The New Problem With The Word “Girl”

“Today we are talking about breaking boundaries,” EJ Johnson declared from the stage of Beautycon, a two-day cosmetics festival held in August at the Los Angeles Convention Center. The 25-year-old son of Magic Johnson was moderating a panel called “The Gender Revolution,” and he was dressed for the part: black silk pants, crop top, sleeveless duster.

“We are talking about people who are not afraid to live their truth,” he continued, in a white armchair flanked by neon palm trees. “That is what beauty is all about, because it is in the eye of the beholder, honey.”

He introduced the panelists: young beauty “influencers” who, like Mr. Johnson, belong to a generation whose vocabulary for gender and sexual identity has stretched to include every conceivable hue. One of them, a gender-fluid 17-year-old YouTube star named Brendan Jordan, said, “I get asked if I’m a boy or a girl a lot. I’m just like, ‘Yes.’”

Mr. Johnson nodded and added: “That’s just the way we’re moving in the world, where everyone’s just going to be one big gray area.”

Since he was outed as gay by TMZ in 2013, Mr. Johnson has seized his own place in the gender revolution (or at least its pop-culture incarnation), mostly as a fabulous dresser. His style is ostentatiously androgynous: fur shawls, ankle boots, diamond chokers, sheer tops, draped on a frame nearly as towering as that of his father, a former Los Angeles Lakers star.

Like his gender-diverse wardrobe, his brand of fame is quintessentially modern: celebrity scion turned reality TV star turned Instagram self-chronicler. (His 631,000 followers had a virtual seat on his family’s summer yacht trip through Europe.)

Though he is determined to escape his father’s 6-foot-9-inch shadow, he has not shied away from flaunting his hyper-privileged lifestyle, first on the reality series “#Rich Kids of Beverly Hills,” which ran for four seasons on E!, and then on his own short-lived spinoff, “EJNYC.”

While his show had many of the familiar tropes of reality TV (shopping sprees, contrived squabbles), Mr. Johnson was an unconventional protagonist.

“There wasn’t any show that profiled a young person of color with a different sexual orientation living their life,” he said at his apartment in Beverly Hills before the Beautycon panel. He was perched on a golden bar stool (the décor was what he called “modern princessy”) in a translucent leopard-print robe, as a makeup artist applied blush.

“I’m not just some other rich girl who’s trying to get a show.”

okay.
so my acquaintance,
who i’ve had to check for calling me a “girl”,
was offended when ej called himself a “girl” in the article.
she thought that because some gays address each other as “girls”,
she found herself getting comfortable.
funny how the tables turn.
so i had to ask why she was upset.
she goes…

“because he is a man jamari.
not a girl.
the transsexuals and now gay males are trying to erase females now.
i’m not with it.”

…but wait?
i thought it was okay to call some gays “girls”?
is it a problem because some are actually embracing it?
or is a problem because paws are silently being stepped on?
this isn’t the first time i’ve heard/read vixens say:

“trans vixens are males trying to be vixens.”
“the media is trying to erase vixens.”

i thought they got mad when they found out about the dl,
but now it’s a whole new can of worms being cracked opened.
i’m starting to believe some vixens aren’t as “comfortable” with “us”.
no matter how masculine or feminine we are.
they like getting all the gossip and finding out who is gay,
but now that the world is going into a “grey area”,
i am noticing a change with some of these vixens out here.
stay tuned.

article cc: the new york times