The Elusive Bisexual: Social Categorization and Lexico-Semantic Change

Abstract

Abstract This chapter focuses on some of the “lavender lexical issues” raised by Arnold Zwicky in Chapter 1. In particular, it examines the inclusiveness and the exclusiveness of sexual minority labels-asking to whom speakers mean to refer when they use labels like gay and queer and whom hearers understand to be referred to when these words are used. Special attention is paid to the inclusion or exclusion of those labeled bisexual in the extensions of other labels, to see whether the emergence of bisexual activism since the 1970s has had an effect on lexical innovation and semantic change in sexual category labels. Certainly, the emergence of bisexual identity has encouraged much lexical innovation (e.g., bi, biphobia, monosexual, gay-identified bisexual, byke-Geller 1990; Hutchins and Kaahumanu 1991). Furthermore, as a bisexual identity (or identities) has developed and been asserted, so have debates about whether categories such as gay, lesbian, dyke, and queer include people who identify as bisexual, as well about who counts as bisexual.

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