Johns Hopkins University has been blasted online this week for erasing women from its definition of the word “lesbian” in its LGBTQ glossary.
The teaching university’s “Gender and Sexuality Resources” office contains a glossary of LGBTQ identities and terms.
It includes a definition for the term “lesbian” that makes a point to exclude the word “woman.”
It reads:
A non-man attracted to non-men.
But the term “gay man” has no such gender-inclusive phrasing in its definition:
A man who is emotionally, romantically, sexually, affectionately, or relationally attracted to other men, or who identifies as a member of the gay community. At times, “gay” is used to refer to all people, regardless of gender, who have their primary sexual and or romantic attractions to people of the same gender. “Gay” is an adjective (not a noun) as in “He is a gay man.”
The university makes a point of explaining its decision to remove ‘women’ from the lesbian definition… inclusivity?
While past definitions refer to ‘lesbian’ as a woman who is emotionally, romantically, and/or sexually attracted to other women, this updated definition includes non-binary people who may also identify with the label.
So, just checking – its more inclusive to exclude ‘women’ (which make up 50%-ish of the world’s population?)
As you might expect, Johns Hopkins was slammed for the change. However, more notably, the abuse was ‘inclusive’ of the entire political spectrum, especially by LGBT commentators, on Twitter.
