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💋 The Most Unromantic Romantic Term 💋

And the gay writer who helped make it mainstream...

Author

K Anderson
February 14, 2025

Ok ok

It’s time I came clean.

I HATE the term that is featured in this week’s Queer Word.

HATE IT.

Not just regular hate. We're talking visceral, full-body, want-to-flush-it-down-the-toilet hate.

It’s so clinical, so unromantic, and I think that it has no business being used to describe the most important person in your life.

And yet… as much as it makes my skin crawl, I get why it exists. I really do. It’s been historically useful, and in some ways, we still need it.

And, so, to celebrate Valentine’s Day - one of the most overwrought, meaninglessly sentimental holidays in the calendar - I thought we’d dig a bit more in to the history of this term.

But, before we dive in, I want to know where you stand on this. After reading about the term scroll down to this week's poll to tell me how you describe your romantic partner(s).

k

QUEER WORD
SIGNIFICANT OTHER

What it means:

A gender-neutral term used to refer to someone’s romantic partner, whether in a relationship, partnership, or marriage.

Let’s use it in a sentence:

Manuel referred to Terrence as his ‘significant other’ because ‘my beloved snooky wooky and co-parent to our needy dachshund’ felt like a smidgen too much for the Monday morning stand-up meeting.

A little bit of history:

We queers are a tactical bunch. We’ve mastered the art of code-switching, blending in when it’s needed, and hiding right there in plain sight.

And we’ve got many tools in our arsenal.

Take this scenario: you’re suddenly dropped into a group of strangers - let's say, on your first day at a new job - and you're expected to share a bunch of information about yourself before even knowing a single thing about your new colleagues.

Is Brenda from Finance a queerphobe? Does Kamal from IT spend his evenings leaving hateful comments on social media?

If you're anything like me, at this point you freeze up and become the blandest version of yourself that you've ever been. Suddenly your favourite music becomes ‘all sorts of stuff,’ your hobbies are ‘oh, you know, reading and walking’, and what you did on the weekend was 'not much, really...'.

And until you’ve figured these new people out there is absolutely no way that you're going to talk about your boyfriend, girlfriend, theyfriend, husband, polycule, or wife. This is precisely where the ever-handy, gender-neutral term significant other comes in to play.

But where does this versatile phrase come from?

It is believed that the term was first coined by psychiatrist Harry Stack Sullivan in the article "Conceptions of Modern Psychiatry", which was published in 1940. This had a slightly different meaning to our modern usage, though, as it was used to describe anyone who might have a meaningful influence on a person's life, not just their romantic partner.

From here it morphed and changed over the years, becoming a useful (if bland) term for describing relationships in an inclusive way.

The term gained significant mainstream attention when gay author Armistead Maupin titled the fifth novel in his magnificent Tales of the City series Significant Others. The book, published in 1987, helped normalise the phrase within popular culture while not-so-subtly highlighting its particular utility within the LGBTQ+ community.

Armistead Maupin

Over time, it has found such a comfortable home in both everyday language and formal settings that it's now used across all communities (even the straights!). And, yes, I will admit it - it’s a handy alternative for those situations where you might need to dodge gendered labels.

But what do you think?

What's your take on gender-neutral terms like significant other and partner? Are they useful tools for navigating complex social situations, or do they feel too clinical? What term do you use? Am I just overthinking it (again)?

Let me know by hitting ‘reply’, or completing the poll below!

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QUEER JOY
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QUEER THOUGHTS
Last week’s poll

Well, the results are in—and it wasn’t even close.

Last week, when discussing the lesbian kiss episode, I asked why kissing between female characters was seen as less controversial than between male characters, and the overwhelming response? It’s gross and complicated!

One reader put it bluntly: ‘Straight men could live out a fantasy.’ 

Meanwhile, another pointed out that ‘if it had been two men, the show would have been canceled instead.’ 

Are we being too harsh on straight men?