Course:CSIS200/2025/The Carabiner as Sapphic Symbol

Introduction

Throughout history, lesbians and other women attracted to women have used symbols to signal their sexualities to others. These symbols matter because they function not only as identity markers but as ways to connect to a broader sapphic community. One of the earliest documented symbols of lesbian love was the violet, which appears throughout Sappho’s poetry [Fig. 1.]as an emblem of desire among women. Over time, many symbols emerged, and today one of the most recognizable is the carabiner.

A carabiner is a small metal clasp, originally designed for climbing and industrial work, built around a spring-loaded gate that clicks shut. Its strength and convenience made it a staple in working-class and blue-collar contexts. Over the 20th century, as more women, particularly butch or masculine-presenting lesbians, worked in manual labour, keys and tools clipped to a belt loop through a carabiner became normalized (Francis). This practical use laid the groundwork for the carabiner’s later emergence as a soft-coded signifier of women loving women.

Scholars describe this process as a form of “queer orientation,” where meaning forms through repeated interaction between bodies and objects. Ahmed argues that objects acquire significance only through the histories of those who “face” them (Ahmed 551–552). The carabiner’s queer resonance therefore, comes from community usage rather than its material properties. Medhurst similarly notes that objects like this evolve into discreet but recognizable signals within sapphic visual culture (Medhurst). In Fig. 2, the carabiner works as a subtle shorthand for in-group recognition.

Because history of the carabiner as a lesbian symbol is based largely on community memory and digital circulation, its origin story is not definitive. Yet its function as a coded marker is consistent with the longer pattern of sapphic symbolism, which includes violets, the labrys, and other visual cues used when overt visibility carried social risk (Zimmerman 130–132).

The true origins of the emergence of the carabiner as a symbol for lesbianism are not completely known. Because the history is partly speculative and based on community memory, treat some claims as “commonly asserted” rather than proven fact.

Definitions

Not all of these definitions are used on this page; however, they provide context and meaning for the overall topic.

Queer Signaling	The use of symbols, styles, behaviors, or objects to indicate queer identity, often subtly, to others within the LGBTQ+ community.
Sapphic	Refers to women who are romantically or sexually attracted to other women; often used interchangeably with “lesbian” or “WLW” in certain contexts.
WLW	An inclusive acronym for Women Loving Women; used to describe women who are attracted to women without specifying gender identity or sexual orientation labels.
In-Group Recognition	The process by which individuals identify and are identified by others as members of a specific social group. In queer contexts, symbols (like a carabiner) can signal belonging to the LGBTQ+ community.
Social identity theory	Examines how belonging to social groups influences self-esteem and behavior. In this context, it explains why queer individuals use symbols to express identity and gain acceptance in their in-group.
Identity Binaries	The categorization of gender and sexual identities into opposing pairs (e.g., male/female, butch/femme), often used in social and cultural understandings of identity.
Butch	A gender expression associated with women who adopt traditionally masculine traits, behaviours, or styles; often contrasted with femme.
Femme	A gender expression associated with women who adopt traditionally feminine traits, behaviors, or styles; often contrasted with butch.
Visual Lexicon	A collection of visual symbols, styles, and cues used to communicate identity, orientation, or affiliation, such as clothing, accessories, or gestures recognized within a community.

Ingroup Social Categorization

Fashion, dress, and appearance norms have long helped lesbians recognize one another. Social identity theory explains this through the process of categorizing individuals into ingroups and outgroups (Rodriguez). Lesbian communities contribute to a sense of self, belonging, and affirmation (Krieger). Yet, because lesbian identity isn’t always visually obvious, symbolic cues become especially important.

For lesbians who do not conform to stereotypically “gay-looking” gender expressions, objects like the carabiner help facilitate in-group recognition. Walker’s account in “How to Recognize a Lesbian” describes how she, a femme lesbian, was dismissed as “not one of us” by a group of butch lesbians at a New Year’s Eve party. Her anecdote highlights how a lack of visible markers can lead to exclusion, intentional or not. Coded symbols help counter this dynamic by allowing femmes and less visibly queer women to identify and be identified by others in the community.

In queer life, these symbols perform a function similar to the way race functions as a visible marker of difference, except sexuality often requires symbolic supplementation to become legible (Walker). This is a form of coded visibility: subtle cues meant to be recognized only by those “in the know.” Zimmerman uses this term to describe the small, culturally specific practices through which queer people make themselves recognizable without exposing themselves to unwanted scrutiny.

Pop Culture and Media

Digital media accelerated the circulation of sapphic symbols. Violets and carabiners, which were once tied to specific subcultures, are now spread widely across TikTok, Tumblr, Instagram, and YouTube. The hashtag #wlw is a primary example; its playful disguises (“wuhluhwuh,” “winners love winning”) maintain discretion while signalling identity.

This makes TikTok a primary source documenting how contemporary sapphic codes form and transform. Videos explaining “why lesbians wear carabiners” explicitly teach the symbol to new audiences, especially young queer people without local LGBTQ+ communities. Unfortunately, TikTok videos cannot be embedded in Wiki pages.

