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Let’s face it: whether you like it or not, the U-Haul joke is the most popular lesbian joke of all time. But where did it come from? And how did it become so widespread, both as a joke and as a stereotype?

The origin of the U-Haul joke isn’t that hard to find. In her 1997 comedy special Box Lunch, Lea Delaria references a “joke [she] wrote in 1989.” The joke goes like this: “What does a lesbian bring on a second date? A U-Haul!” The second part of the joke, which is far less popular, goes like this: “What does a gay man bring on a second date? What second date!” (Just in case this joke is unfamiliar to you, Delaria is referencing the fact that lesbians supposedly move in together or get serious much quicker than gay men and straight couples.)

Though Delaira claims to have written the joke in 1989, she didn’t become a national figure until her appearance on The Arsenio Hall Show. On March 30, 1993, Delaria became the first openly gay comedian to appear on the show. And she didn’t do it quietly, either. In fact, she came running out on stage yelling “I’M A BIG FAT DYKE!” at the audience. She returned to the show just two months later with a similarly rowdy set and an account of the success of the March on Washington, which took place the month before.

According to The Atlantic, the U-Haul joke made its television debut on this show (though I can’t find any reference to it in either of the clips of Delaria’s two appearances). Either way, as Delaria notes in her routine, it was supposedly “cool” to be queer in 1993. Indeed, it was a breakthrough moment for queer folks, at least on Hall’s show. RuPaul also appeared on the show that year,¹ performing her hit song “Supermodel” and sitting down for an interview with Hall. By the time Delaria recorded her 1997 comedy special, the U-Haul joke had clearly become popular, at least within the lesbian community. When Delaria sets up the joke, the audience delivers the now-familiar punchline. Beyond that, the earliest printed reference to the joke I can find is a 2000 LA Times article that mentions Delaria.

As for the history of the practice of U-Hauling, the concept of lesbians quickly cohabiting goes back decades. In the 1950s and 1960s, there were real advantages to living together as a lesbian couple. Couples could live together as “platonic roommates,” giving them a sense of safety and security. In addition, living in a two-woman house was much more advantageous than living alone. The butch-femme pairing was quite ingrained in the community at this time, in part due to financial pressures. Butch lesbians often lived or at least worked as men, giving them access to factory jobs, which paid more than so-called women’s work. The other half of the couple would take on a more “feminine role,” such as secretary or teacher. Together, they had a better chance of financial stability.

One of the first references to this dynamic using these terms can be found in Leslie Feinberg’s groundbreaking 1993 novel Stone Butch Blues, which takes place between the 1940s and the 1970s. In it, the main character describes meeting their new girlfriend. “Within a month we rented a U-Haul trailer and moved into a new apartment together in Buffalo,” Feinberg writes. Whether an explicit reference to the joke or not, the novel may be the first literary mention of the connection between lesbians and U-Hauls.

But how does the joke function as both a widespread stereotype and a teasing reference among friends? In a journal article from 2005, linguist Robin Queen explains how jokes, teasing, and stereotypes can help members of a community define their social positions. Using the U-Haul joke as her initial reference, Queen studied the social dynamics of two groups of lesbians. She found that “humor served as a similar kind of resource for both groups in terms of how it engaged the tensions of similarity and difference.” The audience of these kinds of “formulaic” jokes are able to recognize themselves in the stereotype being deployed, or, alternatively, refute that association.

As Queen puts it, “formulaic jokes and teasing serve as a semiotic resource for interrogating social notions of similarity and difference and for locating the social self within those notions.” But these jokes function differently depending on the social positions of the joke-teller and their audience. When a joke about an “Other” is told, both the audience and the joker “position themselves as distinct from that “Other” through telling and responding to the joke.” This practice of “Othering” also “[affirms] their similarities to one another.”

