Ever wondered how a flash of color on your nails or the choice of a certain accessory could signal a hidden message? Step into the kaleidoscopic world of queer signaling and symbolism as we trace the secret language of the LGBTQ+ community, from the discreet nods in fashion choices to the bold declarations found in historical emblems. Our exploration unveils the clandestine communications that have connected queer individuals through time, such as the famed lesbian club Le Monocle's monocles and the Hanky Code's resurgence in the kink and BDSM scenes. With the help of expert guests, we uncover the stories behind these symbols and consider their journey into mainstream consciousness.
Feel the pulse of LGBTQ+ culture through the romantic echoes of violets and the intricate dance of symbolic language that has evolved within the community. Our dialogue blossoms with tales of Sappho's poetry, keys jingling with unspoken intentions, and the transformative imagery of roses and butterflies cherished by the trans community. We pay homage to the artful creation of lavender languages like Polari, sharing the poignant necessity for these secret slangs as a shield for identity and solidarity. Join us and our guests as we celebrate these beautiful forms of resistance that continue to flourish undiminished.
Finally, we illuminate the ever-changing lexicon of queer identities and the innovative expressions that have emerged as both badges and tools for survival. From the ace ring's subtle declaration of asexuality to the nuanced femme flagging manicures, our conversation delves into the personal and political significance of these gestures. We're also unraveling the surprising history behind pink and blue's gendered connotations, revealing how societal norms are as malleable as they are impactful. Prepare to be enthralled by the stories of resistance, pride, and unity—embodied in the vibrant flags that wave with unwavering spirit.
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Ever wondered how a flash of color on your nails or the choice of a certain accessory could signal a hidden message? Step into the kaleidoscopic world of queer signaling and symbolism as we trace the secret language of the LGBTQ+ community, from the discreet nods in fashion choices to the bold declarations found in historical emblems. Our exploration unveils the clandestine communications that have connected queer individuals through time, such as the famed lesbian club Le Monocle's monocles and the Hanky Code's resurgence in the kink and BDSM scenes. With the help of expert guests, we uncover the stories behind these symbols and consider their journey into mainstream consciousness.
Feel the pulse of LGBTQ+ culture through the romantic echoes of violets and the intricate dance of symbolic language that has evolved within the community. Our dialogue blossoms with tales of Sappho's poetry, keys jingling with unspoken intentions, and the transformative imagery of roses and butterflies cherished by the trans community. We pay homage to the artful creation of lavender languages like Polari, sharing the poignant necessity for these secret slangs as a shield for identity and solidarity. Join us and our guests as we celebrate these beautiful forms of resistance that continue to flourish undiminished.
Finally, we illuminate the ever-changing lexicon of queer identities and the innovative expressions that have emerged as both badges and tools for survival. From the ace ring's subtle declaration of asexuality to the nuanced femme flagging manicures, our conversation delves into the personal and political significance of these gestures. We're also unraveling the surprising history behind pink and blue's gendered connotations, revealing how societal norms are as malleable as they are impactful. Prepare to be enthralled by the stories of resistance, pride, and unity—embodied in the vibrant flags that wave with unwavering spirit.
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TikTok
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Want to see the video? Check us out on YouTube.
So there's different signaling with the manicures.
Speaker 2:See, I've heard something a little different.
Speaker 1:Oh shit, what'd you hear? That has to be good.
Speaker 2:I've heard, when you go and you get your nails done, you get acrylics but you ask for these two to be shorter because you're a lesbian. And that was the manicure one I heard.
Speaker 1:Is that really signaling or is that just practical use? I'm just asking. All these topics can be expanded so deeply. It's insane 100%.
Speaker 2:This signals that queer people show each other that mainstream doesn't usually know about, unless they basically steal it from us. Queer signaling is the idea of Oscars, green carnations and the color lavender, the pink triangle, even nowadays the pride flags, even though everyone knows what they mean, they didn't start out as everyone knowing what they mean they started out. These mishmashes of colors is their own little signals.
