on stage. Queens own whatever space they’re in. They’re here, they’re queer, you’d better get used to it, honey.
And then there’s the gay women. Lesbians come in many flavours and types, ranging from harmless to terrifying. All variants have their own sets of preferred terms and never assume that one word or phrase will adequately describe all lesbians without offense.
Femme: Basic split is between butch and femme. Femmes cover the range of feminine women.
Lipstick: Can mean high femme or, in the derogatory manner, a poseur in the manner of a BUG or LUG (bi/lesbian-until-graduation).
Butch: Butches are the plaid-wearing, crew-cutted, boot-blacking, leather-wearing, motorcycle-riding masculine female-bodied gay women who more often than not form the stereotype of the “lesbian”.
Dyke: A butch by any other name is just as sexy: dyke, beardyke, bulldyke, butchdyke. I, personally, prefer to call myself a dyke over a lesbian. It more adequate describes me as a butch gay woman.
Beardyke: While bulldyke and dyke are sometimes used interchangeably (the former being an older usage and the latter still offensive in some quarters), beardyke is an discrete identity which is growing in usage. Bears are an established part of the male gay community, but there are female bears too – big, gay, and hairy.
Stereotypes and labels such as I’ve laid out can be damaging to blossoming identities, but not only when adhered to. Denying oneself a label or trying to counteract a stereotype can be just as damaging. What I’m trying to say is that a young lesbian who is taught that the stereotype of a plaid-wearing butchdyke is ridiculous, untrue, and counter to the “cause” of “gay rights” or something stupid like that, is going to try her utmost to deny her own desire be a plaid-wearing butch. And that is Not Cool.
The best dating advice one can give is To Thine Own Self Be True. And if that Own Self is a dyke who likes riding motorcycles and has a closet full of white wifebeaters, then so be it. But if that Own Self looks like none of these, then so be it as well. Don’t be limited by these labels, but don’t reject them if they fit, either.
About d
Personally, I’ve never considered myself as a BUG. Nor have I ever thought that lipstick lesbian is a good term for me; especially since, even as you pointed out, it’s often used in a derogatory manner. I simply don’t see a reason why I or any other should have to graduate to anything more than we are.
I love Mr Right, but without an equally stimulating partner of the same sex (as me) in my life, something feels a bit empty. By definition, bi seems to be the only one that fits. Although, by this chart, I suppose I would be either a femme or lipstick lesbian.
Sometimes Y, I think you missed a key point in the above article: “Don’t be limited by these labels, but don’t reject them if they fit, either.”
That being said, I don’t fit into many of these labels either. I am a femme, but I don’t identify as a lesbian. Truth be told, that word carries so much weight that I’m not comfortable carrying. I’m just a straight girl who fell in love with a certain girl. I’m straight…with an exception.
But labels can be a really good thing too, when they finally fit. Just ask my wife, who is now a proud, card-carrying member of the Bears of Toronto, and their first female member. Because of this label, her confidence has shot through the roof and she’s much, much happier.
So if you find a label that fits, try it on! See how it fits, and if it doesn’t fit, then take it off. It’s that simple. If no labels fit, make your own, or don’t! You don’t have to be labelled to be happy. I think what D is trying to say is find your own labels, whether they be prexisting or a whole new breed, just don’t reject them because you don’t think they’re supposed to fit someone like you. Years ago no one had ever heard for a Beardykes, but now they’re very much a part of the bear scene. You never know who else might be feeling the same way you do, but are too afraid to admit it.
Wow. I’m babbley today. Sorry, D, if that isn’t at all what you were trying to say. Wonderful article!
Thanks Rita!
Yes, Sometimes Y, I did skip over bisexuals in my column. You’ll notice I didn’t mention them at all, except as part of the B/LUG portmanteau (would that make Rita a SUG?). Bisexuality is, like trangender issues, its own ballgame that deserves it own article. Its own series of articles, even! Of the L, G, B, and T, I think the B and the T sometimes have it rougher than us Ls and Gs. This was a flip glossary for some of the terms that I toss around in my articles that people ask me to define.
But Rita’s right – the point that I was trying to make was that while these concepts exist, these images and labels exist, they are not one-size-fits-all-dykes. But what I find so dangerous is that too often, people are told this *too much*, and are scared away from embracing an identity that may open them to ridicule.
When I shaved my hair short, stopped wearing skirts, started wearing plaid, and let my voice drop to a comfortable register, my mother told me that just because I was gay I didn’t “have to look like a lesbian”. No, I don’t. I have to look like me, and me happens to look like a pretty rockin’ dyke.
But, thank you for letting me address bisexuality. I do have some topics brewing along those lines – I see that z came out (har har) with something this week about bisexuality in online dating, and I will hie myself hither forthwith to read it.
