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He uses the acronym CUNT to describe a drag queen’s ideal qualities - charisma, uniqueness, nerve, and talent. RuPaul has also been widely criticized for his transphobic views on drag.

That was very loaded, given how African American people have been treated in the sense of people calling them ‘girl’ or ‘boy’ to deny them their adulthood and ability to make decisions for themselves.”Ĭonsidering misogyny within gay men’s language practices raises the question of how using words like “girl” or “honey” is connected to their use of other, more controversial words that have historically been used to demean women, such as “bitch” and “cunt.” Multiple interviewees referenced RuPaul’s Drag Race as a show that has popularized the use of words associated with femininity among cis gay men. “I also saw it being negatively used when white gay men would say, like, ‘Oh girl, what are you talking about,’ and they would be talking to a woman of color, especially a Black woman. “It got kind of weird when I was doing things in a leadership role in LGBT spaces, and ‘girl’ was used toward me as a way of putting down my ideas,” says Brianne Huntsman, a cis queer woman who lives in Salt Lake City. Yet some women have experienced gay men using words like “girl” toward them in ways that don’t feel all that different from the misogyny they have experienced from straight men. the context in which I’ve experienced this for the most part has been one of a willingness to move beyond the rigidity of markers of a certain type of manhood and masculinity.” “Now if someone calls me ‘girl,’ I’m fine with that…. “When I was growing up I didn’t want to be called ‘girl.’ And I would ask myself, why? What’s wrong with that? And that’s because of the way I was socialized and affected by the patriarchy,” says Black writer and activist Darnell Moore, a queer cisgender man. Using words like "she" and "girl" can be a way for cis gay men to bond and embrace femininity. Now, do today’s young people know that when they say things like, ‘Is she for real?’ I don’t know.” “But it kind of puts today’s practice into a broader framework of what pronoun shifts could mean. “Because this is the history doesn’t mean this is the antecedent to today’s practice,” Leap explains. Leap also stresses that there are usually multiple reasons a linguistic practice is used, and the history of certain words does not necessarily form a linear path to their use today. To evade this, soldiers would shift the pronouns in their letters, allowing them to, as Leap put it, “say all kinds of things about what they were up to and what kind of fun they were having.” In the 1940s, military censors were on the lookout for evidence of homosexuality, which could provoke a military investigation. This practice is also visible in letters from soldiers during World War II, Leap explains. Linguists, social scientists, and critics have observed and studied cis gay men’s use of “she,” and their assessments point to the multiple and often conflicting dimensions of the practice. It may be time to reevaluate cis gay men’s use of words like "she" and "girl" to make sure they align with ongoing efforts to respect nonbinary gender identities, and avoid making assumptions about people’s pronouns. In a culture where women and femininity have long been denigrated and belittled, there is a danger that cis men using these words can perpetuate some of these negative tropes. Creating a shared culture - including language - around femininity can be a way of reclaiming the bases for oppression many gay men have experienced, as well as disrupting the harmful gender binary.īut few if any linguistic practices are all one thing, all the time. For many gay men, using these words with their friends is a way of embracing femininity and showing vulnerability or affection to others who share their identities. The use of she/her pronouns by cisgender gay men, along with words such as "girl" or "honey," is a long-standing and increasingly visible practice.