--- title: "Beyond Gayle — paper by Williams and Kirsten (2026)" description: "Studies of South African lavender lexicons have centred almost entirely on Gayle, a variety tied mainly to gay men. 8 references." authors: ["Megan Williams", "Johanita Kirsten"] year: 2026 venue: "Literator 47" source: "https://literator.org.za/index.php/literator/article/view/2256" doi: "10.4102/lit.v47i1.2256" licence: "CC BY (journal licence per DOAJ; Literator)" licence_url: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/" summary_licence: "Elamur Cosmic License" canonical: "https://research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/williams-2026-gayle-queer-language-use-among/" --- [Elamur Research](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/williams-2026-gayle-queer-language-use-among/) [home](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [papers](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/) / [2026](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/2026/page/23/) / Beyond Gayle: Queer language use among Afrikaans-speaking queer women and nonbinary individuals in South Africa # Beyond Gayle: Queer language use among Afrikaans-speaking queer women and nonbinary individuals in South Africa **Authors:** Megan Williams and Johanita Kirsten · **Year:** 2026 · **Venue:** [Literator 47](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/venues/literator/) ([Literator 2026](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/venues/literator/2026/)) · **Publisher:** [AOSIS](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/publishers/aosis/) · **Licence:** [CC BY (journal licence per DOAJ; Literator)](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) **Links:** [Publisher's page](https://doi.org/10.4102/lit.v47i1.2256) · [PDF](https://literator.org.za/index.php/literator/article/download/2256/4317) · [DOI 10.4102/lit.v47i1.2256](https://doi.org/10.4102/lit.v47i1.2256) · [OpenAlex](https://openalex.org/W7166884926) **Citations:** 0 citations (OpenAlex, 2026-10-14) ## Summary Studies of South African lavender lexicons have centred almost entirely on Gayle, a variety tied mainly to gay men. Gayle grew up under legal prohibition, when concealment was a central reason for its use. Little was known about how Afrikaans-speaking queer women and nonbinary people use queer language today, when secrecy is no longer the main driver. Williams and Kirsten take Gayle research as a starting point and run a mixed-method study with participants of different ages. They collected 99 online questionnaire responses and also spoke at length with four queer Afrikaans speakers who are in the public eye, then analysed the material thematically. Their framework combines queer theory with sociolinguistics, queer linguistics and feminist linguistics. Queer language turns out to be mainly about building community, creating safe spaces and expressing identity, and this is strongest among younger respondents. Attitudes toward it are mostly positive. Nonbinary participants, however, say Afrikaans has few gender-neutral terms, so they often borrow from English. The study documents groups that earlier work overlooked and points toward research on gender-inclusive linguistic innovation. ## Key points - The data are 99 online questionnaire responses plus 4 detailed conversations with well-known queer Afrikaans personalities from different age groups. Analysis is thematic, following Clarke & Braun. - The reference variety is Gayle, as documented in Cage & Evans (2003). That variety mentions women only rarely and nonbinary people not at all. - The analysis looks at age, sexual identity and gender expression. Race, class and geographic location are explicitly left out. - The authors also ask whether the same words carry different meanings in queer settings than in heteronormative ones. - The data are de-identified but not openly released, because of consent conditions. The paper grew out of Williams's honours project at North-West University, "Kampvegters vir die Klitterati". ## Interesting ideas - The same word or phrase can mean one thing inside an in-group and something else in mainstream use, so meaning has to be read against the speaker's community context. - The authors pair a broad questionnaire, which gives breadth, with a few deep interviews, which explain why the patterns exist. - The authors break results down by age group, and that is how they see that younger speakers lean on queer language most for identity. - When a language lacks gender-neutral terms, speakers fill the gap by borrowing from another language. Lexical gaps and code-switching therefore follow from what speakers need to express. - The authors study an under-documented group by using a well-documented neighbouring variety (Gayle) as a methodological baseline. ## For Mova How these ideas could serve Mova, our small open language model — its files, stages and tests: - **I1** (frames): Frame and implicature reading could carry a register or community tag, so that irony and in-group senses are not forced into the default dictionary reading. - **I2** (learn): A large layer of silver data could be paired with a small set of cases examined closely by hand, so that disagreements are diagnosed and not just counted. - **I3** (learn): Evaluation could report accuracy per slice (text era, genre, speaker group) instead of one global score, which would expose where the parser or reader quietly fails. - **I4** (frames): Coreference should not assume binary gender or a plural reading for pronouns like singular "they", and it should tolerate borrowed or new identity terms. - **I5** (tree): For a sparse dialect or register, the closest well-annotated treebank could serve as the reference, and the conversion step would then only record the differences from it. *Our summary of the paper, in our own words — not its text. The work belongs to its authors; read it at the links above.