Speaker 1:I was thinking to myself wow, this can easily turn into a dissertation for an entire sector of queer history studies.
Speaker 2:Monicles being a queer signaling that I have never heard of. I've heard of the hanky code. I've heard of the gay ear Most of these I had heard of. I have never in my life heard of Monicles. There was literally a club in Paris called Le Monacle, which obviously French for Monicle.
Speaker 1:So what exactly is a Monicle?
Speaker 2:The little Monopoly man. Like the little thing I actually does, the Monopoly man wear a Monicle. I think that's a Mandela effect thing. I don't know if he does wear a Monicle, but a Monicle is. It's a very stereotypical rich guy thing Nowadays. You see it in a lot of cartoons of old rich men. It's that little glass thing that's usually rimmed in gold, that's squinted around the eye and it's connected to a chain. That was a lesbian symbol.
Speaker 1:Gotcha, I love that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there was a queer club named Le Monacle. It was a lesbian club in Paris that operated in the 1920s and 1930s, prior to the Nazi invasion. It's unclear whether or not the name of the club inspired the people to start dressing the way they did, like wearing Monicles and stuff like that, or if it was the other way around. The people just dressed a certain way and the club named themselves after the dress. But it even spread to Germany from Paris prior to the Nazi invasion. This was a whole underground queer, specifically lesbian symbolism of the Monicle.
Speaker 1:I had no idea that's so cool. So the vintage girlies.
Speaker 2:Monicles are such a vibe.
Speaker 1:I love that.
Speaker 2:Have you ever heard of the Hanky Code?
Speaker 1:Tell me what the Hanky Code is.
Speaker 2:The Hanky Code is really fun because nowadays that's one that's still used. The Hanky Code is something that you will see consistently, specifically in kink, bdsm and leather communities, but it's basically a form of queer flagging that was started. It's some of those things we're looking into. When it started, it was really popularized around the 70s, but this could have started all the way back in the 50s and just only queer communities really knew about it and no one really wrote it down or passed. But it started with queer people.
Speaker 2:Something that's still used today, specifically in the kink and BDSM and leather communities, was started by queer people trying to let each other know hey, I'm like you. In a way that was totally safe. So if you wore a hanker to this day, even still, if you wear a hankerchief in your back left pocket, it means you're a top, that means you're given. If you wear in your right back pocket, that means you're a bottom You're receiving.
Speaker 2:Nowadays there's color codes around it. So depending on what color cloth or even type you use nowadays they've even added leather and lace and stuff like that but depending on what color or what type of cloth you use is depending on your fetishes, your kinks, everything like that, but just the left. That, specifically, was started by gay men in the 60s, 70s, even 50s, signaling to each other. There's even beliefs that this may have started in like frontier times, when there weren't any women out West really, and men were just dancing with other men, finding companionship amongst each other. They would go when they go to dance. To figure out who would lead or who would follow would be the type of hankerchief that either the other would wear, depending on the color and where they would wear. It is who was leading and who was following in the dance and it just evolved from there.
Speaker 1:That is so clever. One thing that comes to mind, too, is when I was in school and we had queer people coming out in high school and college. Gay men would get their right ear pierced as a way of signaling.
Speaker 2:Yep, the right ear was the gay ear. That was something else that I have written down. In the 20th century it was the gay ear, was this whole thing. And it's interesting because if that was another thing that started around the time of the hanky code, it started like the 70s. So you would see gay men in this whole attire. They'd have their right ear pierced, they'd have their hanky in the proper pocket, they'd have the right kind of jacket on, they had every aspect of their outfit planned to signal to other gay men.
Speaker 2:I'm like you and unfortunately, around the 90s, the New York Times published an article about the gay ear, which was how phrases in schools became common of the right ear is wrong and the left ear is right. That was a huge. I remember that from young ages, when boys would be talking about getting their ears pierced. Right ear is wrong was a huge thing, and it's because in the 90s the New York Times just dragged this into the mainstream, in a time when queer people still were not given the rights and dignity that we have nowadays.
