Partner.  Is it just me, or did that word once signify a subtle way of not specifying the gender of one's lover?  And didn't more queer than straight people use it, or have I been fooling myself?  In my often muddled mind, when I lived in the United Kingdom in the nineties, "partner" was a useful signal that you were in fact talking to a queer person, because straight people just said girlfriend or boyfriend without fear of being discriminated against for it and of course, in those days, only straight people could say husband or wife, legally.  We couldn't, because even fewer countries than now recognised our right to marry.

(Sidenote: catch the hell UP, America!  Call yourselves the leader of the free world?  Huh?!)

Anyway, as a consequence of my own possibly deluded deductions, the word "partner" has always reminded me of lesbians ... and cowboys.  I remember saying "girlfriend" with extra emphasis when I was being all young and out and proud and in-yer-face about things.  Partner ... I never liked the word, it sounded far too much like cowboys and lawyers to me and also, like an escape.  Not confronting the gender issue didn't mean freedom to me then, I hadn't even begun to think about gender issues much.

Then in 2004 I was back in the UK and suddenly it seemed to me that everyone had partners.  At first I thought I was meeting an extraordinary number of queers, who mentioned their partners nonchalantly and I thought, "Yay!" and did the old lesbian eye-contact thing with gusto.  Turned out every damn body was saying it.  Partner meant anything at all and straight people were using the word a lot.  Were they being gender-free?  Were they recognising that a thirty year old boyfriend or girlfriend was neither boy nor girl by that age?  Was it simply another sign of the occupational health and safety level of political correctness in Britain, where people were starting to litigate like Americans and fall over themselves trying not to offend anyone?

I discussed it all with someone recently who disagreed, saying partner's just always been one of those acceptable terms, so I'm open to correction on this one.

Right, next!

Gal.  Gals.  I hate that term with a passion bordering on rage.  It annoys me even more than "lady" does, or "my girl" when applied to late thirties me by an adult male of any age.  yet the lesbosphere seems to be full of it.  Flipping through the latest Lesbian Connection the other day, I noticed that the magazine, which I love, because it is free and targeted at older lesbians, was positively riddled with the word "gals" - gals were all over the freaking place, holding festivals and going camping.  Sorry, but isn't gal a cowboys and Americans style corruption of girl and as such, is it not completely unsuitable when applied to adult women?  Or wimmin or womyn or whatever the current pc term is.

I surrender though - I'll call my girlfriend partner instead of girlfriend, since she is actually above the age of consent, but I'll be slightly grouchy about it, because nobody will ever be sure whether I'm talking about my girlfriend, my business partner, or a passing cowboy.  Lover is a lovely word, but not always appropriate to use - do business contacts and kids really need that level of information?

I give up - labels are tricky, being label-free is just downright confusing.

Words + photo: Ulla Kelly