* ## Institutions - [North-West University](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/universities/north-west-university/) — University, Potchefstroom, South Africa · 6 works · 5 citations 📚 Shelves (5): [🎭 Arts and Humanities](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/arts-and-humanities/) · 16,039 works · [🗣️ Language and Linguistics](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/arts-and-humanities/language-and-linguistics/) · 15,891 works · [🤝 Social Sciences](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/social-sciences/) · 1,772 works · [🤝 Sociology and Political Science](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/social-sciences/sociology-and-political-science/) · 577 works · [🤝 Gender Studies](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/social-sciences/gender-studies/) · 52 works ## Cite Cite as: Megan Williams and Johanita Kirsten. 2026. Beyond Gayle: Queer language use among Afrikaans-speaking queer women and nonbinary individuals in South Africa. Literator 47. The paper itself, not this page. BibTeX from the library's record of the work. ```bibtex @inproceedings{williams2026beyond, title = {{Beyond Gayle: Queer language use among Afrikaans-speaking queer women and nonbinary individuals in South Africa}}, author = {Megan Williams and Johanita Kirsten}, booktitle = {Literator 47}, year = {2026}, doi = {10.4102/lit.v47i1.2256}, url = {https://doi.org/10.4102/lit.v47i1.2256} } ``` - [← previous Beyond Fluency: A Rubric-Based Benchmark for Evaluating Saudi Dialect and Cultural Competence in Large Language Models](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/al-sumaidaee-2026-fluency-rubric-based-benchmark-evaluating/) - [next → Beyond Genre Categories: How Narrative Pattern Coherence and Spanning Distance Shape Film Success](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/wang-2026-beyond-genre-categories-how-narrative/) - [↑ back to papers of 2026](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/2026/page/23/) ## References 8 references, 0 of them with a card of ours. ↗ leads to the work, «find» searches for one we have no id for yet. 1. Van Rooy, B., 2017, ‘Die Afrikaanse Taalkunde van toeka tot nou [Afrikaans Linguistics from then to now]’, in W.A.M. Carstens & N. Bosman (eds.), Kontemporêre Afrikaanse taalkunde [Contemporary Afrikaans linguistics], pp. 1–25, Van Schaik Uitgewers, Pretoria. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Van+Rooy%2C+B%2E%2C+2017%2C+%E2%80%98Die+Afrikaanse+Taalkunde+van+toeka+tot+nou+%5BAfrikaans+Linguistics+from+then+to+now%5D%E2%80%99%2C+in+W%2EA%2EM%2E+Carstens+%26+N%2E+Bosman+%28eds%2E%29%2C+Kontempor%C3%AAre+Afrikaanse+taalkunde+%5BContemporary+Afrika) 2. Becker, K., Khan, S. ud D. & Zimman, L., 2022, ‘Beyond binary gender: Creaky voice, gender, and the variationist enterprise’, Language Variation and Change 34(2), 215–238. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0954394522000138 [↗](https://doi.org/10.1017/s0954394522000138) 3. Braun, V., Clarke, V., Boulton, E., Davey, L. & McEvoy, C., 2021, ‘The online survey as a qualitative research tool’, International Journal of Social Research Methodology 24(6), 641–654. https://doi.org/10.1080/13645579.2020.1805550 [↗](https://doi.org/10.1080/13645579.2020.1805550) 4. Švejcer, A.D. & Nikol’skij, L.B., 1986, Introduction to sociolinguistics, John Benjamins Publishing, Amsterdam. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=%C5%A0vejcer%2C+A%2ED%2E+%26+Nikol%E2%80%99skij%2C+L%2EB%2E%2C+1986%2C+Introduction+to+sociolinguistics%2C+John+Benjamins+Publishing%2C+Amsterdam%2E) 5. Svendsen, A.D., 2019, ‘Lakoff and women’s language’, Leviathan: Interdisciplinary Journal in English 4(4), 1–11. https://doi.org/10.7146/lev.v0i4.112651 [↗](https://doi.org/10.7146/lev.v0i4.112651) 6. Van Rooy, A.J., 1996, ‘Is generiese manlike voornaamwoorde regtig generies? [Are generic masculine pronouns really generic?]’, South African Journal of Linguistics 14(1), 33–41. https://doi.org/10.1080/10118063.1996.9724041 [↗](https://doi.org/10.1080/10118063.1996.9724041) 7. Wardhaugh, R. & Fuller, M.J., 2015, An introduction to sociolinguistics, 7th edn., John Wiley & Sons, Inc., West Sussex. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Wardhaugh%2C+R%2E+%26+Fuller%2C+M%2EJ%2E%2C+2015%2C+An+introduction+to+sociolinguistics%2C+7th+edn%2E%2C+John+Wiley+%26+Sons%2C+Inc%2E%2C+West+Sussex%2E) 8. Zimman, L., 2017, ‘Transgender language reform: Some challenges and strategies for promoting trans-affirming, gender-inclusive language’, Journal of Language and Discrimination 1(1), 84–105. https://doi.org/10.1558/jld.33139 [↗](https://doi.org/10.1558/jld.33139) *Updated 30 October 2026*