But as the phrase exploded, many queer creators began to question the implication that all sapphics can and should be represented by one white musician. More and more TikToks emerged in which users would reject the trend by answering in a explicit way or offering examples of different queer artists that they felt more accurately represented them. In one TikTok from September, creator @krisxlle says, “Ladies and nonbinary people, you need to stop asking if I listen to Girl in Red… I listen to Young M.A., I’m gay. I’m single.”
Rhoad also dismissed the trend by responding to the question in August with a TikTok that featured songs by other queer musicians of color, like Kehlani, Young M.A., and ppcocaine. “I thought that other people of color who are queer and make music could also be a part of that,” they explain to them. “I feel like TikTok and everything else in the lesbian community is run by white lesbians, and I got kind of tired of seeing that.”
Madison Mendes, a 21-year-old college student in South Carolina who goes by @medusamendess, made a TikTok in October in which she explicitly offers different labels for Gen-Z sapphics to identify with. “So we’ve already established that we’ve got the Girl in Red lesbians, who are the indie bitches who like to skate and stuff, and the Young M.A. lesbians,” she asks in the video. “But where’s that happy medium, because I’m not either of those?” After pondering for a second, she then offers a solution: “Where are my Kehlani lesbians?”
The video garnered over 10,000 likes overnight. Users flooded the comments in agreement, offering examples of more queer musicians who could act as an alternative for sapphics who wanted to align themselves with other styles of R&B and pop, like Janelle Monáe, Syd, Willow, and Rina Sawayama.
Madison, who refers to Kehlani has a longtime role model, says that it’s helpful to have inspirational queer role models to take “bits and pieces of your personality” from — especially when crafting an online brand. “There are parts of ourselves that are made up and parts of ourselves that are realistic,” she offers. “You have your online persona and your real life persona. Often, those mesh together and you don’t really know [how]. It’s easier to have a person to represent what you’re trying to put out.”
Jones explains that it’s natural for these TikTokers to offer different sapphic archetypes in the form of musicians, because queer people usually want the find the most precise language possible to describe themselves with. She points out that this already happened in the ‘90s, when more specific identifiers like “soft butch,” “diesel dyke,” or “lipstick lesbian” began emerging in the lesbian community. Proposing new labels like “Kehlani lesbians” in opposition to “girl in red lesbians” is just the latest way that Gen-Z TikTokers have created new categories to most accurately describe themselves.
“When you’re a marginalized group, who you can be defined as and label yourself as is really important,” Jones explains, “and that means using the language that already exists or creating new language for yourself.”
But once LGBTQ+ language becomes mainstream, Jones warns, queer people usually tend to move on from a trendy saying, because it no longer functions as a shared signifier.
Her predictions are right: After 2020’s explosion of the “do you listen to girl in red?” trend, it slowly petered out toward the end of the year, making way for new euphemisms within the LGBTQ+ community and beyond. Last summer and fall saw the emergence of creators using “Sweater Weather” by the Neighbourhood as a bi anthem, and an audio clip of someone asking “Do you like Frank Ocean?” briefly trended among bi male creators as a way for them to signal to their sexuality. Straight couples have picked up on the tendency on employing certain songs to signal to their hetero identity, by using “Do you listen to Migos?” as a pick-up line.
Jones predicts that these sort of TikTok memes and phrases will “travel quicker than they would have,” in comparison to sapphic euphemisms like “a friend of Dorothy” that have been used for decades.
“Then there’ll be a new one that comes in,” she posits. “That’s the power of the internet.”
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