Well, not quite, but some residents of the island of Lesbos who (it is claimed) call themselves Lesbians, are upset that their locational designation has been usurped by gay women, the "Homosexual and Lesbian Community of Greece" in particular.

Lesbians (the gay women kind) adopted the name from the island, which was most famously the home of the poet Sappho, who, among other things, wrote poems about love between women.

The locals from Lesbos seem to have suddenly become aware of this, and are now suing in court. While both women and men are complaining about it, it's not clear which gender is more unhappy about the reaction when they describe themselves as Lesbians.

Hmmm. It's almost like one of those domain disputes over food and wine in the EU, e.g., you can't call it Champagne unless it comes fro the Champagne district of France. Except, in this case, it's not a matter of sparkling wine trying to call themselves the name of official sparkling wines, more like a brand of car calling itself the Champagne and having the French get ticked off about it.

Some possible solutions:

1. Use capital letters appropriately. I've always found it vaguely incorrect for Lesbians (the gay women) to use a capital L when gay men only get lower case letters. So let "lesbians" refer to the gay women, Lesbians to the Aegean island dwellers.  Not that it will stop the glances or snickers when someone from Lesbos mentions their nationality in conversation.
2. Drop back to the old-fashioned "sapphists" and "sapphic" nomenclatures, more accurately allowing gay women to commemorate the person they intend to honor without the folks of Lesbos getting peeved. Plus it has a cool 19th Century sort of ring to it.
3. Just call them all "gay" and stop coming up with gender-specific nomenclature. I mean, isn't that kind of discriminatory?

Obviously, I have no personal skin in the game, being neither Greek nor gay. I just have an interest in language and how it evolves, along with a disdain for political correctness (though a fondness for politeness, which is not the same thing). I don't want to tell people what they can or should call themselves, while at the same time I can understand the dismay of some folks of Lesbos (whether or not they represent a majority, or even if people from that island actually call themselves Lesbian) at having people make assumptions (or jokes) about them.

No good answers here, assuming the questions are valid, but I'll be curious to see how it plays out in the Greek courts. 

Filed under :: Gay Stuff :: Writing and Language :: ZT & PC
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