Thither. I am going to hie myself *thither*.
Wonderful as usual!!!!
To espouse an unpopular view for a moment: I advocate that the queer community should reject these labels. They largely serve to reinforce stereotypes, and prevent people from coming to terms with their sexuality because they don’t feel they fit in to the queer community.
It also helps to maintain distance between the hetro and queer communities. Until such distances are removed, we won’t see an end to things such as homophobia and gay bashing.
I can also tell you that it’s extremely unpleasant to be bullied by some people within the community because you don’t meet their criteria to a gay man. I’ve experienced that and I know two or three others who have as well. It’s all the work of self-labelling by the queer community.
Hammer, I can understand what you’re saying. I certainly understand how destructive being told you don’t fit in is – someone told me that I wasn’t butch enough to call myself a butch, because I had chosen to wear a wedding dress to my own wedding.
But when I came out, it was into an environment that treated being gay like it was distasteful. And that was the LGBT group! While we talked about homosexuality in the media, and religious views of homosexuality, and homosexuality in an abstract sense, we didn’t talk about being gay. So I tried to be “normal” and to be girly and to not be the dyke I wanted to be, because I was so heavily influenced against those labels. So I stand by my point. Yes, people are horrible, and yes, people are going to be hurt by labels. But denying yourself the opportunity to be yourself by throwing yourself in the opposite direction can be just as hurtful.
And for good or for ill, I’m gonna be called a lesbian, no matter how much I hate the word (which I do – ugh). And people are going to talk about bears and twinks and femmes and dykes, but I should probably take more time to do it when I’m not under the influence of beer and pretty twinks.
I agree with D (huge shock, I know) But I also agree with Hammer…to a point.
Yes, in a perfect world these labels would not exist and people would not feel the need to define themselves using them because there would not be a need for it.
Yes, they can cause bullying.
However. They do exist and they are going to continue to exist. And, frankly, when I first came out, I would have liked a label that described me. It would have given me a sense of belonging when I was living in a very small town in the deep South. Now I’ve met other straight people with exceptions (and one very noteable lesbian with an exception, Erika Moen), and I feel more comfortable being out. People are going to call me a lesbian, and that’s fine, have at it. I don’t like it, but what can I do? I don’t see myself as a lesbian and that’s really all that matters.
I maintain that, especially for people fresh out of the closet, labels can be a helpful thing, and they can help promote a feeling of community when you need somewhere to fit in. When you come out as homosexual, you’re throwing off the community of “heterosexual”. Even if you never really fit in to that community, there is still a void there.
At least, there was for me. Now I’ve found a number of labels that fit (straight with an exception, cub, and femme), and I feel far more a part of the gay community than I ever did before labels.
That being said, no one makes you wear a label. People can call me a dog all they like, that doesn’t make me one. You don’t have to be anything you don’t want to be.
I strongly agree with Hammer on this one. These sorts of labels are dismissive and divisive. It’s Jargon, and like most jargon, its primary purpose is to separate the elites from all those plebians who don’t know the talk. On top of that, it’s lousy jargon–it fails to describe its subject in a way that helpful to even the knowledgeable listener.
It’s a symptom of earlier times when gays were pariahs, and we had to build walls between ourselves and straight society for our physical and mental health. It’s high time we started tearing down those walls and have meaningful contact with all those people we’ve been excluding by treating homosexuality as though it was the secret order of Freemasons.
As far as I’m concerned, “Twink” is what you call a character with a +10 attack bonus at 1st level.
Obviously a very thought-provoking article. Coming from a psychology background, the subject of labels fits into the very human propensity to categorize. There are numerous studies that show we have a natural tendency to put things, concepts, people, etc. into categories. I even just did so with the topic of labels!! Anyway, the jargon comment about elite and plebian really resonated with me, as I don’t know the jargon at all (being the mother of a gay woman) and I felt that I was somewhat stupid for not even knowing what a label was when my daughter uses it. At first, I didn’t even know that the rainbow was a symbol of being gay and when I discovered it, I felt that my daughter must have been snickering at me while she publicly announced to those “in the know” her sexual orientation by wearing rainbow stuff before she came out to me. No doubt it had never occurred to her as she was one of those “in the know” and assumed everyone was the same. And labels are awful when used to hurt others. But I can also see the value of belonging to a group and that label comes with that group. It makes one feel part of a community. I think this topic bears more exploration.
Exactly my point, Theresa. I don’t mind being called a lesbian or wearing the label “bi” any day of the week. However, some labels just seem to be derogatory on their own and I don’t think it should be so. We are what we are because we are happy that way. Neither a straight nor gay individual should use any term to describe us that heralds any negativity. I’m a bisexual, femme lesbian and I’m not planning on graduating to anything more or less. That should be good enough.