Coded gay
Home / gay topics / Coded gay
Note: Queer coding is never an acceptable replacement for explicit, authentic representation, and is typically only used in modern storytelling due to anti-LGBTQIA+ censorship.
Color-coded, this system has been historically used by gay men to indicate preferred sexual fetishes, what kind of sex they are seeking, and whether they are a top or bottom.
It is thought that the wearing of bandanas by men originated in San Francisco after the Gold Rush, when, because of a shortage of women, men dancing with each other in square dances developed a code wherein the man wearing the blue bandana took the male part in the square dance, and the man wearing the red bandana took the female part.
Queer Coding
The subtextual coding of a character as queer by using recognizable LGBTQIA+ traits, stereotypes, and tropes (e.g., exaggerated femininity or masculinity, vanity, hypersexuality, intimate same-gender friendships and/or rivalries) without explicitly confirming it in the story.
Queer coding stems from censorship regulations like the Hays Code, which banned most onscreen portrayals of queer characters (unless they were evil and/or punished) for several decades. "If she's wearing flannel", you might answer, "or if she has an undercut", although that might not cut it anymore.
Many LGBT+ people throughout history would come up with covert ways to signal to each other that they were part of the same community.
Here, we take a look at the tools gay men have historically used to determine who is into what. These had to be subtle enough to fly under the radar of cisgender heterosexuals, so they were often items of clothing, accessories, slang, styles, or small tattoos that could easily be covered up.
The necessity for secret signals is somewhat diminished these days; the internet, social media, and dating apps have allowed LGBT+ people to connect with relative safety, while tolerance and acceptance grow in societies across the globe. Of course, this is not true of all societies, and in such places even the internet and dating apps may not be safe to use. For this reason, we are choosing to only focus on examples from the past and from countries already on the path to LGBT+ liberation.
Let us know of anything you think should be included!
Some may think that the gay community’s obsession with finding out the sexual proclivities of a potential partner is a trend of today. But questions like “into” and “looking for” have been around a lot longer than the dating apps we use today to ask them.
For more, see here and here.
.
Symbols and Signals
How do you tell if someone is gay?
The Hanky Code
The handkerchief code (also known as the hanky code, the bandana code and flagging) is the wearing of various colored bandanas around the neck was common in the mid- and late-nineteenth century among cowboys, steam railroad engineers and miners in the Western United States.
Despite these negative representations and the harm they have caused, queer coding itself isn’t inherently negative; it’s often used by queer creators to express their identity and experience when they are restricted by industry censorship, and queer coded characters have historically been the only form of representation for many LGBTQIA+ people.