Gay sland
The Most Popular LGBTQ+ Terms in Every State & Gay Slang Glossary
Published on: 3/10/23
Periodt. Werk. Queen. While these terms were once used exclusively by LGBTQ+ people as a way to converse in public without outing — or endangering themselves — shows like RuPaul’s Drag Race (which is in its 15th season and running) are bringing LGBTQ+ vernacular into the spotlight. So much so, that even phrases like “yas, queen” and “slay” are making their way into the mainstream. With more and more people outside of the LGBTQ+ community adopting this gay slang, it’s worth mentioning where it all began — go in drag queens of paint. Many of the widespread terms we use today are thanks to the world of drag, which originated in Harlem, New York, at a time when drag queens slayed the runaway in spaces predominantly made up of African Americans.
So whether you self-identify as a “cub” (a younger looking “bear” a.k.a. someone who is mighty, hairy, and lumberjack-esque) or a “lipstick lesbian” (an ultra-feminine lesbian), the team here at Future Technique wanted to open our LGBTQ+ glossary up to educate and pay tribute to all the queens who possess come before. Using Google Trends search da
UK Gay Glossary
See an A-Z glossary of words and phrases relating to gay life in Britain.
The glossary includes Acts of Parliament, gay villages in Britain, history, people, and current and archaic gay slang.
Further information on many of the listed terms is available via accompanying links.
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
A
AC/DC - slang for multi-attracted (slur).
Ace - a shortened term for asexual.
Albany Trust - a registered help set up in 1958 to complement the Gay Law Reform Society (see below).
Ally - (typically) direct supporter of the homosexual movement.
Asexual - a person who feels little or no sexual attraction.
B
Bear - gay term for a large hairy male.
BFI Flare: London LGBTIQ+ Film Festival - Europe's largest LGBTIQ+ film festival held in spring.
Biphobia - fear or dislike of someone who identifies as bisexual (bi).
Bisexual - (bi) a person who feels sexual attraction across genders.
Boi - a boyish lesbian.
Buggery Act - introduced in 1533 during the reign of Henry VIII. Men having sex with men was punishable by death in Britain until 1861. It was the country's first civil sodomy law; previously, cases were administered by eccl
While browsing recently through the available back issues of Oz magazine I noticed a guide to lgbtq+ slang that I didn’t recall seeing before. The underground magazines and newspapers of the 60s and 70s were a lot more tolerant of the nascent gay rights movement than their “straight” (ie: non-freak) counterparts. Oz magazine published pieces about homosexual rights, notably so in issue 23 which ran an extract from The Homosexual Handbook (1969) by Angelo d’Arcangelo among a couple of other features; the UK’s first homosexual magazine, Jeremy, advertised regularly in Oz and IT; later issues of Oz carried ads for another gay mag, Follow Up, and there’s a letter in one issue from a gay freak complaining about the state of the few gay pubs in London where the clientele was apparently not freaky enough. (His resolution was to try and persuade them all to drop acid.) Arguments which still circulate today, between those who want to assimilate and those who prefer to remain separate from general society, travel back a long way.
The gay slang guide was extracted from The Queens’ Vernacular: A Gay Lexicon by Bruce Rodgers (1942–2009), published in
LGBTQIA+ Slurs and Slang
bog queen
Synonyms: Bathsheba (composition between bathroom and Sheba to create a name reminiscent of the Queen of Sheba), Ghost (50s, ghost, because they wander the corridors of the bathroom).
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