To Slay or Not to Slay

How did words like “slay”, “shade”, and “cunt” become so commonplace in daily interactions among non-queer Gen-Z members? I’m hesitant to use “appropriation” to describe the mainstream adaptation of queer vernacular due to the classic accusation that I’m trying to “gatekeep” words. I’m no gatekeeper – I’m just caught up on my history. However, acknowledging that this practice is appropriation requires an understanding of how cultural linguistic practices, such as African American Vernacular English (commonly known as AAVE) went from being disparaged to exploited to bastardized. Unlike AAVE and other modes of English vernacular developed by people of color, queer lingo has never received the same amount of stigma. 

For most of the 20th century, mainstream media thrived off stereotyping LGBTQ+ individuals as socially deviant and predatory. Blockbuster films such as Silence of The Lambs – whose villain, a transwoman referred to as Buffalo Bill, skins women alive to make a ‘woman suit’ – contributed to Americans’s perception that the queer community was a threat to the safety of cis people. More holistic LGBTQ+ representation in 20th-century films was a dime a dozen; positive portrayals, seen in documentaries such as Paris is Burning and movies like Philadelphia were frequently over sensationalized. While Philadelphia helped to de-stigmatize HIV/AIDs and further the gay rights movement in the 90s, Paris is Burning failed to have the same positive impact. Paris is Burning unearthed a queer subculture that was imperceptible to the outside world. While Jenni Livingston (the film’s white, lesbian director) gave queer people of color the ostensible benefit of visibility, she ultimately provided a gateway for facets of queer culture to be exploited while stagnating the gay rights movement for LGBTQ+ people of color. 

However, with the 2000s, something shifted: queerness, when represented by feminine gay men, became – to an extent– en vogue. Television franchises such as The Real Housewives popularized the archetype of the feminine gay man who acted as an accessory to wealthy women who sought to appear socially conscious. Little can elucidate this tokenization as well as the quote by infamous Real Housewives star Nene Leaks saying, “I wouldn’t go anywhere without a gay on my team…I believe that gays are very special people. And I have one!” Through the media depictions of a highly tokenized sector of the queer community, the vocabulary of the queer people started to become more commonly used in cis-circles. At the surface, this may appear harmless, it is anything but. Understanding its detriment requires understanding the use of language throughout history as a tool for constructing and reinforcing power. Power and oppression, race and gender complicate the etymology of the queer vernacular. 

Before queerness became remotely acceptable, ballroom culture and voguing offered spaces for intra-communal support for Black and Latine queer community. Ballroom culture organized underground competitions where people perfected different modes of gender performance, whereas voguing became a predominant dance form in the ballroom scene. The spaces where these art forms were celebrated gave people the freedom of expression in a world that discriminated against them for their race, sexual orientation, and gender expression. The practices of shade and reading were pioneered by the trans-women of color that were heavily involved in ballroom culture. Cis gay men were also responsible for creating the words and rhetoric of today’s queer vernacular. However, due to the social capital that they held over trans women, they were ultimately the only people from the LGBTQ+ community who could make this jargon more accessible to cisgender, heterosexual (cishet) people—especially women. This process created a pipeline where the language of queer people of color was shared with Black women. Subsequently, black women’s mannerism and vocabulary was mimicked by cis, white, gay men. Once white queer people had adopted this parlance, it was ultimately passed on to cishet, white women–who frequently took the credit for coming up with these phrases themselves. 

The past decade has seen the use of queer language among cishet people go from a conscious decision to signal that they are culturally aware to a subliminal way of speaking. These days, anyone can slay. The widespread use of words like “slay” has flattened their meaning and cultural significance as it functions beyond the queer spaces. Language and rhetoric are contextual to the people they are used by and the places they are used in, but when the walls of a particular linguistic practice are broken, words can lose their meaning. 

Take the word, “cunt” for example. Most Americans are squeamish about uttering that word whereas Brits say it with ease. The primary reason the c-word is taboo in America is due to its misogynistic, vulgar connotations which reduce women to their genitals. Within a queer context, the misogyny that is commonly associated with the word “cunt” has been removed. Ballroom culture and “passing” detach the misogyny from cunt as imitating cis-womanhood influences the way trans women engage with their femininity. For trans women, “serving cunt” means that they pass as cisgender and have the ability to operate in society without facing transphobia. Passing necessitates trans misogyny and racism because the paradigm of womanhood throughout the world frequently upholds eurocentric beauty standards, which often disenfranchise women of color from womanhood. Despite the double-edged sword of passing, “serving cunt” has historically been an affirming phrase for femme-presenting queer people. But what happens when someone who is not queer or trans says this phrase? 

A cishet man vocalizing that they’re “serving cunt” is relatively innocuous if not comical. The likelihood that he knows what it really means is improbable. However, a cishet man’s statement of that phrase has the same effect as Gretchen Weiners from Mean Girls saying, “That’s fetch!”—it means nothing and it's cringe. After all, cishet men were never meant to “serve cunt”, literally or figuratively. 

In the end, the dispersal of queer language poses virtually no harm to queer people as opposed to legislation such as the “Don’t Say Gay Bill” in Florida, which actively threatens queer students by limiting education on LGBTQ+ history. However, if we understand why and how we speak, we would probably be more appreciative of the work marginalized communities have done in shaping our cultural landscape.