What's in a Name?

Snips and snails and puppy dog tails, sugar and spice and everything nice? Per our conversation in class, a brief primer on terminology (click on the hyperlinks for more information):

LGBTQ (QAI)
Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender/Queer (Questioning/Ally/Intersex)

Often in the upper midwest you will see GLBT instead of LGBT. The acronym is a political creature, created out of the necessity of alliance, although it sometimes remains unclear what each category has in common with each other. There is tension, in other words, within the acronym between the various constituencies contained therein.

Lesbian
A woman-loving woman, i.e., a homosexual woman; also a woman-identified woman (political/lesbian-feminist). Origin of the term: the Isle of Lesbos, the home of the reknowned poet Sappho.

Gay
A man-loving man, i.e., a homosexual man. Origin of the term: gay vernacular of the interwar years of the 20th century, serving as a secret code to identify one another in a manner unknown to heterosexuals. Can sometimes be broadened to include lesbians as well as gay men, although this usage is increasingly archaic.

Bisexual
Someone who is capable of sexual attraction to either sex. Bisexual identity can sometimes be deeply politicized in the LGBT community, especially around questions over the possible retention by bisexuals of heteronormative privilege, which several pro-Bi critics have responded to.

Transgender
a) a person who has changed genders, or desires to change genders, from birth gender to felt gender, or b) someone who through dress, behavior, or politics, challenges the traditional gender binary of male and female, without necessarily modifying the body.
Related terms: transman, transwoman, transsexual

Queer
Reclaimed epithet; political description of identity whose standpoint is critical of heteronormative and mainstream lesbian and gay identities. Emerged in the early 1990s as a political movement, esp. associated with the organization Queer Nation. Also the name of a theoretical approach in the study of lesbians and gay men. Theoretically, Queer includes alternative or marginal heterosexual identities as well.

Intersex
A person born with either indeterminate genitalia or the genitalia of both traditional sexes. Formerly described by the word "hermaphrodite."

Homosexual
A person demonstrating same-sex desire or sexual love.

Usage of all above terms in any moment depends on several different factors, including nuance, specificity, and politics, for all of the terms above are political on some level or another. When addressing someone on an individual level, one should attempt description that hews as closely as possible to the individual's self-conception (i.e., lesbian v. queer; transgender v. transvestite*). In cases of general description, remain cognizant of ulterior political meanings (i.e., gay v. homosexual; queer v. gay*). If anything, the nuances of the LGBTQ nomenclature of description reveals the constant shifting of terms, politics, and strategies of self-description since the modern emergence of LGBT identities in the late nineteenth century.

*Possible political interpretations of nomenclature

lesbian v. queer— since queer denotes a particular political agenda, on occasion it is not appropriate to use queer to describe someone who may or may not see themselves within this identity designation.

transgender v. transvestite— These are not the same thing, although many people confuse these terms. One has to do with felt or corporeal gender identity, the other with sartorial gender performance or presentation. Caution is urged in describing often times deeply personal states. Appropriate descriptive terms include transgender, transwoman, transman, or indeed transvestite, although the "trans" in each of the terms does not connote similar meaning.

gay v. homosexual— Many, but not all, lesbian and gay people feel homosexual is a clinical descriptive terms that does not capture the totality of the socio-cultural experience of lesbian and gay communities. Lesbian, Gay, or LGBT captures this socio-cultural as well as sexual state of being in a manner that signifies cognizance of the difference.

queer v. gay— Again, these terms are not necessarily synonymous, although for some LGBT people, Queer does capture their sense of different identity. In this contrast, depending on who is making it, gay can mean mainstream and queer radically resistant, or alternatively, queer is trendy and polemic and gay is more descriptive of a basic identity free of political meanings, although gay is also a political term.

Other Terms:
of indeterminate, colloquial, or derogatory function, usage contextual and with caution—
Fag/Faggot, Dyke, Lezzie, Homo/'Mo (both derived from Homosexual, and considered derogatory), DL (Down Low), MSM (Men Who Have Sex With Men)