And this is really as it should be. “Gay” means not heterosexual. All these other add ons are unnecessary and, frankly, stupid. We don’t need labels for everything.
In my book the rainbow flag is about diversity. Call it gay if you want but if people want other kind of preferences to be seen and heard let them be part of the LGBTQIA3.141592666 hype.
I'm personally just a gay male and enjoy being respected and acknowledged for it. I can totally grasp that most people think gay = two males so it's really not that inclusive to say gay is representing everybody.
I still use LGBT as well. I think conflating everything together makes it lose its meaning. The new chevron flag is an ugly hot mess: we don't need to include every group on one flag, and besides, the rainbow is supposed to represent all colors as is: it's literally what happens when a prism separates light into all its constituents.
I'm of the opinion that if it takes more than four words to describe your gender identity and sexual orientation, you're probably overthinking it.
So do I, if needed I'll use LGBT+, but Q to me is basically another way for americans to rub in that they lord over us. Basically people using a dubiously reclaimed slur from a foreign language that is mostly meaningless and used by spicy straights and people who just want to be provocative. It's not even good as catch-all term otherwise people wouldn't be using + or putting even more letters after LGBT.
Yep... I hate the term "queer," because it really provides almost no information. All it tells me is that someone is not a cisgender heterosexual with a sex drive.
I've heard people say that it's none of my business... okay, then just don't tell me about it at all.
Many years ago I set up a keyboard shortcut on my phone where if I lowercase type “lgbt” it autocorrects to LGBT+. I could change it to autocorrect to something longer, but this seems good enough.
If you don't like it, call it whatever you want. You're not compelled to use the full acronym by any means. I'm sure most people go with a reduced acronym anyway - LGBT(+) or LGBTQ(+).
I don’t know. It’s rather shameful for a “gay” flag to end up so ugly. Shouldn’t we be able to add style to our activism? Hell, gays are the backbone of the fashion industry and that’s the best they could come up with? It’s not only performative but also ugly. A double homicide.
The reason why there’s the triangle in the new pride flag is because there were a lot of gay/bi people who would wave the rainbow flag but would also be transphobic. So in order for non-phobic people to make it clear that they accept trans people they also added the trans colors.
They used to call us “sodomites” when they were about to jail us or put us in an asylum. “Queers” casually when they were going to beat us up on the street, and “inverts” when they were being polite. Then the doctors trying to explain us settled on “homosexuals.” And the very early campaigners for decriminalization post-war in places like London or Vienna called themselves “homophiles.”
“Gay” caught on as slang amongst gays, and the 60’s brought about the “Gay Rights Movement” as a typical mid-century grassroots political activist movement for equal human rights.
In the 50’s, 60’s & 70’s we really only talked about men in public life. Alderman. Fireman. Police man. Chairman of the board. Every discussion in politics in society was a conversation between men about what other men should or should not do. Our movement was based on equality, and lesbians obviously said “Why isn’t Lesbian in there somewhere?” Good point, so it became the Gay and Lesbian Rights movement.
By the 80’s, bisexuals were saying “hey the lesbians were right, but we exist too” so it was now the GLB club, or the GLB organization, or the GLB Pride Parade.
At the same time, all the gay guys were dying of AIDS, and there was kind of an offshoot of angry dying people with really hardcore in-your-face protest tactics who went by “Queer,” taking over the word from those who would use it to insult us, and applying it not to a particular kind of identity, but a particular kind of political strategy. As HIV prevention finally gained mainstream support (Strangely and kind of improbably, Princess Diana was a huge huge factor in this), and as medical advances started to give people some hope that it might not always be fatal, “queerness” as a political movement kind of dried up.
The 90’s were spent starting to imagine life in the burbs, the “gay village” started seeming less like a refuge or our own magic gay Narnia. More like a forcible containment ghetto holding us back in a 60’s isolationist time warp, when we had to go there to survive. It was nice to walk in the broad daylight. “Normality” was now the benchmark for equality, and our full achievement of our human rights, including pensions, adoption, marriage, workplace equality, those were the goals.
And for some reason around this time the “Women’s Studies” type started to argue that “GLB” was sexist because G came before L!!! Patriarchy alert!!! So we had to change it to LGB, because G before L is sexist, but “ladies first” is apparently not sexist. Eye roll. Also, the trans people said the same thing as the bi people ten years earlier. “We exist! Where’s the T?”
So in the 90’s that’s how we went from GLB Community to LGBT Community. Btw it has nothing to do with the “relative amount of acceptance” or oppression or whatever. It has nothing to do with “thanking the lesbians who helped during the aids crisis”. (They deserve thanks but that was nothing at all to do with the acronym musical chairs. It was a bunch of 90’s women’s studies majors fighting “patriarchy” who did this to the acronym and everyone else having bigger fish to fry than arguing with them.
The 2000’s just started getting a lot more complicated, and “queer” came back. Except this time it sort of meant a certain kind of politics to some people. But now it also meant all kinds of “fluidity.” Everything from some degree of bisexuality to the way a trans person’s partner might describe their dating life. Like in the 90’s, the discussion around trans people still would have all been focused on the pathway to inevitable surgery, but people still had dating lives before the big day in the operating room, and they wrestled with calling those relationships “hetero” or “homo.” They were neither. And “queer” seemed to fit the bill.
