Boynton said it can also be used as 'a slur against lesbians'. The social psychologist Petra Boynton, in an opinion column for The Daily Telegraph, said it is a 'toxic label' that excludes bisexual women, diversity within sexuality and gender, victims of sexual violence and other life experiences. Shelby and Dolan, in Lesbian Women and Sexual Health (2014), reported that gold star lesbian can be used by lesbians to stigmatise other women who have past or present sexual relationships with men. It can also be derogatory towards bisexual women. In Cosmopolitan, Marianne Eloise wrote that the term can be a source of pride or comfort to some lesbians, including those with traumatic experiences of masculinity, but that it has cissexist implications. It can be used as a humorous rejection of heterosexuality. The term gold star lesbian can position women who have never had sex with men as 'more authentic', as they are not 'contaminated' by men, according to Lucy Jones in Dyke/Girl (2012). The related term ' gold star asexual' refers not to past sexual experience, but to a hypothetical asexual person whose asexuality cannot be attributed to trauma, disability or other external factors.

When used sincerely, the terms have been criticised as exclusionary towards bisexuality and other experiences of gender and sexuality, and as stigmatising survivors of sexual violence. The terms can be joking, sincerely held identities, or stereotypes within the LGBT community. In LGBT slang, a ' gold star lesbian' is a lesbian who has never had sex with a man, and a ' gold star gay' is a gay man who has never had sex with a woman.

A golden star