Speaker 1:I wonder what the play was for them with that.
Speaker 2:Unfortunately, the New York Times has a long history of doing things like that. It's one of those things where nowadays they're trying to clean up their act because they have a long history to atone for, of outing queer people, of reporting on AIDS very improperly and reporting information that had been proven false by the surgeon general, like that AIDS was spread through spit. They were still spreading that information even after it had been scientifically proven false, and that's why those stigmas stuck around for so many years, because people trusted the New York Times. People were like they wouldn't lie to me, but they did, and sometimes they still do, unfortunately, and that's why it's important to find multiple different sources, because everything is told through a lens. This is life through a queer lens. Everything is told through a lens and a lot of the times it's through a Western capitalistic lens. And queer people, aids. We didn't fit that lens. We didn't fit that lens until very recently. Only very recently did we become popular for that lens to shine a light on Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and even now they're struggling on shining light on trans women. Recently, several publications have been called out for misgendering and dead naming different trans people. I think the New York Times was guilty of it for Brandon Tina. It's just one of those things where a lot of mainstream publications have struggled for a very long time because we weren't profitable until recently and it sucks.
Speaker 1:It's hard to even fathom that somebody would come from this lens of. Oh this population of people isn't profitable.
Speaker 2:It still happens constantly. You see it with people of color all the time, all the time.
Speaker 1:I would tend to think that if you're just an authentic person and you just revisit your mission and your vision and what it is that you want to get out to the world in terms of what you stand for, and just stay true to that, without omitting certain groups just energy and karma you're going to be successful, you're going to be profitable. But when you start doing it on the backs of groups that are already marginalized, there's going to be a price to pay for that at some point, because then you're going to have to back yourself out of a corner that you back yourself into in the first place.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I feel like what the New York Times is doing even with the series you were talking about last time, their overlooked series I feel like that's what series that can be when you look at them through a little bit more of a pessimistic lens is damage control. It's trying to clean up from messes of the past that they left in their wake. And when you live and you learn and you grow, it just sucks that it took this major publication that swayed so many people's opinions for so many years that long to grow and learn.
Speaker 1:Without actually coming out and having to say, hey, we take responsibility for this. They're doing it in more subtle ways that are just more inclusive and as a way, like you said, of backtracking, and it happens all the time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I can't think of the exact verbiage of it, but it's like that whole idea of moving forward without accountability. Yeah, oh yeah. But they also are connected to the history of queer flagging and queer signaling. Yeah, that's another thing signaling is called, is flagging. It's got a lot of names. It's one of those things where, again, it's especially in other countries even still is kept very much as on the down low as possible, because it's just, it has a very long history and it also has a very intricate present day that a lot of people don't realize and that is very sacred to a lot of people.
Speaker 1:Another thing I was thinking about in terms of the right side, with the ear piercing and then the handkerchief, is also like engagement stuff. Right, because traditionally, heterosexual couples wear their engagement rings on the left finger, the left ring finger, but throughout history you find that queer couples usually wear their engagement rings and their wedding rings on the right side, and this can be a way of expressing love traditionally but also differentiating themselves from the heteronormative narrative and ways of expression.
Speaker 2:Yes, I love that. I'm so here for that. Yeah, let's get gay married. Yeah, that's such a vibe. I love that. I actually haven't seen that people wearing engagement wedding rings on the opposite fingers. If I have seen that, it's one of those things where it was like so I didn't even notice. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Wow, that was a huge thing when I was in my early 20s. Even if people weren't engaged and they were just up in a couple ship, they would wear the rings on the right side just to sit Like promise rings in a way, but just to say, hey, I'm taken and I'm also queer.