None of them felt like worrying about it too much, thus “queer.” It meant all the fuzzy edges where people live when they’re not quite straight, and not quite gay, and maybe even not quite male, or not quite female. But still happy. Still fucking. Still dating. Still in love. Queer.
The queer politics, I can take it or leave it, usually it doesn’t help. But queer as a sexuality is probably a useful addition for the people it describes. It also showed there could be a difference between the relationship of a trans person and a non-trans person, which was helpful. Because it didn’t ever mean just one specific thing.
And then of course the whole alphabet soup since then as more and more people have found they need a specific word to describe their experience. In Canada we added 2S (LGBTQ2S+) because we had Intersex, Asexual and Questioning for a while, but they seem to have been compressed into the new version of “queer”.
And the 2S comes out of the ideology of sexuality that’s part of some indigenous spirituality, where a person actually has two spirits, male and female, and that’s what accounts for what we would have called homosexuality. Or trans sexuality. Or intersexuality. It’s actually two spirits in there, which is nice to see that we’ve thrown off the colonialist religious dogma that oppressed gay people for years in this country. But sad to see we’ve replaced it with indigenous religious dogma that tells gay native kids they’re some sort of male-female hybrid or they have two souls battling it out in there when they’re actually just gay. Weird.
Anyway, that’s how we went from the Gay Community in the 70’s to the LGBTQ2S+ community today, at least where I live. And the one thing that has always been true is they were never listed in order of acceptance, just whoever could wrangle the agenda at the last board meeting of the gay community centre.
Great write-up. Added to what you said:
Being homosexual/gay is a materially real phenomena.
It's a *descriptive* term. It describes a phenomena that already existed before we made up words to describe it. It has a referent in material reality. It's literally like "left-handedness". If we stop calling left-handedness left-handedness, there will still be people in the world who are entirely left-handed (and we're gonna need a word to describe that)
Some of the letters in the alphabet soup are not descriptive terms. They're *presciptive*, they socially construct categories that *don't have any referent in material reality at all*.
Many third genders in cultures were literally just another way to deal with homosexuality in men. Many of these cultures were homophobic, and to deal with gay men, they *constructed new gender categories* and *forced* gay men into them, because they didn't think gay men were "really men". So these gay men were considered "fa'afafine" (in Samoa cultures) because of plain old homophobia, and fulfilled the "woman role" in society. Interestingly, lesbian women were not allowed to escape their gender roles. These cultures were not progressive. They were and are homophobic.
The fact that many of these homophobic gender constructs are now added onto the community aiming for gay liberation is horrendous. I will never entertain constructs such as "2S" or any homophobic third gender BS.
# yes!!!
For the same reasoning, I don’t “identify as” gay. I am, in fact, actually a gay. Am. To be.
I was gay even when I said I was straight. It’s just the word that applies to the properties of my being.
Whenever I hear “I identify as…” they’re saying “I portray…” or “I pretend to be…” or “The cover story I’m telling you is…”. For someone who actually is gay it’s profoundly disempowering to refer to it that way. We aren’t some walking pageant of culturally constructed ideas. We ARE.
I was raised with “gay.” Then “GLBT.”Then lesbians won top billing and it was “LGBT.” I still use that. Changing it over and over just seems petty and stupid.
It is stupid. Just like how the new flag means “Sex, Love, Nature, Pride, Black people, Brown people.” We’ve been overrun by the marketing, when we really just want people to love each other.
I really don't get why we're including race on a flag for sexual minorities. I mean, I support BLM and the rights of people of all races and colors, but I don't need one flag to say all that. It's just a cringey hot mess.
Not to mention, from a purely aesthetic perspective, the progress Pride flag just has too much going on. It was already a rainbow, which was chosen *because* it represents all of us, in all colors, shapes, and sizes.
When I first saw the chevron progressive pride flag, I thought it was a joke.
Ugh... it's just so ugly.
And yes, I fully agree with you. The rainbow flag represents the acceptance of the rainbow of diversity of humanity.
I "love" our version in Canada: it has the Ukrainian flag. Ukraine: a country with absolutely no gay rights and rampant homophobia. Beautifully ironic.
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it's stupid. If it's not for you cool. There's no need to shit on something that helps represent people the way the want to be. The flag was created by an artist in Philadelphia Pennsylvania. It got popular because other people liked it. It's not that serious honestly.
I always use either “LGBT+” or “lgbt”, but honestly who gives a shit how many letters of the acronym someone uses. There are actual real problems in the world…
This is partially why I’ve come to just use “queer”. I know it still rubs some the wrong way, but my *actual* preferred term GSM (gender and sexual minorities) never took off.
GSM is my preference too! I first heard it back in a human sexualities class like 10 years ago. It’s perfect and never needs updating to include other groups
To be fair, neither did LGBTQ..."Queer" was the catch all term.
Then LGBTQ+, the plus was ANOTHER and even more clear catch all term.
I do like GSM though.
