#khush

Khush

Khush is an Urdu word which came originally from Indian culture, where it means gay and happy and also signifies ecstatic pleasure. The term has become popular among some Asian lesbians and gay men. British-based film director Pratibha Parmar named her television documentary about South Asian lesbians and gay men Khush.

Khush is not a word that says lesbian or indeed anything else about your sexuality. It means happy, and doesn’t even have the same double meaning as gay has. In modern-day Urdu it doesn’t mean anything. Khush is correctly pronounced hush, but no one says it properly and that is one of the reasons I don’t like using it. Aqeela Alam

Khush and zami are terms from India and Africa, I’m a Sri Lankan lesbian. B: Sri Lanka P: Sri Lanka/England (QR)

Lesbian

Lesbian is an English word derived from the name of the inhabitants of the Greek island Lesbos, where the woman-loving poet Sappho lived in the sixth century BC. It has been used to describe women whose personal identity and lifestyle are based on emotional and sexual desire for and relationships with other women.

Lesbian implies a predominately Eurocentric aesthetic about sex and sexuality. Dorothea Smartt

My best definition is Black lesbian because our experiences are totally different from those of White lesbians. Marlene Bogle

I identify with lesbian because I Came Out through the Women’s Liberation Movement, where White women supported me in my sexuality. Lesbian identifies me, because it is part of the European culture within which I was brought up, and which allowed me to find an identity. Femi Otitoju

Dyke

Dyke is derived from the American word Bulldike. The origins of Bulldike are not known, though it is likely that the word came from African-American culture since it appears in Blues songs of the 1930s. (Bessie Jackson recorded a song in 1935 called ‘B-D Blues’ which refers to Bulldike.)

Dyke appears in American slang dictionaries of the 1940s as a word for a woman who adopts masculine, butch roles. It is possible that dyke got its connotations of masculinity through association with African-American culture: during American and British slavery, women of African descent were forced to do traditional male jobs and were rarely perceived as feminine by White people. White lesbians in Britain and the US today continue to place Black lesbians in butch roles because of this racial stereotype.

In the 1950s and 60s dyke was used in the lesbian subculture as a word for a butch. Since the 1980s it has been used as a positive word for a lesbian who is stroppy, independent and strong or a lesbian with politics. Some lesbians believe that dyke is a word that originated in Greek mythology and once meant hermaphrodite.

I prefer dyke to lesbians. Lesbian is attached to Lesbos, and certainly Lesbos wasn’t the beginning of lesbians. Dyke isn’t a Eurocentric word, it is not attached to a place in Europe. Aqeela Alam

If I feel in a ragga or swagger mood I may call myself a dyke. Araba Mercer

Dyke for me is about being strong and difficult. I use it among men. Femi Otitoju

Gay

Gay is derived from the Middle French term gai. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries it was a word used in British theatre to describe female characters (played by men) who were saucy and sexually promiscuous. During the nineteenth century it became a term for women and men who were different from the norm. In the 1920s and 30s it was adopted by homosexual men to describe themselves.

In the late 1960s and early 70s gay was the term chosen by homosexual women and men organising together politically, as in the Gay Liberation Front in Britain. It has now become the standard word for a homosexual, used by heterosexuals and homosexuals alike. During the past decade gay has increasingly come to refer only to homosexual men, and ‘lesbian and’ is added if women are included. Many Black lesbians see the term as meaning both White and male.

Gay to me means White men with handlebar moustaches, white t-shirts, tight jeans, swinging leather jackets at Gay Pride. Dorothea Smartt

I use gay when I’m talking to my cousins. Marlene Bogle

Gay is a term that I believe grew out of the Stonewall riots in New York in 1969, when drag queens were fighting back against the police. These White genderfuckers have nothing to do with me. Femi Otitoju

Queer

Queer originally meant strange and odd, crooked, not straight. In the early twentieth century it was a term of abuse for homosexuals.

During the late 1980s queer was reclaimed by American lesbians and gay men as a term of self-definition. Queer politics--typified by activist groups such as ACT UP and Queer Nation--developed out of a predominantly White North American experience of anger that the strategy of gay assimilation into mainstream society had still failed to win basic rights. The queer movement believes that women and men should organise together to promote an ‘up front, in yer face’ sexual politics aimed at upsetting the straight world and sometimes other lesbians and gay men. Queer has also been adopted as an intellectual position by some lesbian and gay writers and academics.

Queer can be used as a loose term to embrace people of different sexual orientations and perversions. The queer ‘scene’ has provided an opportunity for some lesbians to experiment sexually--to go out ‘packing’ for the night with a strap-on dildo, and to cruise gay men. The queer debate is probably understood by few lesbians in Britain and some Black lesbians believe it has nothing to do with them.

