If Care Bear figurines, mini Tarot cards, or other eccentric oddities dangle from her ears in a TikTok, she very well might be queer. Certain signifiers — like earrings, bandanas, pins, and other accessories — have helped guide queer people to one another throughout history, of course. But in 2020, queer women are evolving the queearring trend on TikTok to make it their own.
The lines between queer TikTok and queer culture IRL have been blurred almost since the app’s earliest days; queer women in particular have turned the app into a dating pool. The #lesbianearrings tagーwith more than 58 million views and growing ーis one place where they can find each other. There, you’ll see TikTokers showing off their newest earring finds and creations to the tunes of musicians like girl in red. And while a single piece of understated jewelry could drop a hint about one’s queer identity in the 90s, TikTokers’ ear wear is anything but subtle: outlandish, fantastical accessories regularly go viral on the platform.
With homemade earrings that resemble pots of succulents molded out of clay, bloody pads made of paper and glitter, candy, chapstick, dried lemon slices, and many more creations, the list goes on and on.
“Using weird, outside of the box objects defines the trend,” queer TikToker Jordan Ingersoll, 16, tells them. “If I were to see a girl/feminine-presenting person out in public wearing rubber ducks as earrings I would know immediately that they are a lesbian/queer.”
Ingersoll doesn’t personally identify as a lesbian, but they think the trend goes beyond one label: “It’s about being comfortable expressing femininity in a queer-coded way, instead of what you’d think of as ‘traditional femininity.’” On the site, #lesbianearringtag (with over half a million views) is full of bi women and other non-lesbians participating, with notes like “I’m bi, but I love earrings, too.” Ingersoll thinks that “the trend can be for any WLW [women-loving women]” and that “the term ‘lesbian earrings’ was coined by lesbians but it’s not exclusive.”
Ingersoll, who has over 35,000 TikTok followers on an account whose bio proclaims “My whole personality is making lesbian earrings,” runs an Etsy shop where they sell dangly pieces made to look like plastic cats, Pantone swatches, and bouncy balls. Being involved in the community of LGBTQ+ creators and designers on TikTok and seeing their shop gain popularity has made them feel embraced — support they say is especially meaningful because they live in a small North Carolina town where LGBTQ+ representation is “severely lacking.”
TikToker Nod’Keya’ “Nod” Grace, 21, says the trend is all about “fun, funky, kitschy, and sometimes themed earrings that are eclectic and eccentric” worn by people who aren’t men as a way to signal their personal identity and style. Like Ingersoll, Nod uses their TikTok to promote their own online earring shop, full of pieces like plastic sushi, paper clips, Pokémon cards, and mini scissors. Nod, who is a Black nonbinary lesbian, says that they are driven to make their earrings to counter assumptions about what lesbians look like, “because I know someone who looks like me needs to see us living and thriving, and that’s what I want to keep doing — especially through this medium of lesbian earring making.”
In a world where straight people often co-opt queer fashion and culture trends, lesbian earrings are helping queer women, especially straight-passing femme lesbians, seek each other out. Bi TikToker Katy, who took up earring making as a quarantine hobby, thinks “it’s cool to see people be proud, expressive, and creative.” The 23-year-old acknowledges that the earrings she makes are “associated with queer culture” but doesn’t make them with the sole intent of being worn to highlight her sexuality. “For me, I make and wear these earrings because they make me feel bold and brave and fun,” she says.
