Which word should I use for "lesbian"?


When I looked up "lesbian" in jisho.org, I came across the six kanji term
"女性同性愛者", which I'm concerned may sound too formal or clinical, like using
"homosexual" as a noun in English, plus katakana words of varying lengths.

The English edition of Wiktionary doesn't have a Japanese language translation
for "lesbian". Looking up weblio doesn't help much, because the entries for
the English word "lesbian" mainly provide information addressing native
Japanese speakers.

The accepted answer on Yahoo answers gives a couple of different answers, and
doesn't seem that authoritative:
<https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070712193145AAHuB7J>

I would prefer a term that's acceptable for polite, respectful but friendly
conversation.




In most of the cases レズビアン or simply レズ will generally suffice in
conversations. As you guessed correctly, 同性愛者 sounds formal and stiff, and
性的少数者/LGBT would sound even more technical and formal.

However:

  * レズ (and its male-male counterpart, ゲイ) may sound a bit vulgar and direct (if not derogatory), and newspaper articles targeted at the general public tend to avoid using this term.
  * Some people are very keen and strict on the terminology around this area. I can easily imagine some people who hate to be called レズ, while some people take pride in being called as such.

So depending on who you are talking to, you may want to play it safe and
describe it indirectly (eg "～は女の人が好き") instead.

百合【ゆり】 (lit. "lily") is another indirect term for this, but AFAIK this is
mainly preferred in otaku-ish, fictional contexts. There is even a
[magazine](http://www.ichijinsha.co.jp/yurihime/) for this.




In most of the cases レズビアン or simply レズ will generally suffice in
conversations. As you guessed correctly, 同性愛者 sounds formal and stiff, and
性的少数者/LGBT would sound even more technical and formal.

However:

  * レズ (and its male-male counterpart, ゲイ) may sound a bit vulgar and direct (if not derogatory), and newspaper articles targeted at the general public tend to avoid using this term.
  * Some people are very keen and strict on the terminology around this area. I can easily imagine some people who hate to be called レズ, while some people take pride in being called as such.

So depending on who you are talking to, you may want to play it safe and
describe it indirectly (eg "～は女の人が好き") instead.

百合【ゆり】 (lit. "lily") is another indirect term for this, but AFAIK this is
mainly preferred in otaku-ish, fictional contexts. There is even a
[magazine](http://www.ichijinsha.co.jp/yurihime/) for this.

