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JoJo Siwa clarified her thoughts on the word “lesbian” after catching some heat for not using the term to identify her sexuality.
“I never said that lesbian was a dirty word and I never, ever would say that it’s a dirty word because it is not,” Siwa, 19, said in a video posted to TikTok on Friday. “It is not a bad word, it is not a slur, and it is especially not a word that I am ashamed of saying or ashamed of identifying as by any means.”
She continued, “Whenever someone talks to me about my sexuality I just say that I’m gay.”
Siwa further expressed that she just personally does not like “the sound” of the word, telling fans, “I don’t hate the word lesbian … it’s not the word that flows off the tongue for me, if that makes sense.”
The “Dance Moms” alum – who came out as gay in January 2021 – made the clarification after she received backlash for saying she didn’t like using the word “lesbian” last week.
“I don’t like the word itself,” the singer told Yahoo! Life at the time, adding, “It’s just, like ‘lesbian,’ it’s just like a lot.”
She added, “At the end of the day, that’s what I am,” and compared the term to the word “moist.”
Siwa addressed that society often incorrectly assumes that lesbians are masculine.
“You can be queer and be girly. I think that’s a thing, is a lot of times ‘lesbians’ are taken to be masculine,” she said in the controversial interview. “If you’re a lesbian you’re supposed to be, do you want to be a boy? That’s not the case. There are plenty of very feminine lesbians.”
Siwa was dragged by various users on Twitter users, who wrote things like, Lesbian is not a dirty word and the stigma needs to be unlearned BADLY,” and “in light of a recent jojo siwa interview, here’s a quick reminder that lesbian isn’t a bad or dirty word.”
A third person argued that Siwa should “100% be held accountable for the rhetoric she spreads,” adding, “I do hope she learns to accept herself and her identity, but that’s as far as my compassion goes. her words were extremely harmful and she should know better.”
Others were more understanding and pointed out that several women in the queer community grapple with using the term “lesbian.”
“jojo siwa is saying she technically is a lesbian but doesn’t like the term because it feels a lot like saying the word ‘moist’ and i don’t blame her … this is what happens when words become stigmatized,” one person tweeted.
“Woooooow y’all are being incredibly cruel to jojo siwa’s very obvious internalized lesbophobia. I’ve had that same convo w tons of lesbins on here, so many of us had to process accepting ‘lesbian’ as our descriptor after hearing it hurled as the most vicious insult imaginable, “a second said.
In Spring 2021, Siwa told People that she identifies as queer and pansexual.
“I still don’t know what I am. It’s like, I want to figure it out,” she said at the time.
“I like queer. Technically I would say that I am pansexual because that’s how I have always been my whole life … just like, my human is my human.”
Back in January, Siwa also celebrated her one-year anniversary of coming out as part of the LGBTQIA+ community.
“Truthfully I feel like I was put on this earth to be a role model for kids, and letting all the kids of the world know that loving everyone for who they are no matter what is something that I will always believe in and always share,” she wrote on Instagram.
Siwa, who recently made headlines for describing Candice Cameron Bure as the “rudest” celebrity she’s ever met, has since made history by becoming the first person on “Dancing With the Stars” to compete with a same-sex partner. She has been dating Kylie Prew on and off since February 2021.
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