Speaker 2:I love that Gotcha. Okay, yeah, see, I got a signal. I appreciate that. I love that Fantastic energy. No, that's fantastic. I love that one. Actually, to jump back a little bit to Oscar Wilde, we all know about the green carnation, but there are actually a bunch of other flowers that signify just queerness and queer people and stuff like that, and I think that's really cool because flowers are awesome. So everyone knows lavender, obviously. Lavender is a color, lavender is a flower. There's the lavender menace protests from the 70s, where it was protests actually against the feminism movement for being exclusionary of lesbian. So it was a specifically lesbian run protest movement against the second Congress to unite women for their exclusion of lesbians, which is pretty, pretty cool. And then, obviously, the lavender scare, which is something that we will absolutely be doing an episode on in the coming weeks and months.
Speaker 1:Looking forward to that.
Speaker 2:I definitely. Just reading about that made my stomach churn. So yeah, we will be doing a full episode about the lavender scare. But it's because of the attachment of lavender to all of that it became a very rallying protest thing as well when protests were finally able to be done, because it was also one of those things we're protesting against. The lavender scare. Just got you labeled a communist. That's all that did. It didn't really do anything to help, so it was very unfortunate. And then there's violets, which I think is pretty cool.
Speaker 2:Violets are specifically significant for sapphic love because of the poems of Sappho referencing violets very often, and specifically the 1926 play the Captive. There's a quote In the 1926 play the Captive, one female character sends bunches of flowers to another female character, perhaps referencing Sappho. The theme of lesbianism in this play led to an uproar and calls for a boycott and censorship. The New York City District Attorney's Office eventually gave into these calls and shut down the production. The association with violets and lesbianism from this play led to plummeting violet sales at US florists. However, at showings in Paris some women wore the flower on their lapels as a show of support and in years coming and around that, violets were often were allegedly kind of one of those things where a lot of clear history is word of mouth. Violets were allegedly given by women to other women in shows of romantic interest. As shows of this is more than just, I'm giving you a friendly gift. I would like to date you.
Speaker 1:That's amazing. I love that. Another thing with lesbians, too, is they would wear keys hanging from their chain pockets and, just like gay men would do, they would use that to indicate top or bottom as well. So if they hung their keys on the right, they were a bottom. If they hung them on the left, they were a top.
Speaker 2:It's the same as the hanky code, just a little bit. Yeah, I'd say. Keys were actually in addition to yeah, gay men also did the key thing, because that was something else I saw in that image of like how the gay man dressed in. I think it was from the advocate question. It was a queer magazine that published these photos of how we dress so it could be known for other gay men. If you want to show those signals, this is how you do it. That was the guide. If you will.
Speaker 1:You agree?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love that. That's fantastic. I actually got to write that down, so thank you.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And then my personal favorite, because I have a very strong affinity for this type of flower roses.
Speaker 2:Roses, in recent years have become a symbol for the trans community due to a piece of artwork done by a black trans artist named B Parker, called Forward Together, in which a pride march is being depicted with a banner in the background that says give us our roses while we are still here.
Speaker 2:And Parker said that they did this because of the fact that a lot of the times, roses are associated with grief, as are trans people, as are the most of the time when cis people are looking at us, they're doing it in tragedy, in times of well, in times of great pain for our community, and roses are also a symbol of funerals, of death, of mourning, of grief, and it's about turning that symbol that so much is about grief into something of love and creativity and joy and beauty, because roses are also that. Roses are both, so we can. We are not just stories of mourning, we are so much more. But yeah, that's the whole idea behind roses and transness and honestly I love it. There's also recently been a connection between butterflies and transness because of the idea of metamorphosis and seahorses and trans men, because seahorses the males, get pregnant A lot of trans men, especially when they choose to become pregnant, when they choose to whatever they choose to call that, they call themselves seahorse dads and I love that.
Speaker 1:That's very cool. I had no idea. This is exciting because I feel like I'm learning a lot.
