Word: Betty Grisoni and Abby Lee

At every of our ‘Les Peches’ events, we have either tourists or newly arrived to Hong Kong. We always love showing these ladies a warm welcome which usually breaks down a few clichés about the lesbian scene here in Hong Kong. You know the ones: there are no lesbians or queer women in Hong Kong, lesbians here are unfriendly and cold and don’t know how to have fun etc…

Last month, we had an especially high number of these out-of-towners. After a few drinks and meeting some of our great members, we have always have a chat. In general, the conversations start by us asking where they are from and where they have heard of Les Peches. After that the conversation often turns to the Hong Kong lesbian community and the differences it has with similar communities around the world. You will be happy to know that we usually hear lots of praise. People often mention how friendly the local lesbians and queer women are and how much they want to know about different cultures and different way of life. Invariably, the topic of labels comes up. Local women would ask their new friends what are they. Now this is where cultural differences come to play. You see, in the Hong Kong’s queer women’s world, labels are of the up-most importance.

Below are a small description of these labels:

TB – These two letters usually associated with a deadly disease but in this context stand for Tom Boy. These women have the most masculine outlook of all in our community. They dress like boys and act a little or a lot like them too. Some might bind their breasts. Sexually, they consider themselves tops and might not even undress completely during sex. They take care of their girlfriends in a way they find masculine.

TBG - These three letters stand for ‘Tom Boy Girl’. As the name indicates these women are usually the partners of the TBs. They would be more girly in appearance.

PURE – Women who describe themselves as ‘Pure’ which stands for ‘pure lesbian’ might also be of a more feminine appearance but they might not take the ‘gender roles’ as seriously as the two previous groups.

LES – This is an easy one. ‘Les’ just means ‘lesbian’. Women calling themselves ‘les’ might be of masculine or feminine outlook.

Now, these labels have combinations. You see TBs can go out with TBGs, Pure and Les but TBG’s won’t go out with Pure. They might accept dates with a ‘les’ but only if they are masculine. TB’s won’t do each other but ‘les’ would. These combinations might be a little funny and always surprise any new comers to Hong Kong. Especially when one of the first questions they are asked is: “What are you? TB, TBG or Pure?”.

This labelling system was difficult for us (both not Hong Kong born) to understand when we first arrived in Hong Kong. All these different and very specific labels were making us dizzy. We did not quite understand why labels were so important but we see now that these are the rules of our community and if labelling is a way for queer women to feel empowered, we love labels!

… on a very personal note… March 2nd it is going to be our 8th wedding anniversary and we are very happy to share the joy with all of you. We married each other March 2002 and it was the most beautiful day of our lives no labels required.

Let us know what you think. Please write to Abby&Betty at lespechesinfo@yahoo.com@yahoo.com