What does Achillean mean in LGBTQ+ terminology?

Have you ever heard the term Achillean being used within the LGBTQ+ community but are confused as to what it means? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered.

Of course, the traditional meaning of the word Achillean stems from Greek mythology and Homer’s Iliad, which features the hero Achilles. If you used it today to refer to someone, you would be praising them for their strength.

But, in the context of the LGBTQ+ community, it takes on a whole new meaning.

Achillean refers to men (or male-identifying individuals) who are attracted to other men, but is used more like an umbrella term for gay, bisexual, pansexual, and otherwise queer men, and can include trans and non-binary people who are also attracted to men.

Crucially though, it does not include cisgender, heterosexual women who are attracted to men too. So, if you wanted to identify as Achillean, you could so long as you are not a cisgender woman and you are attracted to men.

Achillean is considered to be the counterpart to the term Sapphic, which also dates back to Greek mythology and refers to women and female-identifying people who are interested in other women romantically or sexually. Sappho was an Archaic Greek poet who lived on the isle of Lesbos c. 600BC, who wrote love poems about women. She’s also the reason that many women-loving-women go by “lesbian.”

Was Achilles gay?

This meaning of Achillean derives from the hero Achilles due to his bond with his best friend Patroclus which, while not canonically referred to as a queer relationship in the ancient epic poem the Iliad, has been interpreted by historians and literature experts as being both a romantic and sexual attachment.

In the Iliad, Achilles described Patroclus as the “man I loved beyond all other comrades, loved as my own life”.

Achillean can be used interchangeably with gay or the term men-loving men (MLM) but the former is considered much more inclusive as it can refer to trans and non-binary people who don’t necessarily identify as men themselves but are attracted to people who do.

There is even a pride flag for people who identify as Achillean, which features two light blue sections with a white section in between plus a lime-green carnation in the centre.

The flag was created by a Tumblr user in 2016, who said that the colour blue represents men while the carnation is a reference to author Oscar Wilde, who famously wore a carnation pin and was convicted of homosexual acts in 1895.