As a lesbian, I cringe when I hear straight women refer to their platonic friends as ‘‘girlfriends.’’ This usage feels as if it diminishes the significance of the term within the lesbian community. Lesbians use ‘‘friend’’ to mean a platonic friend and ‘‘girlfriend’’ to mean a romantic partner. It feels like an erasure of lesbians (and other queer identities) when straight women use ‘‘our’’ term. I’m not saying that they are intending to be homophobic or harmful, but the impact is anti-L.G.B.T.Q.+.
The use of the word ‘‘girlfriend’’ also leads to confusion. A colleague recently wrote to the staff that ‘‘my girlfriend of over 25 years passed away.’’ Those who know this colleague well understood that she was referring to her best friend; those who didn’t know her had to guess. Given the evolving landscape of language and identity, I wonder: Would it be ethically sound for me to ask people to use the term ‘‘friend’’ instead?
Insights from the Ethicist
From the Ethicist: Language conventions belong to language communities as a whole. No individual can decide what the rules are going to be; you can’t just order people to get off your lexical lawn. By the same token, though, there’s scope for a general conversation about how to sort things out. And when it comes to relationships, there’s plenty to be sorted out.
You mention one dimension: Is the relationship platonic or romantic? English isn’t the only language that invites ambiguity here. Among Germans, Freund or Freundin — the first is male, the second female — is the usual term for either type of bonds.
A second dimension is how serious a relationship is. A boyfriend — or a girlfriend, in the romantic sense — isn’t someone you’ve dated once or twice; the term indicates some level of commitment, even if well short of ‘‘partner’’ status. I myself find it a little odd that middle-aged people will refer to an unmarried partner as a ‘‘girlfriend’’ or ‘‘boyfriend’’ — ‘‘girls’’ and ‘‘boys’’ being terms for the young. Nor do those terms seem apt when you’ve been together for many years. It isn’t as if you’re seeing each other; you’ve made a life together.
Most of the time, context makes everything clear, or as clear as it needs to be. Everyone in the conversation is aware that the speaker is straight or is partnered with a particular woman. Disambiguation can arise, too, from our customary practices: Because polyamory isn’t the norm, when a woman says she’s doing something with her girlfriends, plural, we’ll typically infer that she means nonromantic attachments. And when a German speaker refers to someone as mein Freund (‘‘my friend’’), the singular construction can indicate a romantic pairing.
