discussion Most gay slang was stolen from Black Women...

[Lüwís]

Do we really need to "give credit" for language now? 

 

It's language. You can't really police it, you can't stop people from picking up words they're exposed to, you can't stop them from uttering sounds from their own mouths.

 

While some words may originate within a particular community, it's a weird form of "gatekeeping" when people get upset that "outsiders" end up using the same language. Language often spreads far and wide.

 

Language changes; there are many words which have lost their original meaning over time - a nice example of this in English would be the word 'nice' which used to have a completely different meaning to what it's used for today.

 

Gatekeeping is a strange mentality to have.

[mike_int]

I wouldn't be surprised if the creator of thus thread was actually Caucasian gay male

[BabyBenzz]

6 hours ago, jezebelvictoria said:

What does 'without giving them credit' even mean? Should every person who uses slang words make sure to say after every word they say 'brought to you by black women'? Like what do you want? That statement is beyond pathetic. 

literally all of this

[AdamRiver96]

The level of virtue signalling. Get a grip!

[Laura Palmer]

This was not the hot take you thought it was I fear 

[Princess Aurora]

7 hours ago, feelslikeadream said:

No offense, but as someone who studied language evolution as part of my graduate school training, this is actually a somewhat reductive take.

 

Yes, there's a lot of overall between contemporary gay lingo and Black vernacular language, including phrases used more often by women.

 

But there is simultaneously a lot of contemporary gay lingo that originates in queer subcultures, and is NOT used by non-queer Black women. Rather than attributing "most gay slang" to Black women, it's more accurate (and imo, interesting) to consider how language in POC-dominant queer spaces is taken up by white gays, which then speeds up the process of the language being adopted into the mainstream.

 

My final point is that language is fluid and always evolving anyway, so I think attribution games are not particularly worthwhile. The beauty of language is that it can be picked up, revised, and adapted to various groups, both minoritarian and majoritarian. Like we can talk about when "wig" started being used in queer subcultures, but we can also talk about how the French popularized the term in the 16th century, which they likely adapted from a Latin term.

This. Thank you very much

[Badger]

You can't steal words

[dinorhino]

I think it's a bit disingenuous to say it was "stolen" simply because it's used by non-black/non-American gays. AAVE spoken by cis black women was introduced into the queer community by queer black people via ports such as ballroom culture, particularly queer black men and (trans) femmes who were largely socialised around their black female relatives and peers. Once ballroom culture and the like went from marginalised to chic, that's when it by and large started to spread to the wider queer community (read: white) but other types of black people in these spaces very much do participate in this sort of "appropriation" just as much as these non-black gays you are trying to call out.

 

For example, something that really annoys me seeing is people bastardisinig ballroom slang to gross degrees such as calling cis women "*****" or saying fish to say that they look good or super feminine when that word was reserved for trans femmes and was meant to designate that you were passing or near passing in competition or in real life. A cis woman does not "pass" as she's cis so using the word on her loses all meaning. Similarly you wouldn't call a straight man 'trade'

 

 

[SlowGinFizzzz]

8 hours ago, Distantconstellation said:

It's just hilarious seeing some of these gays, specially foreign ones thinking those words started with the gay community when they stole all that from black women without giving them credit. 

Well English as a language originates from German, Latin and French (among others), so I would appreciate it if from now on you could give credit to them whenever you communicate in English. 

[Mr_campbell]

I'm crying  "stolen" "without giving credit"

WTF

[Oktober Knight]

Ikyfl

[Sergi91]

Period! 

[dumbsparce]

This isn't news though nor is anyone going out of their way to credit white twinks for  inventing the lingo. I do cringe when I see teenagers using it but that was inevitable with the invention of social media.

[Damien M]

the funnel goes like:

 

black femmes + women adjacent to those spaces -> black gays -> white gays -> white women -> mainstream media -> straight white men ->  corporate (last stage before the lingo dies out) 

[Damien M]

Also, I agree with the OP. Not sure how to put it in practice tho

[shyboi]

15 hours ago, XO_Life said:

Stolen? So they no longer have it or can use it?  

 

i would like to know this as well 

 

[Onyxmage]

I remember the history of black woman in the 1950s saying YAASS GAGA OMG YOU  LOOK SOOOO GOOD! How dare gay people steal that?! 

 

[Distantconstellation]

15 hours ago, Laura Palmer said:

This was not the hot take you thought it was I fear 

*****, you thought that. It wasn't that deep for me. 

[FailSafe]