On the other hand, the telling of an “in-joke” – a joke about the community where it’s being told – functions differently. These jokes encourage identification with the stereotype being invoked, or at least compel audiences to pick the position they want to occupy. As Queen writes, these jokes “force a stance on identity,” which may change depending on the circumstances. “Sometimes that stance involves not getting “it,” sometimes it involves rejecting “it,” and sometimes it involves laughing in recognition of “it.’”

One can extrapolate these dynamics to DeLaria’s appearance on The Arsenio Hall Show. When she tells lesbian jokes on his late-night show, she’s centering lesbian identity because she has already claimed (rather loudly!) that identity for herself. For the lesbian fans who pay to see DeLaria perform, these jokes interpolate the audience as a part of her lesbian sphere, encouraging a sense of connection between DeLaria and the audience, and between the audience themselves. When she performs on national television, lesbian viewers experience the joy of seeing themselves represented, while straight folks are happy to be invited into the world of the joke and be given permission to laugh with (and perhaps about) a social “Other.”

Following DeLaria’s popularization of the joke, and its spread throughout the lesbian community and beyond, references to U-Haul lesbians began cropping up in other forms of pop culture. The earliest scripted reference to the joke I can find is an episode of E.R. that aired on February 15, 2001. Part of the episode follows previously straight-identified Kerry’s (Laura Innes) burgeoning relationship with out-lesbian Kim (Elizabeth Mitchell). Kerry is out with some of Kim’s friends, and one of them makes a U-Haul joke. Kerry doesn’t get the joke, and shortly thereafter storms out of the restaurant.

Kerry’s response aligns with Queen’s analysis of the function of formulaic jokes. She became upset because she wasn’t “in” on the joke and thus wasn’t able to recognize herself in the stereotype being referenced. She says as much to Kim afterward, suggesting that she’s not yet ready to identify herself as a lesbian. This moment is significant, as E.R. was one of the most popular shows of the decade, and the season in which this episode aired had an average of 27 million viewers each week. Notably, E.R. also featured one of the first lesbian main characters on television and endeavored to make such stories as authentic as they could – much to queer audiences’ delight.²

Later that year, a U-Haul reference was made on one of the other most popular shows of the decade. In a Season 7 episode of Friends, entitled “The One with Rachel's Big Kiss,” Rachel runs into Melissa, an old friend from college played by Winona Ryder. Melissa misinterprets a kiss between them and brings a U-Haul to Rachel’s apartment.

While there were certainly queer viewers of Friends who may have reacted to the joke in their own way, neither this episode nor any episode in the series endeavors to invite the viewer into the world of lesbian or gay folks. Indeed, the joke interpolates an assumed straight audience into the lesbian joke, making them laugh with recognition while also reaffirming the fact that, like girl-next-door Rachel, they are different from the joke’s subject. For that to happen, the joke had to have been popular enough, even amongst straight folks, to make it into one of America’s most-watched sitcoms.

Both of these episodes aired three years before the premiere of The L Word, the first American series centered on lesbians and queer women. I can find reference to at least one U-Haul joke on the show, which may have introduced those unfamiliar viewers to a new concept. (On a forum from the 2000s, one confused user asked what U-Hauling means after seeing the term in an L Word episode.)

The joke is still used today, even with younger generations. Gen Z lesbian JoJo Siwa called herself a U-Haul lesbian on an episode of her podcast, and a literal U-Haul appears in one of Hayley Kiyoko’s music videos. The term has even been featured in at least one Oscar-nominated film. In Tár, the main character (played by Cate Blanchett) refers to herself as a U-Haul lesbian in front of her students.³

There’s another group of people who have a stake in the U-Haul stereotype: psychologists and sociologists. Gay and Lesbian Mental Health Practitioners, published in 1996, features a chapter about gay and lesbian relationship dynamics. One section, entitled “Merging In Lesbian Relationships,” begins with an epigraph of the full U-Haul joke. (This is more evidence that the joke had become well-known before DeLaria’s special in 1997.) The chapter claims that while the joke seems like silly fun, there are real implications to this tendency.

