(“C-t” is a gray area that could be its own essay.) Calling one another “gurl” can be affectionate, or hammer home a point you’re making, but in the wrong context it creeps uncomfortably close to misgendering someone.Ĭontext is everything. Nothing could ever be as radioactive as white people using the N-word, but cis gay men dropping “tranny” is ugly to see. A lot of adjustments in nomenclature are much subtler, though, and we’re in the middle of a series of fascinating shifts in how LGBTQ+ people talk about and understand one another.Ī lot of this is a simple gesture toward greater inclusiveness, a de-centering of a default maleness in the culture - both in the terms themselves and who uses them. That only changed in 2015, long after referring to a trans woman as a “she-male” had become appallingly unacceptable. (Ru later made it clear that that change was not her choice.) For the first half of its existence, the show was using “Ooh, girl, you’ve got she-mail!” - by then a stale reference to AOL’s greeting that was itself 20 years past its sell-by date.
It wasn’t the first time Drag Race producers have zhuzhed the script to reflect changing norms and standards in the LGBTQ+ community since the show’s 2008 debut.
