Swish is a US English slang term for effeminate behavior and interests (camp), emphasized and sanctioned in gay male communities prior to the Stonewall riots.Stanley, J. P. (1974) "When We Say 'Out of the Closets!'" College English, 36, 7.Kleinberg, Seymour. "unknown article." Christopher Street, March 1978. Cited in Levine 1998. This behaviour is also described as being nelly in British English,Wentworth, Harold and Stuart Berg Flexner. Dictionary of American Slang. Thomas Y. Crowell, 1967. Wentworth and Flexner define swish as a noun meaning "a male homosexual, esp. one with obviously feminine traits" and both terms are often considered to be derogatory.
Being swish stereotypically includes a "sashaying" walk, and the use of falsetto voices, feminine pronouns, and superlatives.Sonenschein 1969; cited in Levine 1998Tripp 1975, 180-182; cited in Levine 1998 According to Martin Levine and Michael Kimmel in Gay Macho: The Life and Death of the Homosexual Clone:
Status after the Stonewall riots Although being butch was viewed as deviant and socially unacceptable by gay male society,(Warren 1972, 1974; Helmer 1963, both cited in Levine 1998) being swish has since lost its mainstream gay status post-Stonewall, and in addition to being used occasionally by mainstream culture is now most often derogatory even when used by gay men. Though it may be assumed that most post-Stonewall gay men view acting swish as internalized homophobia, a concession to stereotypes of gay men as less than manly. However, the Castro clone, a hyper-masculine, macho standard and ideal behaviour that replaced swish, adapted many camp elements such as dishing (gossip).
Thus while clones could view swish as embodying anti-gay stereotypes, being swish was a way of indicating and performing one's identity, indicating that anti-gay stereotypes could be derived from gay identities.Loftin, Craig M. "Unacceptable mannerisms: Gender anxieties, homosexual activism, and swish in the United States, 1945-1965." Journal of Social History 40, no. 3 (2007): 577-596. Further, one could turn swish on or off, as described in Gay Macho: The Life and Death of the Homosexual Clone:
Modern LGBT rights movement Most recently, Swish has taken on an empowering and action-oriented meaning within the LGBT rights movement, in part thanks to an organization by the same name. From this point of view, to swish indicates a form of activism that is uplifting, rewarding and fun, and creates opportunities for straight allies to become active in the LGBT civil rights movement.
See also
Polari
References
Further reading Swish: My Quest to Become the Gayest Person Ever by Joel Derfner, Broadway Books, 2008.