MORTIMER
I love carabiners – and researching this piece has skyrocketed my carabiner worship. Butch people, dykes, lesbians, AFAB daddies and many more sub cats have been using this humble piece of spring loaded metal to lag their identity for a looooooong time. How long, we don’t know. Perhaps ever since the natty mechanism was invented by one Otto Herzog on the eve of WW1. One writer on lesbiannews. com goes so far as to state that “next to love, the lesbian keyring is one of the most symbolic languages of lesbians” – which yes, is a slightly bonkers and unquantiiable statement, but it goes to show just how important this object is!
DORA MORTIMER is a writer specialising in queer culture. @fragile_ masculinity
WHY CARABINERS?