Rainey’s work on visual culture shows how repeated imagery solidifies stereotypes and expectations around what queerness “looks like.” As these posts circulate, the carabiner becomes part of a larger cultural lexicon of queer aesthetics. From the 2000s onward, outlets like Refinery29, PinkNews, DIVA, and community blogs amplified this association, acknowledging both the meaning these symbols hold and the ways mainstream fashion sometimes dilutes their specificity.

Below is a YouTube video about the “Carabiner Code.”

Historical Continuities and Shifting Meanings

The carabiner belongs to a long history of lesbian symbols that shift across time.

Early examples include the violet and the labrys [fig 4.]. The sexual connotation of violets was derived from Sappho's poetry and commonly identified as signifiers for female same-sex desire within select artistic or literary networks. Likewise, in the mid-twentieth century, the labrys functioned as a deliberately politicized emblem that existed within lesbian feminist organizations; however, the labrys is not recognized by society at large as a lesbian symbol.

These symbols show that objects gain meaning through collective interpretation rather than inherent qualities. Zimmerman notes that lesbian symbols frequently change significance depending on cultural context, which helps explain the carabiner's uneven recognition today.

Understanding the carabiner through this broader lineage highlights how symbols accrue meaning through collective use rather than inherent properties. Its emergence as a lesbian-coded object reflects contemporary dynamics in which queer communities create and share aesthetics through digital circulation, humour, and micro-cultural practices (Medhurst). As with earlier symbols, its significance remains dynamic rather than static. In some spaces, the object's associations are meaningful to those already familiar with the subcultural discourse, while in others, it is absorbed into mainstream fashion trends, which can hide its queer resonances (Francis).

Symbolic Performativity and the Politics of “Looking Gay”

Symbols like the carabiner show how queer identity often takes shape through visual and material cues that carry meaning within specific communities. In sapphic spaces these cues can feel affirming because they allow people to recognize one another, yet they also invite a kind of watching that raises questions about what counts as looking gay in the first place. This section examines how the carabiner participates in that dynamic, where expression, recognition, and social expectations intersect.

Fischer and Seidman’s argument that sexuality is socially constructed helps make sense of how an everyday object becomes charged with meaning (Fischer and Seidman 3–11). The carabiner is not symbolic on its own. It becomes meaningful because communities treat it as such. The shift from a practical item in working contexts to something that reads as sapphic demonstrates how collective interpretation shapes the visual language of queerness (Medhurst). What it signals depends on shared cultural knowledge, which is what allows it to function as a quiet marker of belonging.

Miller’s framing of identity as performed through repeated acts also helps explain how the carabiner operates within queer aesthetics (Miller). Butler argues that identity emerges through repeated acts that produce the illusion of an internal truth, which helps explain why objects like the carabiner become part of how queerness is read in everyday life (Butler 174–180). When someone wears a carabiner on a belt loop or bag, it becomes part of a set of small gestures and objects that help communicate identity without words. Short nails, specific clothing choices, and pride accessories serve similar functions. These markers offer ways to be seen, but they also highlight the pressure to appear visibly queer in order to be recognized at all. Seidman notes that this kind of pressure can reinforce binary ideas about sexuality by suggesting that people must show evidence of queerness to be understood (Seidman 12).

Medhurst points out that this dynamic is especially visible in online sapphic culture, where humour, aesthetics, and community recognition shape how symbols take on meaning. Within these spaces, the carabiner becomes part of a familiar visual shorthand that people read almost automatically. Rainey’s work on visual culture supports this by showing how repeated images settle into the cultural imagination and form expectations about what queer people look like (Rainey 39–60).

Taken together, these perspectives show why the carabiner matters. It brings attention to the complicated relationship between visibility and identity. It helps some people feel recognized, but it also reflects the ongoing pressure to present one’s sexuality outwardly in order to be legible to others. The carabiner becomes a point of tension, where belonging, interpretation, and performance come together in ways that shape how queer identity is lived and understood.

Concluding Notes

The carabiner matters because it reveals how queer meaning is created, shared, and lived in everyday life. Its transformation from a simple piece of hardware into a recognizable sapphic marker shows that symbols gain power through community use, not through anything inherent in the object itself. This process reflects the broader mechanisms of cultural interpretation that shape how sexuality becomes visible and understandable within specific social contexts. When someone chooses to wear a carabiner, they participate in an ongoing practice of signalling identity in ways that feel subtle, familiar, and grounded in shared experience.

At the same time, the carabiner reminds us that visibility is never straightforward. It can foster connection and help individuals recognize one another, yet it can also reproduce expectations about how queerness should appear. The symbol works because it is legible to those who know how to read it, but that legibility also carries pressures about presentation and recognition. Paying attention to this small object helps illuminate these tensions. It shows how queer communities navigate belonging, expression, and interpretation, and how meaning continues to shift as symbols move between digital spaces, subcultures, and the mainstream. The carabiner matters because it becomes a site where identity, visibility, and cultural imagination meet.

About the Author

Hi there! My name is Elizabeth Akanbi, my pronouns are she/her, and I am a second year political science student at the University of British Columbia. I chose to take CSIS 200 because I wanted to be able to question my preconceived notions about sexuality and learn about myself in the process. My artifact is the carabiner which has become a staple in the sapphic community as a symbol of being a women who loves women. My project focuses largely on symbolizing sexuality but more specifically focuses on the carabiner and its relation to sapphic culture. I hope that you enjoy reading this and learn something new.

References

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