Reading · Gay Pride - LGBT and Queer Voices

Latest Stories

Sign Me Up!

Get a roundup of the best in LGBTQ+ culture delivered to your inbox weekly.

Enter your email

Home
Lesbian

Rachel Kiley

Rachel Kiley is presumably a writer and definitely not a terminator. She can usually be found crying over queerbaiting in the Pitch Perfect franchise or on Twitter, if not both.

You may have heard about lesbian boyfriends, but have you been introduced to the idea of lesbian husbands?

Bachelor Nation alum and Traitors star Gabby Windey made headlines this week when she announced that she and Robby Hoffman had quietly gotten married in Las Vegas at the start of the year.

"Husband and wife!!" she captioned her Instagram post of wedding pics. Meanwhile, Hoffman’s own announcement read, "Ya boy off the market for life," and "I love my wife !!!!"

While the overwhelming response was pure excitement and congratulations directed at the happy couple, some people paid particular note to the word choices they each used for themselves and for one another.

So, what is a lesbian husband?

People use the term "lesbian husband" in a few different ways. Sometimes you may see it in reference to men who are more in touch with their feminine side, or even deployed in a similar manner as "work wife." But the most common usage is the simplest one — a woman married to another woman.

Isn't that a wife? you might wonder. Sure. But the discourse surrounding "lesbian boyfriends" was a reminder that LGBTQ+ people have always played around with both gender norms and gendered terms. A person doesn’t have to use he/him pronouns to be referred to as a boyfriend or a husband — the term just has to feel right.

Part of this is based in heteronormativity and the ways in which queer couples took precautions with their word choices so as to protect themselves in previous eras. But for many in modern times, it’s not quite that serious. Some queer women just feel more comfortable being referred to by masculine terms, even if their gender identity isn’t male. And sometimes, "husband" (or "boyfriend") is used on the occasional playful occasion, with "wife" (or "girlfriend") remaining in the rotation.

Warren Terra (@warrenterra.bsky.social)

bsky.app

As with anything surrounding labels, there are people both within and outside of the LGBTQ+ community who take issue with the idea that someone can be both a lesbian and a husband. Fortunately for them, what other people call one another has little to no impact on their lives. For everyone who does enjoy masc labels or staking a claim on heteronormative terms, describing queer women as boyfriends or husbands is here to stay.

putting my two cents in about this whole lesbian boyfriend dialogue - i love my lesbian boyfriend so much i proposed to them so they can be my 💕✨lesbian husband✨💕
— caitie🌈⭐️ (@bcaitie.bsky.social) January 3, 2025 at 3:54 PM

"putting my two cents in about this whole lesbian boyfriend dialogue - i love my lesbian boyfriend so much i proposed to them so they can be my lesbian husband"

"would a lesbian boyfriend walk around the neighborhood on an extremely windy day to pick up little treasures from his neighbors to decorate his little home he shares with his honeybun? no, but a lesbian husband, such as myself, would do it again."

"my lesbian husband, 1999!!"

"a lesbian husband with slight mommy issues. i love them"