The Twitter Identity Police

This article is dedicated to @KomaedaNagitooo, who tweeted the following on 7/10/2022:

Ok time to make my once a year tweet /j! Anyways if ya think women can be gay I hate you /srs! Like bro the definition actually excludes women, gay is nwlnw, not your fucking umbrella term. Grow up and realize we aren’t your fucking trophy or smth.

For those unaware, “nwlnw” stands for “non-women loving non-women,” which sounds like how an alien or a Dennis Miller routine would describe male homosexuality. This Twitter user — who, I should note, is on the fringes with a tweet that gained little traction — is basically saying that women shouldn’t call themselves gay because that term is supposed to be used by men.

Of course, “gay” has had a number of meanings throughout all of human history — it famously meant “happy” until around half a century ago — so even if this person was right, he still has not explained why it should matter. However, it must also be pointed out that he is terribly wrong: The term “gay” has always been an umbrella term for homosexuals — just look at how many people said they supported “gay marriage,” for example as opposed to “gay and lesbian marriage.”

Mind you, it is not only lesbians who this user is mad at — bisexual men who call themselves gay are also the target of his ire: