The Words We Choose, The Worlds We Build

By Joslyn Hatfield

Lesbian Visibility Week, observed each year from April 20–26, is still a relatively new tradition in the US. But somehow its themes feel deeply familiar. Community, self-care and celebration. It raises a question that feels both simple and expansive: Are the words we choose to define ourselves central expressions of celebration and self care?

Well, yes. And, it’s complicated. In my first weeks at San Diego Pride, I wrote about “finding a dyke” in moments of doubt. It was also an acknowledgement that in ANY crisis, your chances of survival improve significantly if you are near a lesbian. 

It was a shorthand for sheltering yourself in someone else’s courage, humor, or refusal to disappear. I still believe in that sentiment. And, I find myself sitting in conversations where (often younger) folks don’t claim the word lesbian or even dyke as home. I still find home in these terms.

Recently, I spoke with a Gen X lesbian who made a compelling case for the preservation of “lesbian language”, even as gender identity and expression continue to expand. Her perspective wasn’t rooted in exclusion. She isn’t a Trans-exclusionary radical feminist lesbian (TERFL)… quite the opposite, in fact. But she prompted reflection. Words carry history, and that history carries us. 

The language to name queer experiences has always been fluid. It has transformed from something imposed upon us into something we actively shape. Words once used to harm us (like queer) have been reclaimed as tools of power. More expansive identity terms (such as nonbinary, pansexual, genderfluid) have emerged to more precisely reflect our lived experiences. Pronouns have shifted. Acronyms have expanded. Even grammar itself is reimagined to break from the confines of a binary world.

In this way, language becomes a living archive of our resistance. Yet, within that revolution, there is a quiet tension. The challenge becomes how to honor specificity while embracing fluidity. It becomes vital to expand the umbrella without losing sight of the distinct histories that built it.

Lesbian history is not abstract. It is embodied. It lives in leaders like Chris Kehoe, who became San Diego County’s first openly LGBTQ elected official and helped shape both political and community infrastructure. It lives in organizers, caregivers, and fighters, the Blood Sisters of the AIDS epidemic, women like Peggy Heathers, Nicolette Ibarra, and Barbara Vick, who stepped forward when institutions failed. It lives in the voice of Chicana lesbian activists Teresa Oyos and Carolina Ramos.

And it lives, too, in those whose names we may never know. The generations of lesbians who did the work quietly, insistently and without recognition.

The words we use. Lesbian. Dyke. Queer. Fluid. These are not just descriptors. They are entry points into our legacies. They signal belonging, but they also signal evolution.

So this Lesbian Visibility Week, when we question whether language is central to community, self-care and celebration, we are really seeking to understand how we hold both evolution and legacy. To claim your language and call yourself something (anything) is to see yourself in a lineage. It shows us where we belong. In a world that has so often tried to name us without our consent, that act of belonging remains a radical form of care.