Queer feels very White to me. It feels too trendy, and trendy terms come and go. Jackie Kay

Queer is a new generation. I associate it with SM. Dorothea Smartt

Queer means people walking around saying: what’s that, can I fuck it? Will it fuck me? Queer people are in a different place from me. I’m not on the edge of society. Femi Otitoju

I have no problem with queer--I call myself bent, pervert, lesbian or dyke. The problem is with the people who try to attack me with these words. Linda Bellos

Feminist

A feminist is someone who struggles for women’s rights and believes in the equality of the sexes. It could be argued that there have been feminists since women and men have been on earth. Women such as the Jewish leader Deborah, Boadicea, Cleopatra and Joan of Arc, all of whom broke away from traditional models of female behaviour, could be counted as early examples.

The most recent wave of feminism in Britain and the US began in the 1960s and 70s. The movement was dominated by White women who seemed to think that all the problems women experience are caused by patriarchy, ignoring racism. In the 1980s Black women in Britain reclaimed the term feminist and redefined feminism to include issues of race, class, gender, sexuality and imperialism. They acknowledged the efforts of the long line of Black women before them who had negotiated their way through White western culture.

Defining ourselves as feminists, however means that we have placed ourselves in the front line to fight oppression and exploitation in the systematic ways in which they deny us power and control over our lives--racism, imperialism, class and male supremacy. ‘We Are Here: Black Feminist Newsletter’, Issue 10, 1986

In our countries of origin there are long traditions of feminists who have struggled against different forms of patriarchy. So the term feminist will mean different things to women of different backgrounds.

I call myself feminist. I don’t subscribe to the argument that feminist is a White woman’s word. Araba Mercer

Feminist is a major way I find to explain and analyse the world. Despite arguments I’ve had with other Black women about how feminist has been very White and often betrayed Black women, I still call myself a feminist. B: England P: Guyana/Ireland (QR)

I use feminist out of habit and laziness. Most people know what it means. But feminism still is a White western ideology and still can’t treat Black women as worthy of being at the centre of the debate. B: Trinidad and Tobago P: Jamaica/Trinidad (QR)

I understand the feminist revolution to be a White middle-class movement that failed to take on issues of race. B: England P: Nigeria (QR)

A black woman is not a feminist, she is a tireless phenomenon in a White-dominated racist society. B: England P: Jamaica (QR)

Womanist

‘Womanist is to feminist as purple is to lavender,’ wrote the Black American novelist Alice Walker in In Search of or Mothers’ Gardens. Walker describes a womanist as a woman who loves other women sexually or non-sexually, prefers female culture, is spiritual, loves music, food, and herself. Womanist can mean a Black feminist and is more widely used in the US than in Britain.

Feminist is outdated, now Black women are calling themselves womanist. Marlene Bogle

Womanist at least addresses the issues of race and class. B: London P: Nigeria (QR)

At one point there was a discussion about whether you should call yourself a feminist or a womanist. Basically terms need to be simplified because you wouldn’t understand what womanist meant unless you’d read certain books. Anne Hayfield

Some women use womanist when they feel that they’re into feminism but don’t like the word feminist because it sounds too militant. Hope Massiah

Race versus sexuality

It is inevitable that Black lesbians from different background will choose different names to define themselves. Our experiences are rich, vibrant and diverse; it would be ludicrous to think there could be only one right term for us. Labels are fluid: some Black lesbians have their own names in their own cultures and other words for their families or other parts of the lesbian and gay world. Race, class and cultural and social influences all play a part in each individuals’ choice of which term suits her best, as does the situation in which she finds herself. There are also particular and legitimate issues like racism and discrimination which affect our lives as Black women. Prefixes such as Black or the names of the countries from which we originate are necessary to acknowledge and validate these experiences.

Pressure in the lesbian world for individuals to define themselves and their political allegiances on the basis of sexuality alone has sometimes meant that Black women feel forced to choose between their sexuality and race. For many Black lesbians, sexuality and race cannot be separated, both are integral components of their identity. Others believe that race is more important, either because it is more visible or because it is made invisible by both the heterosexual and homosexual world an needs to be affirmed or stated. To refer to either our sexuality or our race is not enough when speaking about Black lesbian lives.

My sexuality and race are both important, because the forces that subjugate me as a lesbian are the same as those which oppress me as a Black woman. Sometimes I am more vocal as a lesbian, at other times I am more vocal about my Blackness. B: Trinidad and Tobago P: Jamaica/Trinidad (QR)

Although my sexuality is an integral part of myself, my race in general is more significant. Linda Bellos

At the moment race is more important because global issues of violence and poverty are important. When you first Come Out sexuality is often the most important thing. Araba Mercer

Most of the time my race is the issue, because as a dark-skinned African-Caribbean woman it is the most obvious thing about me. My sexuality becomes an issue when I’m around Black people. Dorothea Smartt

To me what is important is to be a woman and lesbian in Britain. I would associate myself with the lesbian community rather than with the Chinese one. B: Hong Kong P: China (LHIC)

My sex and race go hand in hand. I couldn’t begin to separate one from the other, because the heterosexism in this society compounds the racism I face from day to day... If any one part of me is not provided for, either my sexuality or race, I can’t be happy. Femi Otitoju