Why We Need To Start Thinking Of New Words To Define Love Between Two Women

The other day my partner and I were having a pleasant conversation with a heterosexual friend when she expressed how she felt about the word lesbian - it's not a pretty word, I don't like the sound of it, she said! 

I wasn't surprised at all; in fact, I had difficulties labeling myself with that same word for a long time, even though it sounds like roses compared to other mortifying words that people use to tag us.

I'm now 37 years old, and my partner is 46; we lived in times that weren't as open as the ones now; we aren't old, but things have changed fast. 

I know that things are cyclical; if Safo could write love letters to other women in Ancient Greece, in many modern ages, people were ostracized, and even worse, we all know that, right?

I have already heard it too many times, from non-lesbian and from lesbians yet to come out, "why do I need to be labeled as this or that" "why I can't just love who I want without labels?", it's impossible not to think of Julia Roberts in Nothing Hill with that famous phrase "I'm just a girl…" and in fact, many of us are just girls who actually love other girls. We also know that most of history was written by men; and because o that, the love between women turned out to be named through their blurred vision on the subject, mainly in a derogatory way!

I know that we are now in a period where it is acceptable to be a lesbian. I'm proudly a lesbian, but still a tiny piece inside my brain, maybe my sympathetic nervous system; it's always alert, cautious because of all the things happening in the world.

History tells us that what is right today can turn into persecution tomorrow. 

I'm proud to be who I am; I'm proud to love women, but also to love humanity! I also want those words to be adequate to our pride! That's why I think that we should start searching for new words! 

In Wikipedia, I could read something really insulting; it looked like that in 2008, a group of three people from Lesbos decided to go to court against the LGBTQIA+, saying that they felt insulted and ashamed because of the use of the word Lesbian, by the LGBTQIA+ community! The funny thing is, I also know so many women feeling the same about that same word, ashamed and insulted; it turns out they lost the case to the LGBTQIA+ of Greece and paid a fee of 250€.

Words, words, and words! 

Words are everything, and we, not just lesbians but all LGBTQIA+ communities, know that words can be weapons, deadly weapons! 

I know lesbians; still, in their 20's that use offensive vocabulary on themselves. I used to do it before, not anymore! 

Before, it was a kind of a desensitizing exercise; if I say that I'm a dike, I'm a fufa, I'm a sapatona, I would be building my armor, getting stronger for the fight! 

The thing is, I no longer want to fight! I refuse to fight! I'm part of the whole as anyone else; I'm not a weirdo, I'm not a pervert, I'm not a witch! I just love women!

Of course, we can say that words are just words, and according to the wisdom of Tao The King, "as bigger the front, as bigger the back" as bigger our prejudices against ourselves as bigger our difficulties using words to define ourselves.

I'm sure about one thing: I want new words! I want new words for our vocabulary of women that love women! Excellent, respectful, and graceful words! 

And maybe, maybe we can even give back the word Lesbian to those three Greeks as a present!

We need to redefine our vocabulary, and we need to write our own history and stop the patterns of these endless cycles because we can't stop the cycles, but we can certainly change them!