Queer(ing) language practices in a Hong Kong lesbian dating app

Abstract

The proliferation of social networking websites and dating apps has led to new language practices that foster intimacy and inspire romance. While several language studies have examined gay men’s use of dating apps, studies of lesbian dating apps have been scarce, particularly in non-Western contexts. To explore the relationship between digital media and lesbian dating practices in Hong Kong, this study examines how a forum on the social media app Butterfly facilitates the discursive construction and negotiation of Hong Kong lesbian sexual identities, both in users’ self-representations and preferences for desired others. The research uses a mixed method approach rooted in queer linguistics to combine quantitative and qualitative analyses of a corpus of 241 forum posts. The analysis reveals the common use of local identity labels, including relationship role labels such as “Tomboy” (TB) and “Tomboy’s girl” (TBG), along with other identity markers. However, the analysis also reveals users’ preferences for more neutral, or non-gender specific labels in the presentation of their sexual identities and those of their desired others, for example “No label” (NL). This research thus sheds light on how users may be making use of the app’s forum to question established, or more traditional local linguistic markers of gender/sexual identity, indicating queering trends in discourses of Hong Kong lesbian identities.