⛓️ the mighty carabiner ⛓️

QUEER WORD
CARABINER

What It Means:

Literally speaking, a carabiner is a metal loop with a spring-loaded gate, typically used in climbing and outdoor activities to clip things together safely. 

But in queer culture - specifically lesbian and sapphic culture - a carabiner clipped to your belt loop, backpack, or keys represents a subtle signal of queerness, intended only for those in-the-know to pick up on. 

Let’s Use It In A Sentence:

Patrice wore a carabiner on her belt loop that served no practical purpose whatsoever. Which is precisely how I knew her priorities in life were perfectly aligned with mine.

Everything Old Is New Again

When I was a kid there were a number of popular stereotypes about lesbians. You probably already know the ones I’m talking about - that they all eat tofu, wear flannel shirts and keep their fingernails short (for… reasons).

And whilst some of those stereotypes still persist today, we largely have a much broader cultural understanding of our sapphic sisters now.

Which is why it's so odd to me that the carabiner - another old-time lesbian stereotype - has come roaring back in to fashion. What was once an old-fashioned relic of lesbian culture is now being used by certain sapphics to signal to each other that they're queer and ready to adopt cats and/or move in together at a moment's notice…(speaking of stereotypes). 

But where did the carabiner come from? How did it come to be associated with women-loving-women? And does the colour of your carabiner say anything in particular?

Let’s dig into a brief history of the humble clip. 

Fun Facts About The Carabiner

The invention:

The carabiner was first invented in 1910 by Otto ‘Rambo’ Herzog, a German climber, specifically for mountaineering after being inspired by oblong clips he saw attached to the uniforms of a local fire brigade (though, it’s worth noting that early versions of the clip were not… let’s say…  very reliable). 

The word itself:

The name he chose, carabiner, comes from a type of 17th-century soldier who used a shorter-barrelled rifle called a ‘carbine’. Those rifles were fitted with a strap that let them hook onto a pair of clips, and the name eventually stuck to the clip rather than the gun.

How it became a lesbian thing:

The short answer is: no one really knows.

But that’s not a very interesting story, so let’s instead look at one of the most persistent theories floating around, the one that takes us all the way back to World War II.

Now, this story is almost guaranteed to be nothing but fabricated nonsense, but it’s also kind of fun, so I can see why it’s persisted.

The story goes like this: as the war ramped up, more and more women were sent in to the workforce, taking on roles that had historically been deemed ‘for men’.

Suddenly, butch or masculine-presenting lesbians found themselves in blue-collar roles: janitors, delivery workers, factory hands. Jobs that didn’t demand the usual feminine performance expected of waitresses, stewardesses, or seamstresses.

But, what these jobs DID demand was the humble carabiner, a practical, everyday tool for clipping keys, tools, and whatever else you could hang off a belt loop.

Then, supposedly, somewhere along the way, the practical became symbolic. Because these roles were disproportionately filled by working-class lesbians, the carabiner slowly evolved into a quiet signal, a subtle way to identify each other in a world where open queerness wasn’t safe.

Over the decades, this idea kind of snowballed. Each generation added a little more myth and a little more meaning, until the empty carabiner became less of a practical tool and more of an inside joke.

Of course, historians are quick to ruin our fun by pointing out that carabiners weren’t in widespread use outside climbing and military contexts during WWII, which does somewhat spoil an otherwise fantastic piece of queer lore.

The lesbian hanky code?

Much like the hanky code used by queer men to signal their sexual preferences, wearing a carabiner can also be used as a way of flagging your… erm… proclivities to others. If you wear it on your left you are signalling that you are a top (the more butch-leaning partner). Wearing it on your right is a way of signalling you are a bottom (the more submissive partner).

But alas, unlike the hanky code, this version never expanded to include different colours of carabiners. Or if it ever did, the meanings have been completely lost to time.

The straights ruin everything (yet again):

By the 2000s, the carabiner had gone the way of the labrys and the black triangle, and had largely faded as a lesbian signifier, instead becoming more associated with actual rock climbers and outdoorsy types than with queer identity. To contemporary lesbians it just seemed old-fashioned and weird (or, they didn’t even have a clue that it was ever a thing in the first place).

The resurgence:

Fast-forward to the last few years and carabiners seem to be back with a vengeance. 

They first started cropping up in fashion shows in the early 2020s, with Bella Hadid modelling a giant silver carabiner-buckle belt for the 2023 Michael Kors runway, and the London-based label Chopova Lowena adding what looked like an entire climbing shop’s worth of clips to their signature punky skirts.

The trend got so buzzy that even British Vogue felt compelled to weigh in:

With that kind of renewed visibility, it was probably only a matter of time before people rediscovered its older, queerer meaning. And if the algorithms on TikTok or Instagram have ever decided you’re gay (or even gay-ish), you’ll have seen younger queer people ironically (and then very quickly unironically) clipping carabiners to their belt loops, bags, keychains… or, you know, just anything with a vaguely hookable surface.

What started as a joke (‘haha, look at this ancient lesbian trend I’m trying out’) soon turned into genuine celebration.

So, maybe I shouldn’t really find it odd at all that it’s made a comeback… 

After all, most things drift in and out of fashion.

Just like ‘queer’ and ‘camp’ and ‘butch’, what once felt narrow or stereotypical eventually becomes retro and reclaimed.

But there’s something different about it this time. It no longer feels like a discreet, shadowy way of signalling your identity in a hostile world, but more like a small, defiant, joyful badge of honour. Which, I have to say, feels rather lovely.

And that brings me to the important bit: do you wear a carabiner?