“‘Lesbian’ is not a dirty word.”
“I don’t like the word ‘lesbian.’ It’s just like a lot,” she said. “It’s like the word ‘moist.’ It’s just like — ugh.”
While some people took no issue with what she said:
watching jojo siwa get lit up for the exact same thing i thought when i first accepted being gay after literal years of seeing people treat the word lesbian like it was the worst thing on earth
Woooooow y’all are being incredibly cruel to jojo siwa’s very obvious internalized lesbophobia. I’ve had that same convo w tons of lesbins on here, so many of us had to process accepting “lesbian” as our descriptor after hearing it hurled as the most vicious insult imaginable.
(2/3) in the same breath. even when i struggled with my identity, i was aware that my discomfort was my own issue that i shouldn’t project onto others. jojo clearly understands her position as a role model for young lgbtq people, so she needs to be extremely careful (+)
lesbian is not a dirty word and when u have people like girl in red or even jojo siwa who are considered ‘gay icons’ pushing that, it makes it sm worse. how do u expect lesbians to feel hearing these ‘icons’ literally hate the word lesbian?? not very inclusive of them is it
“I’ve been going through my comments and I just want to make something super clear — I never said that lesbian was a dirty word and I never, ever would say that it was a dirty word because it is not,” JoJo said in the video.
“It is not a bad word. It is not a slur, and it is especially not a word that I am ashamed of saying or ashamed of identifying as, by any means.”
JoJo then said it was more about the “sound” of the word itself. “I don’t hate the word ‘lesbian.’ Whenever someone talks to me about my sexuality, I just say that I’m ‘gay.’ It’s not the word that flows off the tongue for me, if that makes sense.”
Rodin Eckenroth / WireImage
So all in all, JoJo is saying she doesn’t love the pronunciation/phonetic element of the word. Glad she clarified.
Kevin Winter / Getty Images for iHeartRadio
You can watch her full TikTok on the situation here.
