Jun 23rd, 2006
Fag-Hag Emancipation
Cienna Madrid demands a better title in “The Fag-Hag Emancipation Act of 2006,” published in this year’s Queer Issue of the Stranger.
Excerpt:
To my gay friends who attach this label to me “affectionately” I’d like to say this: No term that ends in “hag” is flattering. Nor can it be called an endearment. I don’t “affectionately” label my gay friends in the most unflattering possible ways. It seems unfair that I’m stuck with “fag hag” but my gay friends aren’t stuck with “chubby co-dependent” or “self-mutilated anorexic pillow biter” or “sexually promiscuous child.”
…I would like to see the gays spearhead an initiative to officially abolish “fag hag” for the more apt and respectable term “gay nanny.”
The care-taking of immature gay friends doesn’t resonate with me, but wanting to shed the label does. I am often misread as what gay men would call a fag hag. So much so that I sometimes get dragged into a competitive duel I call “Stump the Hag.” It’s a gay man’s impromptu strategy to test how well schooled I am in queer culture and history by using lingo or references he anticipates will go over my head.
I voice my opposition to the term “fag hag” regularly and loudly. When gay dads dismiss my opposition and insist I just need to lighten up, I ask them if this label is what their daughters should aspire to be when they are grown.
My question is rhetorical, of course.
But it makes them stop insisting that I lighten up.
[...] - A recent post on a blog by Abagail Garner, whose father is a gay man and who runs the FamiliesLikeMine website, also points out some issues with the terminology of fag hag: “I voice my opposition to the term ‘fag hag’ regularly and loudly. When gay dads dismiss my opposition and insist I just need to lighten up, I ask them if this label is what their daughters should aspire to be when they are grown.” [...]
Don’t you think there’s something wrong with your relationship if he is subjecting you to competitive duels, and that is outside the term’s meaning?
The term doesn’t even come close to representing the actual relationships that exist between gay men and women everyday - but it also brings a certain visibility to the borders of gay and straight culture, and blurs some things we thought we knew for sure.
Doesn’t that make the term valuable? At least a little?
The duel I describe is an initial passive-aggressive confrontation that occurs not with people I already know, but rather with some gay strangers or gay friends-of-friends-of-friends who I encounter at whatever gay/queer event/conference/meeting.
What a great blog! I’m going to link back to you in mine on the Seattle PI and on my website! I’m a straight woman with a lot of gay male friends and I also don’t like the FH label. I’m also a web TV show producer and I thought you and your blog pals might want to watch a fun web TV show we just did on the unique relationships - and fascination - straight women have with gay men. It is a bite-sized show (under 5 minutes long) and you’ll see us talking to one of my gay male friends, Karl, about the stereotypes he faces and a slew of other things. You can see it this week here: http://www.WhitneyandWyatt.com and in a week it will be archived under our “relationships and sex” section. -Whitney Keyes