March 18, 2011

A Dictionary For All Things Lesbian

Photo: Ani DiFrancoJason Hickey/<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/exquisitur/2552615542/">Flickr</a>

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As my coworker, the whipsmart Emily Loftis, and I were discussing our mutual crush on Kaki King, she posed this question:

Can you do a post about gay language for straight girls? I’m always afraid I’m going to say something dumb considering that in my hometown “gay” is synonymous with really dumb. Grrr. I don’t have much of a measuring stick to work with. If you could include language that a well-intentioned bumpkin should avoid using, that’d be swell too.

PS: Is there a word for a girl-on-girl-crush, when the crusher is straight?

Thus inspiring me to create The Lezicon at After Ellen! A go-to guide for lesbian-related words, slang, and way too many puns.

Excerpt:

Anna says: Great question! And thank you for asking. Some straight women think being a queer gal simply means that we have 38 ways to spell wimmin, but there’s so much more to it than that! Below, I present to you the following lezicon*, a queer dictionary of sorts, with relevant examples, celebrities, and everyday usages that you can use to impress your new queer friends at the next folk festival and/or Vagina Monologues production.

*Note of historical relevance: Gay terms obviously vary by time, region, and stereotypes. I can’t get them all, nor do I mean to offend anyone with generalizations. Tongue is firmly in cheek here, but I encourage you to add your own terms in the comments.

Androgyny: Generically speaking, someone who exhibits both masculine or feminine gender traits. Might also go by: gender fluid, genderqueer, or David Bowie.

Baby Dyke: A young lesbian, often fresh out of the closet, full of ideals and front row tickets to see Girlyman.

Beersexual: A gurl who will make out or sleep with another grrrl only while under the influence. Found often in reality television shows, in sororities, and in rare cases, Nick Lachey’s above-ground swimming pool.

Birkenstock-Blocking: When you are trying to hit on a wommon and another lesbian interferes.

Boi: Could mean any of the following, depending on context — a boyish lesbian, a soft butch (aka butch lite), a biological boy who hangs in queer circles, or a member of OutKast.

Read the rest of The Lezicon at After Ellen.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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