While homosexuality and lesbianism remain proscribed identities and taboo topics of discussion in the Arab world today, new venues of expression, networking, and solidarity have emerged through the internet. Multiple progressive websites and electronic magazines are proliferating, allowing heretofore silenced members to assert an Arab gay identity, advertise Arab gay pride, promote reforms that would serve the interests of Arabs, and denounce persecution as well as prosecution (Ahbab; Gay Middle East, Habiba; Bintelnas; HeLeM; Aswat; Queer Jihad; al-Fatiha, Barra, Huriyah; etc.). One prominent concern voiced in these sites and in this emerging struggle for visibility is undoubtedly that of naming. How to call that which remains socially taboo and that which still carries the death penalty in some Arab countries (Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Yemen, UAE)? More often than not, the vocabulary adopted, proclaimed, and heralded as liberating echoes Western categories and sexual politics (the English words “gay” and “lesbian” are used even in the context of Arabic writing to give but one blatant example). In this presentation, after a brief review of the proliferation of newly coined Arabic words to speak about homosexuality, I will interrogate the facile imitation of Western labels in the process and question their usefulness in the context of Arab societies and cultures. I will also probe the oft-voiced intent by Arab gays and lesbians to coin a new terminology that would express positively and in Arabic the emotional or sexual relations between two people of the same gender. I will demonstrate that the assumptions that underlie the creation of new wordlists overlook and ultimately erase the very rich tradition on alternative sexual practices that has been prominent in the Islamicate world at least since the late tenth century. As I will show, gender bending has always been part and parcel both of the Arabic language and of Islamicate societies. Salvaging this tradition and its accompanying terminology on homosexuality challenges the claim that homosexuality is a Western importation, and renders the recourse to English categories superfluous. Moreover, uncovering the forgotten Arabic cultural material on alternative sexualities offers contemporary Arab gays and lesbians a rich and empowering indigenous heritage, as well as home-grown modes of resistance that are poised to challenge homophobic attitudes and policies in the Arab world, and the hegemony of Western sexual and cultural imperialism.