Speaker 2:It's so cool. I love it. It makes me very happy to be able to teach All right, and this, I would say, would probably be the signaling that is still around to this day. Some of it isn't, some of it is. These are the lavender languages which I've only just learned about and I find so fascinating. However, I want to apologize in advance to our listeners. I am not South African. I am not Turkish. I desperately would. I may even pause and look up some pronunciations.
Speaker 1:That's really fine, and a lot of people that we're bringing up have their roots in other countries and other cultures. We can't be expected to know how to pronounce all that stuff, but yeah, I think you'll be forgiven.
Speaker 2:That's fair. Thank you, I appreciate that. So yeah, lavender languages are entire languages, cants and slang created by LGBTQ people, while homosexuality is criminalized. So this is for some countries, this was years ago. For other countries, this is still something that is alive and well, ever evolving kinds of languages, in all honesty, and they're languages out of necessity, but they're also. They're so beautiful. They're so beautiful I recommend I'll try to make a post on our socials showing the names of all of these languages. I recommend going on YouTube and looking up videos of people speaking in these languages. They have, for every single one of these languages, even the ones that aren't used anymore. They have videos of people speaking them so that these languages don't just die with time. I really recommend doing that because they are just so fascinating and beautiful and it's so cool to see what we queer people are able to do out of necessity and still make it something alive and art.
Speaker 1:Current day it's really cool.
Speaker 2:The first one I found is called Polari. It was in the UK. It was used before the 1960s UK queer rights movement and they basically would just replace certain words and phrases with absolute nonsense. And only other queer men knew what it was. If anyone else heard, it was just literal nonsense.
Speaker 1:So cool, so tell us about them.
Speaker 2:For example, got three drags into spit, was asking for a cigarette. Would it never be able to guess that unless you knew it?
Speaker 1:So cool, interesting. I would have never guessed that.
Speaker 2:And then there's Sward speak, which is also known as Becanees, and this is a language that is still alive and well in the Philippines. It's spoken in LGBTQ communities in the Philippines and, according to John Shaddle, who wrote an article for Vice on the subject, gay speak is a mixture of Tagalong English, spanish and a little bit of Japanese, along with regional influences. It's an anti language consisting of constantly changing and evolving far beyond what the heterosexual mainstream tries to appropriate. So constantly, this language is being stolen from and brought into the mainstream, and the language just keeps evolving past. They just keep. They keep making up the new things, they keep replacing different words and replacing different phrases, and so it is still always theirs and secret and safe.
Speaker 1:Can you imagine how much fun a linguist would have with these codes, especially a queer linguist? This would be fascinating for me. It's actually fascinating for me as somebody who loves to write, so I can't imagine being a linguist and just unpacking all of that.
Speaker 2:It's incredible. As a writer, I'm astounded. It's incredible. There's a quote from Danton Remoto, who I believe lives in the area. Speakers now have a way of languid their life. This bric-i-o-lage of disparate elements is an act of subverting the existing heterosexual power relations. In a sense, the Filipino gay empire has struck back at the center, using a language full of slippages and cracks, a language at once sophisticated and vulgar, serious and light, timely and timeless.
Speaker 1:Perfectly summed up.
Speaker 2:Specifically the end of that quote.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, but it was perfectly summed up.
Speaker 2:It. Just it seems like such a beautiful language. Yeah, because it's ever evolving. It is extremely difficult to find resources on how other queer people can try to learn how to speak this language. However, I feel personally this is my own thing due to the fact that there is still so much persecution against LGBTQ people within the Philippines. Unless you are Filipino, probably just stay away from trying to learn how to speak that and bring it more into the mainstream. That's not necessary, unless you are of that descent and you're listening and you're queer and you're here for this and then, yes, go for it. Unfortunately, I have very few resources to give you to be able to learn it, because it is so ever evolved. But unless that is your story, maybe just this one isn't really for you. This belongs to other people who still desperately need it.