The authors define the U-Haul impulse as “merging” and note the causes and effects of this behavior. They argue that “the urge to merge” is not “a function of their sexual orientation,” but rather their upbringing as women. Research suggests that “women develop more permeable ego boundaries and are relationally focused,” tending to make decisions that will “preserve” relationships. This is not problematic in and of itself, and in fact is “a normal part of women’s psychological development.” (Though we might question the use of the word “normal” here.)

So what is problematic about the urge to merge? They point to the issue of “rescuing,” which describes the impulse to “suppress conflicts that arise because of differences in individual needs.” This means that any issues in a relationship will be smoothed over rather than dealt with. They suggest that the key is “learn[ing] to develop a dynamic balance between intimacy and autonomy.” For these psychologists, U-Hauling isn’t inherently bad but can conceal deeper issues in a relationship.

Taking a cheekier approach to the subject, Health Education scholar Michele J. Eliason suggests a new approach to lesbian mental health in “A New Classification System for Lesbians: The Dyke Diagnostic Manual.” Eliason argues that the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) doesn’t cover some of the unique issues lesbians face, and should be supplemented with another classification system – the DDM (Dyke Diagnostic Manual). Eliason begins by stating her earnest wish to “reduce the pain and suffering found in many lesbian relationships where one or both partners are afflicted,” while also making many tongue-in-cheek references to common lesbian stereotypes alongside humorous cultural commentary.

The sixth category in her manual – following afflictions like “Lesbian Celebrity Groupies” and “Lesbian Ex-Lover Fusion Syndrome” – is succinctly titled “The U-Haul Syndrome.” Eliason highlights some of the ideas we’ve already discussed, suggesting that the problem here is that lesbians “overlook warning signs, misinterpret cues, and refuse to look at reality.” Her saucy solution is to implement a “lesbian dating permit” that would limit the speed at which lesbian relationships progress. Though at least partially in jest, Eliason’s article indicates the degree to which U-Hauling has become an almost foundational concept within the lesbian community.

But there’s one thing we haven’t yet addressed: Is U-Hauling even real? According to a 2017 study by sociologists Taylor Orth and Michael Rosenfeld, the answer is no. The two Stanford sociologists surveyed 3,009 couples (including 221 FF couples and 235 MM couples) over six years, analyzing how the timetables of these relationships differed according to gender and sexual orientation.

One of the most notable findings of the study was that the long-standing stereotype that lesbians move quicker than other couples is demonstrably false, at least among the couples surveyed. Their data revealed that female same-sex couples took an average of 1.3 years to move in together or get married, male same-sex couples took an average of 1.5 years, and different-sex couples took around two years. Initially, it might seem like this data proves that the stereotype is true. But when you take into account other factors, the disparity is no longer significant.

As Orth told Into, “The average age for female/female couples to meet is 33.9 with a relationship beginning at an average of 35.2.” The average age for male/male couples is 37.2 and 37.7 respectively, and the average for male/female couples is substantially lower – at 25.8 and 27.4, respectively. These numbers mean that queer men actually get into relationships more quickly than queer women. And, as Orth puts it, “Once taking into account the fact that same-sex couples tend to meet and begin relationships at older ages, the gap in long-term commitment timing virtually disappears.” As Trish Bendix writes in Into, “truthfully, the idea of lesbians U-Hauling is based on misogyny — internal or otherwise.”

So where does that leave us? Whether true or not, the notion of the U-Haul lesbian has become a defining image both inside and outside the community, for better or for worse. As linguistic Robin Queen suggests, jokes like this can bond members of a community together and help people find their place within a larger group. Still, it is a stereotype, which necessarily flattens the diversity of experiences. But, as Lea DeLaria’s historic ascension as a visible lesbian comic reminds us, sometimes stereotypes are worth the laugh.

3

I do find this scene somewhat annoying because Tar doesn’t seem to actually be referencing the U-Haul lesbian stereotype but rather the fact that she is a stereotypical lesbian more generally, but that’s neither here nor there.

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