A Quote by Shirley Geok-lin Lim

Is there a term that one might use rather than say that one is homosexual? Is there a different physical gender and symbolic dimension? I'm thinking of Adrienne Rich's notion of the lesbian spectrum. It's not as if sexual identity is binary: one must be either homo or hetero.

Shirley Geok-lin Lim

Quote Topics

Binary Different Dimension Either Gender Homosexual Identity Might Might Use Must Notion Physical Rather Rich Say Sexual Spectrum Symbolic Term Than Thinking Use

Quote Author

Shirley Geok-lin Lim
Writer
Born: 1944

I think one of the biggest misconceptions is that only gender non-conforming, non-binary, or trans people have a gender identity. But the truth is, everyone has a gender identity.

Asia Kate Dillon

A lot of people still have the idea that drag goes from one end of the gender spectrum to the other end of the gender spectrum, and they expect drag queens to be masculine out of drag and hyper-feminine in drag. I think that portrays a lot of binary thinking and, ultimately, a lot of misogyny.

Sasha Velour

A person's sexuality is so much more than one word "gay." No one refers to anyone as just "hetero" because that doesn't say anything. Sexual identity is broader than a label.

Gus Van Sant

So when I was about 13 or 14, I realized I was attracted to women and then made the assumption that I was a lesbian, and didn't realize that that wasn't the case. It was the fact that I was a man and a heterosexual man. The issue wasn't my sexual orientation, but rather my gender identity.

Chaz Bono

Non-binary is a term used by some people, myself included, who feel that their gender identity falls outside the tradition boxes of man or woman.

Asia Kate Dillon

I believe that sex is for marriage, and that's regardless of whether it's homosexual or hetero sexual.

Nicky Gumbel

I confused gender identity with sexual orientation. Your gender identity is about who you are, how you feel, the sex that you feel yourself to be. Sexual orientation is who you're attracted to.

Chaz Bono

Gender is not something that one is, it is something one does, an act... a "doing" rather than a "being". There is no gender identity behind the expressions of gender; that identity is performatively constituted by the very "expressions" that are said to be its results. If the immutable character of sex is contested, perhaps this construct called 'sex' is as culturally constructed as gender; indeed, perhaps it was always already gender, with the consequence that the distinction between sex and gender turns out to be no distinction at all.

Judith Butler

Since Reagan, it's almost impossible to get funding for research on sexual pleasure. You can find sexual behavior research, but not sexual pleasure. And let alone lesbian or homosexual sexuality.

Naomi Wolf

Thirty years ago, in 1976, the notion of organized activity to combat discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity was an extremely controversial one.

Robert Brady

Someone who is experiencing gender dysphoria would be someone who feels that his biological sex doesn't match up with the gender that he feels. So, I might feel like I am a woman trapped in a male body, and you can imagine how horrible that would be to have that kind of experience or to think that you're a man trapped in a woman's body. It must be just a terribly difficult experience for those who experience gender dysphoria. But this is not anything to do with homosexual attraction or activity. It's a matter of one's self-perceived identity.

William Lane Craig

I was so excited to be able to say that I was a lesbian that I would shake hands with strangers on the street and say, 'Hi! I'm Sally Gearhart and I'm a lesbian.' Once, appearing on a panel program, I began, 'I'm Sally Lesbian and I'm a gearhart!' I realized then that I had put too much of my identity into being lesbian.

Sally Miller Gearhart

Why would one's identity be a matter of feelings? I think that that's a misuse of terms, philosophically. Identity is mind independent. It's something that is objective, regardless of how you feel. So, the term gender identity seems to me to be something of an oxymoron. It's not really about one's identity. It's rather a matter of one's self-perception or one's feelings about oneself.

William Lane Craig

More platform-sensitive generations will make distinctions between online and in-person intimacy, whereas fourteen-year-olds have very nuanced online selves and might embody their virtual identity in the physical, analogue version of themselves. They have a much more pluralistic understanding of the self. I don't think we'd be here now in this amazing sexual and gender revolution without the online space where young people can see and share other versions of identity and sexuality.

Charlotte Cotton

When I first started going out to lesbian clubs, I felt a very binary recreation of hetero culture. There are butches and femmes, and I felt like I was neither of those things. I'm in a turtleneck and jeans and just learning to be comfortable in that space. I realized I don't have to be a certain way.