What's in a name...?

[elwen]

Stolen from mole-spam, and I can't do better than the original subject line:
Lesbians angry at gay women

Basically, people from the island of Lesbos are claiming that use of the word "lesbian" to refer to gay women is a demeaning human rights violation.

Next, are people from India going to sue Native Americans, because they don't want to be associated with scalping and trippy vision quests?

I mean, I feel their pain, but . . . you're not going to transform language with a lawsuit. Words will have the meanings they've evolved to have, even if those grew out of prejudice or dumb mistake. Like "sinister" lefties and "vulgar" commoners.

Comments

[bobthemole.livejournal.com]

While I can sympathize with their frustration over the appropriation of the name, they are about 300 years too late to do anything about it. According to Wiki, English did the initial pocket-rifling around the 1700s.

There's also a missed opportunity for tourism promotion here: "Lesbos! Where Lesbians feel right at home!"
Of course, marketing to the female gay community would be easier if the plaintiffs (and presumably other islanders) didn't find the connotations so "disgraceful".

[jd3000.livejournal.com]

This is like the woman who filed suit against the federal government in the 80s to have the Louisiana Purchase declared illegal and the territory returned to Spain. Day late, dollar short. Horses out of the barn, etc...

-JD

[lirillith.livejournal.com]

The argument that Sappho committed suicide for love of a man is OLD. Since even her poetry just exists in fragments, and marriage was pretty well mandatory at the time, there's no way to conclusively prove her sexuality one way or the other.

[snoflakes.livejournal.com]

I had the check the article to see who they were actually suing, and it's just one large group in Greece that uses lesbian in it's name. I mean, the word is used, well, everywhere it seems, don't they realize that even if they won it probably would do almost nothing for current usage? As you say, they can't police language by lawsuits.

I would imagine it would be a lot harder if (which I'm sure wouldn't happen) if Indians sued Native Americans, because that would be an international law case and I have no clue how it works. It sort of reminds me how France wants to keep the US from calling sparkling wine Champagne, they keep trying to get the US to change but I don't think they can, but again, I have no clue how these international law things work.

[ctrl-a.livejournal.com]

Well, the second paragraph says if they're successful (talk about huge if) "they may then start to fight the word lesbian internationally". I kind of want to say, "At least they're wise enough to take things a step at a time," except taking the first step wasn't so wise.

When people say things are a matter of "international law", they usually mean not that there is some universal set of laws that all nations obey -- because such a thing doesn't exist -- but more that there are complicated issues with applying one nation's laws within another nation's borders, or gaining jurisdiction over someone in a foreign country, etc. The problem basically boils down to things like: "If the Lesbians want to sue, say, a U.S. group in Greece, will the court accept jurisdiction or throw out the case? If the court accepts jurisdiction, chances are the U.S. group will not appear, and the Lesbians will win a default judgment against it. Then the question is, whether the Lesbians can get a U.S. court to recognize the judgment and enforce it." Or: "If the Lesbians want to sue the U.S. group in U.S. court, how will the court's choice-of-law provisions operate? [Just because you sue in, say, California, doesn't necessarily mean California law aplies.] Can the Lesbians get the court to choose an operative set of laws that actually gives them a cause of action?" International law and conflict of laws are hellishly complicated areas like that, but there aren't really any deep philosophical dilemmas involved, just mechanical operation of complicated rules. States have similar problems amongst themselves when they try to tax each other's municipal bonds or refuse to recognize each other's civil unions.

[ctrl-a.livejournal.com]

I should add that states, of course, have referees like the Supreme Court and default principles (which don't exist so much between countries) like the Full Faith and Credit clause to guide them.