Talk:lesbian

Translations in 2004

Why do the Polish and Swedish translations number their senses as 1 and 2, when there is only one noun sense given? Either something got moved around, or someone got confused by headings. —Muke Tever 05:58, 24 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Exclusively or Mostly??

How do I put this? If you are a lesbian/gay woman, you date/prefer women. If you mostly date women but would also date a guy, you are not really (in the traditonal sense of the word in the LGBTQIA+ community!!!) a lesbian? I mean, I am totally fine with whatever anyone identifies as, but I feel as if that part of the definition should be removed or rephrased.. If you identify as a girl and date girls and guys and/or our gender non-conforming friends, then you will probably be called bisexual, pansexual, or polysexual respectively. Maybe I'm wrong. Thanks for considering my suggestion and please believe I had no intention of demeaning or insulting anyone in any way-

Applejuiceandpeachh (talk) 03:37, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

I added that—as part of this edit undoing an earlier change which had changed the definition to "attracted to other non-men"(!)—in an effort to narrow the earlier wording which just said "preferring" women, which was even more broad. (I prefer pepperoni pizza, but also enjoy a good veggie pizza...) In my experience all the labels are a bit fuzzy (some people I know or have seen occasional news articles about identify as straight or gay but sometimes take partners of the "wrong" gender), which is why I shied away from saying something as firm as "exclusively". But, as Equinox sometimes chides, dictionaries may have to have firm definitions, so maybe it should be changed. - -sche (discuss) 04:07, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

In fact, her new (apparently bad) book has just caused EJ Levy's story of identifying as a lesbian while marrying a man (which an acquaintance of mine also did!) to come back up. I still wouldn't really object if more editors wanted to change the def to "only", but, there's a concrete example of the fuzziness. - -sche (discuss) 22:20, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

Related Tea Room discussion: Wiktionary:Tea room/2020/February#lesbian. - -sche (discuss) 20:17, 4 February 2020 (UTC)

RFV discussion: February 2020

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lesbian

Tagged by but not listed: RFV of the noun sense "A homosexual female animal". (See also Wiktionary:Tea room/2020/February#lesbian.) I'm sure most of us have seen news stories of "gay penguins" etc using the adjective "gay", and I can manage to cite the adjective "lesbian" also being used of animals, but I'm having a hard time finding examples of the noun being used of animals, even though it seems very plausible. Searching for "are lesbians" + various animal names in the hope of finding e.g. "__% of giraffes are lesbians" isn't netting me anything. - -sche (discuss) 16:46, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

Aha, I found two citations of gulls being called lesbians. I see no reason to think this use would be limited to gulls, but it'd still be nice to track down a use or two in reference to some other animals. - -sche (discuss) 16:50, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

In the title of the book My Lead Dog Was A Lesbian it is used for a dog.  --Lambiam 21:27, 2 February 2020 (UTC)

And I can find a use in reference to tigers (although it's not great, referring to someone's misconception) and a cat (though it's also not great, referring to a fictional cat AFAICT) and another dog. I reckon this is cited. (It is marked "uncommon".) - -sche (discuss) 20:20, 4 February 2020 (UTC)

RFV-passed Kiwima (talk) 22:00, 11 February 2020 (UTC)