Luke A.B.'s Blogging

Queer Vexillology- Flags I have created over the years (and across the internet): A collection In the years since I realised I was queer (2014) and since I was born (2000) the LGBTQ+ community has seen many new pride flags come into being with the express purpose of helping a community feel seen and represented symbolically. Since 2014, the various queer flags, the aromantic flag and the new 5-stripe lesbian flag have all come into being. The LGBTQ+ community has a penchant for making flags as a go-to symbol for any new gender, sexuality or relationship style term.  Personally, most of the flags I’ve ever created are variations of existing flags, but I have made quite a few in my time which people in my communities use.  But crucially, last year saw the use of one of my flags in a political sense. I haven’t yet publicly come forward about this, but a few days before the BBC Lily cade article fiasco happened, I was approached online by a BBC reporter whose office is less than t...

Bǣddel Bygones: An article on origins, usage and proper contextual analysis of the term Many people, by now, have written on bǣddel as a slur and have gone over how it may relate to trans women and various reclamation groups that arose in the late twenty-teens. But nobody, so far, seems to have given any credence at all for the context of its use or its origin and continued usage in British English today. Aside from apparently being the root of the word bad, it is a pejorative in Old English for gender nonconforming or effeminate cis men, intersex people and people who we would now refer to as trans women.  But this is where many non-linguists go off the rails. Old English is super old. Like, older than the Middle Ages (where people spoke Middle English). Old English is largely incomprehensible to modern English speakers and I’m willing to bet that most people involved in bǣddel debates are not able to read Old English. There’s also the issue of etymology, since again, most people ...