INSIGHT
GURL, YOU BETTER SPEAK THE QUEENS’ ENGLISH Chloe Davis’s new book is a celebration of the creativity of queer culture
MAY / JUNE 2021
By Paul Gallant
About a decade ago, I received a copy of The Dictionary of familiar (well, not personally) with “lesbian bed death,” but got Homophobia, an English translation of the hefty French reference a chuckle discovering that “five-year tune-up” meant the “rare book written by Louis-Georges Tin. With essays on topics like the urge of a lesbian woman to have a sexual experience with a man.” Inquisition and Pat Buchanan, it’s a well-done and important book, “Spaghetti” is “someone who identifies as straight until they get but I found it too depressing for anything more than flipping through. intimate with a queer person or person of the same gender,” that is, straight when dry, but not after a few drinks. “Have a seat,” which Chloe O. Davis’s new book, however, is a nonjudgmental celebration Davis traces to the Black gay community and the larger queer of the creativity of queer culture. The Queens’ English: The and trans people of colour community, is defined as “a phrase LGBTQIA+ Dictionary of Lingo and Colloquial Phrases gets at expressing dissatisfaction with a person or action.” It conjures the how giving a name to an identity, desire or behaviour can make it simple image of an authority figure about to give a lecture, but the more real. Something more real can be discussed, and something superlative phrase is, perversely, “have several seats.” that can be discussed can be integrated and accepted into a larger dialogue that has, traditionally, been uneasy with all things queer. Then there are words imported from the health and political sectors, (Here I’m following Davis’s example in the book, using “queer” like the pseudo-medical “conversion therapy,” “endo” for an as a “catchall for people who identify as anything other than endocrinologist that a trans person might visit, and “MSM” and heterosexual and/or cisgender,” though she also uses LGBTQIA+.) “WSW,” respectively “men who have sex with men” and “women who have sex with women.” Healthcare types like “MSM” and Davis has a social mission: to make multifaceted queer communities “WSW” because it disconnects self-identity from behaviour since visible and accessible in a resource that might as easily be used in disease generally doesn’t care how you identify. the classroom as chatted about on bar stools. The leather and kink community also overflows with neologists: But innovative use of language is also just plain fun, even more so “aftercare” for the “time and compassionate attention given to a if you know the history. If you’ve ever overheard clueless straight partner after sex, scenario role-play, or BDSM activities,” as well teenagers in the mall “throwing shade,” as they imitate dialogue as “daddy dom,” who might be looking for a submission “boy.” from RuPaul’s Drag Race, then you can smile to yourself knowing that “shade” was coined back in the 1980s by New York City Black Other words seem to originate from a conscientious craving for and Latino queens in the ballroom scene. Ballroom culture, with people trying to make themselves visible by creating a label that its arch drag competitions, has not only provided RuPaul with anyone – whether their grandmother or a mainstream news source many of the catchphrases that his empire has popularized (think: – would feel comfortable using. There’s “demisexual” (one of “reading,” “category is…” and “sissy that walk”), but provides the Davis’s personal favourites) for someone who experiences “sexual foundation for many key terms in Davis’s lexicon. attraction only when a strong emotional connection is present.” A “graysexual” is a “sex-positive asexual person who is not sexually “It’s important to document because that’s how we share our history averse but may not have sexual feeling or attraction toward others.” with generations to come,” Davis tells me in a phone interview. “If You can also call a graysexual a “grace” or “gray ace,” and so deduce you don’t document, then you become lost, and sometimes create that “grace” is a fuzzification of “ace,” which is short for asexual. erasure in a community that’s been marginalized.” Needless to say, there are many, many words for people’s junk and Davis, a dancer and all-around creative type, got the idea for the what’s done with it: backdoor, bussy, schnauzer, jewels, package, book back in 2006 when she was with the Philadelphia Dance PIV, bumper-to-bumper, pegging and “kai kai,” the act of sex Company. Some of her fellow dancers were part of the ballroom between two drag queens. scene and they’d throw around jokes that sounded coded to Davis – she’s a millennial who identifies as a Black bisexual woman. She As well as identifying the community of origin for many words, started collecting those words and others, then began interviewing Davis includes explainers on HIV/AIDS; coming out; the hanky people, gathering expressions from all corners of the queer universe. code (e.g., gray left is bondage top); pronouns; and the differences between gender identity, gender expression and sexual orientation. Going through the dictionary, I notice certain categories of queer When I ask her if there were words she considered including but vocabularies. Many words come from slang, emerging when left out, Davis didn’t give me an example, but told me the draft subcultural groups create an insider’s language, often with humour went through “so many” sensitivity readings. She’s still keeping and a heap of bitchy attitude. There’s “full house” for someone a list of words she finds, and has been researching Polari (a gay with a sexually transmitted disease, or “butchkini” for a bathing British “secret code” language that may have roots back as far as suit a butch lesbian or masculine queer person might wear. I was the 16th century) for a forthcoming UK edition. 48
IN MAGAZINE