Speaker 2:Exactly, and the same thing goes for this next one, which is also being dragged into the mainstream and continuously evolving beyond that. This is called Lumbacos, another language born out of necessity specifically amongst queer sex workers, mostly transgender women, who develop this language to communicate specifically just amongst each other and remain safe. Because of the fact that trans women in Turkey are still heavily discriminated against and cannot get forms of employment outside of sex work. Many of them do still work in sex work and require this language in order to stay alive. So as it gets dragged into the mainstream and it is forced to evolve past that, it is actively putting people's lives at risk.
Speaker 1:It's interesting, too, to see the various ways that different cultures actually utilize signaling, from anywhere to letting people know hey, I'm one of you to flirting, or virtual flirting, to all the way to. Hey, I need this to keep myself safe.
Speaker 2:To literal survival. Yeah, even the first one, polarity, from the UK prior to the 1960s. These were born entirely out of a need to stay alive. Specifically these last two, I would say, without a doubt, born out of a necessity for survival, because how else do you survive? It's fascinating, actually, because, similar to Polari, lumbacos was influenced by Romani, heavily influenced by Romani, and the main reason behind that is because both Romani people and sex workers were pushed to the similar fringes of society in Turkey and where they were able to learn from one another, languages were able to flow freely through these areas. Along with Romani influences, there are elements of Kurdish, greek and Bulgarian within this weaving, ever-evolving language.
Speaker 1:I think, too that just goes to show how old queerness actually is that we've always been here and that's an interweaving topic that we have brought into. Every episode is that we've always been here. We just maybe haven't had the language or the terminology to call it what it is or to better describe it, but it's interspersed throughout history, throughout time, throughout everything, every layer. It's there. It's just a matter of digging it out and shining a light on it.
Speaker 2:A free continent. But it's also one of those things where we have to be careful when and where we shine these lights, because with GaySpeak and with Lumbucca, these were pulled into the mainstream while still being necessary, whereas Polari is now being looked at and studied, but it hasn't been necessary for decades. It fell out of use once homosexuality was decriminalized. That's how that works. Once these are no longer necessary for survival, they become blips of history. This is not history at this point. This is present-day necessity for survival that just so happens to have very old roots.
Speaker 1:A moot point.
Speaker 2:Just I wish we could learn about these things or they weren't pulled into the light in a way where it made it dangerous. Both of these languages had vice articles on them before they were spoken about in this episode. Now, Us talking about it is not bringing it any more into the light than vice did.
Speaker 1:Exactly.
Speaker 2:But it's like where. Who did it first and why? Why did we start bringing this into the light when it was still so necessary for survival? Why didn't we work on the rights aspect of things before stealing this language?
Speaker 1:It's almost like you wish the roots were different than what they are, in a way.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and it's interesting, there's another I think they're a linguist. Our name is Pesha Megdid. She wrote on the subject for Atlas Obscura. As she said, the people who continue to be most at risk are transgender women. Many transgender women are unable to find work because of discrimination and turn to sex work out of economic necessity. They are working illegally, with great risk of violence or arrest. It is the reason that they still need Lumbucca and why, despite the language's popularity online, the majority of people who speak it fluently are transgender women.
Speaker 1:Violence, arrest and disease.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a lot.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and the violence is a spectrum too, because you can be a victim of battery, but you can also be a victim of sexual abuse or verbal abuse.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and it's wide ranging and unfortunately going to authorities.
Speaker 1:They're not going to help.
Speaker 2:No, they don't even help in this country.
Speaker 1:They don't care.
Speaker 2:They don't even help sex workers here. Let's be so real Authority figures. That's not. That's just not a thing. And I think Amsterdam is probably the only country I could think of where maybe that's a thing, but I would have to do more research to say that with any kind of confidence.
Speaker 1:Authority figures, too, is also something that's a slippery slope of a word to understand, because you're using your authority. What are you using for? What are you using it to stand for?
