Building identities, building communities: Lesbian women and gaydar

This thesis examines identity and community building among lesbian women through the use of 'gaydar' or 'gay radar'. 'Gaydar' is commonly understood as the ability of lesbians, gays and queers to identify other people whom they believe are lesbian, gay or queer without explicitly being told. A total of eleven self-identified lesbian women participated in two loosely structured focus groups which examined how and why gaydar is used in everyday life. The data reveals that gaydar is used by lesbian women as a tool for building identities and communities. Gaydar can be conceptualized as central to the process of identity formation and maintenance because it allows women to represent themselves as lesbians and recognize the lesbian representations of other women. However, the potentially stereotypical cues upon which gaydar is based may result in a construction of lesbian identity which is limiting or essentializing. Gaydar can be conceptualized as a community building tool in relation to several conceptualizations of community: imagined communities, political communities, locality-based communities, and personal communities. The women who informed this research also recognize that the use of gaydar as a community building tool may result in the construction of a homogeneous community which does not recognize the full diversity of lesbian experience. Notwithstanding this problematic, a fuller understanding of the phenomenon of gaydar may provide valuable insight into the ways in which individual lesbian women construct and experience identity and community in their everyday lives.