The Slang You Use Every Day Has a Trans History Nobody Credits

Wouter Vermeer · 2026-10-12

Princess Jezebel wants you to think about where your favorite internet words actually come from. Because the truth is uncomfortable: language born inside trans, queer, and ballroom communities now fills mainstream entertainment and youth culture — while the people who created it still get treated like a problem. ### The Words Are Everywhere Now "Serving." "It's giving." "Spill the tea." "Clocking the tea." "Cunty." "Doll." "Diva." You've heard all of these. You've probably said half of them this week. They sit comfortably in everyday internet culture now, tossed around by people who have no idea where they started. For Jezebel, that's the contradiction she can't ignore. This language was shaped within Black and Latino queer, drag, and ballroom communities — with trans women at the center of that culture. Today, a mainstream that has historically portrayed trans people as dangerous, deviant, or disposable uses those same words for cultural capital. ### "I Grew Up in a Culture That Taught Audiences to Fear People Like Me" Jezebel remembers being 12 and watching *The Silence of the Lambs* with her siblings. She saw Buffalo Bill presented through the imagery of gender transition as a murderous predator. > "I grew up in a media culture that taught audiences to fear people like me, and now I live in a world where that same culture hijacks our language for cultural capital. There is an extraordinary contradiction in celebrating what trans people create while continuing to demonise trans people themselves." That gap between celebration and demonization is the heart of her argument. The culture gets loved. The people get pushed aside. ### Madonna's "Vogue" and the Pattern That Never Broke Jezebel points to a clear historical parallel: Madonna's 1990 single "Vogue." The song brought ballroom culture to a massive audience — culture that had been developed within predominantly Black and Latino LGBTQ+ communities. She argues the mainstream success reflected a pattern that continues today: - Trans and queer culture gets adopted and repackaged - It gets commercialized for mass consumption - The creators and originators rarely get centered - Those same communities remain marginalized Sound familiar? It should. You can watch it happen in real time every time a new slang term goes viral. ### Who Is Princess Jezebel? Jezebel isn't just commenting from the sidelines. She's a London-based professional dominatrix and the founder of a community for trans and non-binary BDSM professionals across the UK and Ireland. She offers first-hand commentary on trans identity, media, culture, and life in modern Britain. Her point isn't to police anyone's vocabulary. It's to ask a simple question: if you're going to use the language, can you at least respect the people who made it? Because language carries history. And the history of these words is trans, Black, Latino, and queer — whether the mainstream remembers that or not.