Speaker 2:Yeah, fair, yeah, absolutely. I also interviewed a former sex worker who she knew for this piece and she spoke of the girls making new words to replace the mainstream ones, and just to spoke of the fact that that's what this language is it evolves. It was born to evolve. It will continue to evolve. So I think that's pretty interesting.
Speaker 1:That could be. I love that last language that you talked about replacing old terminology because I feel even some of the things today that we've discussed, even the word homosexual outdated term is now we use queer or queer community.
Speaker 2:Yeah, LGBTQ.
Speaker 1:It's just so cool to see. Yeah, or even transgender. We used to use female to male or male to female, or F to M and F, and now it's like trans man, trans woman, and I've been alive long enough to see that evolution. So it's just really cool to see how language unfolds in these ways and evolves with the times Super cool.
Speaker 2:It is really cool. It's even at this point I say I'm transmasking on by that didn't exist. 20 years ago, when I was born, that terminology was in its infancy, just like me.
Speaker 2:Love that and that's just. It's so cool to be able to start saying things like this and knowing things like this and knowing that younger generations, as long as they're being raised in loving, welcoming, open environments, aren't going to have to wonder for so long and aren't going to have to make things up and think that they're weird or they're just going to have the word and be like, hey, that makes sense, I know that's okay.
Speaker 1:So what is your adjectives? Transmask.
Speaker 2:So it's to be transmasking on binary. So I'm not, wouldn't be like I'm not fully trans man. I don't plan on medically transitioning in any way. I don't really plan on going back on hormones. I don't think at this point. At least it's something I throw around pretty often, but I don't know. We'll see what happens.
Speaker 1:I love that. So what about it? What is the opposite of somebody who is in the process or has fully transitioned? What? What would be the equivalent?
Speaker 2:So it would be gender man, trans man. There you can still be transmask, non binary and fully medically transition. That's also totally a thing. It's just more along the lines of at least for me, to transmask, non binary means like I'm way more okay with my femininity than I was previously, ever before. I don't plan on medically transitioning in any way. I don't really need to bind all the time. Sometimes I'm cool wearing a whole ass, bra and makeup and be in the chick. It's okay. But even when I'm the chick, I still would rather go by it pronoun love. That yes.
Speaker 1:I love that I have terminology to we.
Speaker 2:this is unfolded with you Non binary lesbian for me it's fantastic, though it's great to learn new things and evolve and grow with these new things and heal with it and know yourself more. I feel like we look at introspection nowadays and knowing yourself is just like that. There's no time for that. What do you mean? You've got what you. It's the same you're gonna have, and you're only gonna have that you one time, and then you don't know what's gonna happen after. Cherish your.
Speaker 1:So cool? Exactly, I also hate the. I know we're getting a little off topic, but I also hate the pink is for girls, blue is for boys, stuff. I completely reject that. For me, it's not rejecting a side or a the yin of the yang of the duality of femininity, masculinity, because ultimately we, we have parts of both that's so valid but for me it's more like rejecting the stereotypes associated with them. I don't fit into that that's entirely see you later.
Speaker 2:I will say you're gonna appreciate the fun fact I just thought of for today.
Speaker 1:Then oh, awesome, can I just jump back and add in one more flagging.
Speaker 2:I have one more language Real quick.
Speaker 1:Oh shit, cool.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, jumping for that these two separate languages both come from South Africa and if you know anything about South Africa's history, you know that there is a very deep divide between races in South Africa due to a very long history of colonialism and absolutely atrocious crimes. Because of that, within South Africa, two separate gay languages develop, one for black gay South Africans and one for the descendants of colonial settlers that still live in South Africa. The first, which was created by black South Africans, is Is so this is how you pronounce the black South African gay secret language is a moment. This first language is believed to have been influenced by Cicoto, nguni and Isifulu, all of which fall under the Bantu language umbrella. So these are. It was influenced by three separate, by believed to be three separate sex of the Bantu language umbrella.
