tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8743841912028246535.post2260041488007635445..comments2023-10-10T06:48:40.299-03:00Comments on the feminist librarian: why "gay" shouldn't be the default termannajcookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17573723390785613915noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8743841912028246535.post-47747277481580614492010-06-14T13:37:40.289-03:002010-06-14T13:37:40.289-03:00@paintedstone
I agree with you about the problem ...@paintedstone<br /><br />I agree with you about the problem of being "everything but...", which is why I've started using the term "not-straight" more. But even that is a definition that references the dominant paradigm. <br /><br />I've been reading Anne Fausto-Sterling's "Sexing the Body" this weekend and she talks about how the terms homosexual (and later heterosexual) were developed in the health sciences and social sciences in the late 1800s. It's fascinating to me how terms come into common usage almost by accident, but then end up defining categories that have real political and cultural significance.annajcookhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17573723390785613915noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8743841912028246535.post-70356959990792565912010-06-13T02:16:52.245-03:002010-06-13T02:16:52.245-03:00I've run into this issue before, and I was jus...I've run into this issue before, and I was just thinking about it the other day.<br /><br />The major problem with the LGBTQIA etc. position is that it's trying to qualitatively define a subgroup which is at its core everything *but* something else.<br /><br />We don't really have to let vanilla monogamous xenophobic heterosexuals define who we are for us...what use is there in reclaiming a term which has its basis in hate language (or psychology of deviance [and was the person who came up with the term "homosexual" straight?]) and which is, (likely,) as a consequence, extremely poorly thought-out?<br /><br />Problem is that there isn't really a term for "everything but X," when "X" is clearly defined as "good" and "right," that can't easily be written off (by Westerners, at least) as "wrong" and "evil". People like to think in dyads, as problematic as they usually are. But then, it's usually only those on the receiving end that care about that.<br /><br />Sorry I don't have any more useful suggestions.paintedstonehttp://goldmarble.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8743841912028246535.post-59746492433363955562010-06-10T18:02:00.270-03:002010-06-10T18:02:00.270-03:00@Juniper
Thanks for the comment!
I certainly d...@Juniper<br /><br />Thanks for the comment! <br /><br />I certainly don't mean my post to come out as anti "gay" as a word that could be used for both women and men in homosexual relationships or with homosexual identities (this still wouldn't solve the problem of how the word erases the presence of bi, trans, asexual, intersex, etc., persons).<br /><br />I hadn't thought of the "noun vs. adjective" angle, though as a bisexual woman I'm certainly more comfortable saying I'm in a "lesbian relationship" (adjective) than saying "I'm a lesbian" with no qualifiers.annajcookhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17573723390785613915noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8743841912028246535.post-40083240943480453942010-06-10T17:15:04.767-03:002010-06-10T17:15:04.767-03:00One argument I've heard (separately) from two ...One argument I've heard (separately) from two of my gay female friends is that "gay", "bi", "queer", "trans", etc. are all adjectives, while only "lesbian" is exclusively* a noun, and that it can be less personally threatening to come out as an adjective than a noun because nouns are more erasive. That is obviously not the whole of the issue, but "gay women" has been creeping into my vocabulary more as I think about it from that point of view.<br /><br />*Not <b>exclusively</b>, but as a self-identification "I am a lesbian" is certainly more common than "I am a lesbian woman" etc.Junipernoreply@blogger.com