Speaker 2:Because Bantu language is extensive, there's many different category, sex, different camps, different type ways of speaking, dialects from different locations and stuff like that which is super fascinating. The languages described as extensive and colorful, a way of speaking that incorporates many languages and styles. The sophistication and pervasiveness of isn't cool, mo is an indication of the developed nature of black gay subculture and its rootedness in South African black townships on the re. So it's just, this is vibrant history. With it, it's really seems like a really beautiful language. Again, I implore people to look up YouTube videos. Even the websites I found this information on had YouTube videos hyperlinked right into the website that showed how different things were pronounced in the language. So I recommend just literally YouTube the name of the language and you will find different conversations and stuff like that in these languages. It's such a fascinating here.
Speaker 1:All of them seem to have really beautiful characteristics in their own right.
Speaker 2:It's really cool. I love it. It's so awesome. The final language we have is the second South African gay language, which is spoken by the descendants of colonial settlers in South Africa who are themselves queer, called gay, and gay is influenced by English and Africa, and what's interesting is it also seems to have influence from with some words being directly ripped from the UK's, which is to have sense ofEем to the ancestral language em mates.
Speaker 2:It's not even spelled like the name Gail, it's literally. It's great, I appreciate it. The language has been traced back to the 1950s, so very one other one of those sounds about right from around that time kind of things. And it's interesting because Gail will often use women's names for words with the same first letter Carol is cry, monica is money. But funny enough, the one name that doesn't seem to work for is the name Gail, which means chat C-H-A-T. Like to chat.
Speaker 1:Wow yeah indeed. Very interesting.
Speaker 2:And that is the end of the lavender languages and, by proxy, my knowledge on queer signaling.
Speaker 1:It's so cool how the language is named Gail. It has Gai in the word itself, yeah right, and its definition means to chat.
Speaker 2:It's sadastic.
Speaker 1:So essentially the definition of what language is.
Speaker 2:It's fantastic, it's great.
Speaker 1:So cool. That's great. Yeah, thanks for sharing all that. That was like. That blew my mind. I wanted to jump back and just add in two more ways of queer flagging before we jump to Fun Fact.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:So one of the things that I liked is the ace ring. It's typically a plain black ring worn on the middle finger and it's either tungsten, carbide or hematite they're at least the most popular but it basically is asexual visibility, so it's for signaling their identity, but also lets other people know that they're not alone. So I really like that one.
Speaker 2:I love that. That's fantastic.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And then the other one is femme flagging manicures. Oh yeah, there's different signaling there, but essentially femmes will paint all of their nails one color and then paint their ring finger nails or their middle finger a different color, or something with glitter on it, for example. So there's different signaling with the manicures.
Speaker 2:See, I've heard something a little different.
Speaker 1:Oh shit, what'd you hear? That has to be good.
Speaker 2:I've heard, when you go and you get your nails done, you get acrylics but you ask for these two to be shorter because you're a lesbian and oh. That was the manicure one I heard.
Speaker 1:Is that really signaling or is that just practical use? I'm just asking. We're a friend, so real, okay. All right, correct. Anyway, I think your face is the color of your new hair.
Speaker 2:I do believe it is. I do believe it is, it happens.
Speaker 1:Awesome. So, hey, do you want to jump to the fun fact?
Speaker 2:Oh, that's so funny. I would love to. So you were saying about how pink is for girls and blue is for boys. Right, we've all heard it, we all know it. Do you want to know? The fun fact today is that that was not always the case. Prior to the Holocaust, blue was for girls because of the Virgin Mary's veil being a very light blue, and pink was for boys because it was a lighter version of red and was seen as a very wild color. However, during the Holocaust, hitler put pink triangles on gay men and very suddenly, pink became a really girly color.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:And just like that, the flip just happened the moment pink became associated with queer people, it became the color for girls, Unreal.
Speaker 1:The 'y colour was part of pink and pinkimens and it appeared in the 프로. Definitely you.