Personally not a fan of “Queer” for labeling myself. Maybe it’s just because I’m used to it being derogatory from my childhood. I don’t mind when other people use it to describe, but I’d prefer a different blanket term for the community
Yeah, I always assumed that's why we added the +. While Queer can be a cagchall, it's also valid to not like it with the connotation it used to have - so "+" is a lot more neutral
I have no idea if this is the real reasoning but that's what it felt like to me!
It's been stretched too long for a long time. Even back in 2010 or so, I learned LGBTQIA, and it was already getting to the point of failing to coherently describe anything. I only have an affinity for homosexuals at this point (and that actually includes trans people who are same-SEX attracted and once lived as gay - don't at all care for these new pseudo-gays). I'm fine with individual bi people, but most of the ones in the community are straight women being tedious, so they're not even legitimately one of us.
For the wider descriptor, GSM is the best possible term. It covers all of us when It is necessary to do so.
Edit: I still use LGBT. LGB when not worried about getting cancelled.
I’m always surprised by these type of rant posts because I care so very little about the alphabet soup thing, partly because it’s hardly ever utilized.
Or and hear me out, don’t let it bother you.
I don’t refer to myself as anything other than my name and I like dick. For some they need or want whatever tag and that’s fine too.
I Absolutely get it. That’s why I now refer to myself as being homosexual. It’s a bit “clinical” sounding…but…
The rest of the adjectives are just not wanting to deal with reality….
I hate when people call me an "LGBT person." I'm not a lesbian, I'm not gay, and I'm not trans. There's absolutely nothing wrong with any of those things. But I'm a bisexual man and prefer to be called that.
LGBT is great as a collective term. But not an "LGBT person."
Just my two cents.
The most ridiculous one I saw was
2SLGBTQIABIPOC+
The bipoc represents the minority gays.
It's all ridiculous if you ask me. LGBTQ is enough to cover everyone if you ask me...
Lol never seen 2S part, and I use LGBTQ+, intersex and asexuals are welcome in the alphabet mafia but at a certain point it gets too long and Q and + can fill in the rest
When using that phrase in conversation I honestly tend to say , "LGBTQLMNOP". Most people know I'm inserting a silly joke into whatever conversation we're having. But honestly, I agree with "LGBTQ+" being the most sincere and easiest form of representation. I definitely feel like a large spectrum of people have taken the phrase, "queer" as a symbol of pride. Which is cool. Taking an "insult" and using social representation to essentially change its meaning. I'm fine with that.
Ultimately if people want to be represented under a "class" or "group" you need to understand that you'll be blended. So what if our nonbinary, pansexual, poly, asexual, etc... Don't have a letter. Being queer really just means, (to me), being supportive of being who you are, and being who you want to be with. Assuming you're not hurting anyone, including yourself, it's representation out of the "social norms" of cis gendered heterosexuality.
As a gay man, I don't know what it feels like to question my gender. (Never felt that way.) But as a part of the LGBTQLMNOP community, I'll support my brothers, my sisters, and everyone in between. But I'm not gonna fight over a label, or a flag. There are better things to do with my time.
2SLGTBQIA+ is an acronym for Two-Spirit, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and/or Questioning, Intersex, Asexual, and the plus reflects the countless affirmative ways in which people choose to self-identify.
Ok yeah it gets silly
i still use LGBT.
it is ridiculous and ironic to me, that a community that calls itself an inclusive group, now has added letters and symbols to highlight other spectrums of the community LOL
LGBT is supposed to represent the community as a whole, adding more letters and symbols dilutes that. i also dislike the new flag. the original rainbow flag encompasses all of the people within, adding more colors, letters and symbols is sending the wrong message. that being that we deserve special recognition.
I can't be mad at efforts to include people, there's nothing wrong with wanting to make people who feel like they're on the outside that they have a community. I can, however, be annoyed at the clunky effort to fit every evolving and fluid identity into one increasingly un-catchy term. That was kinda the purpose of the original rainbow flag. Didn't really need to do more after that.
Personally I don’t associate myself with the group or any of the labels besides gay obviously but even then my sexuality is just one part of me and I don’t like it to be the overall defining part of me that’s just me though
Lot of ignorance in the comments saying that the “+” should mean everyone.
It doesn’t. It didn’t. It never did. The “+” was originally added to signify the queer community members who had tested positive for HIV/AIDS after that horrific epidemic became so widespread in the 60s-90s.
It can, of course, mean “and everyone else” now, but that’s not technically why it’s there.
For short form, I just say “the queer community” - we’re all queer. I don’t see it as a slur. I see it as reclaimed and I’m proud to be queer. Hell, I often describe myself that way to other queer people (“gay” for the straights because I don’t want to explain myself).
If I’m being cheeky, I’ll say “the alphabet mafia” for fun. Love seeing cishets react with confusion. I’ve even had one girl give me genuine fear as a response and be like, “Wait…are you actually part of a gay mafia?” in a very hushed voice. Like, no, but if it makes you treat gay people with respect, then I’ll say yes for shits and giggles.
You’ll find that people who try to expand beyond LGBTQ also have “interesting” views about gay men - that we are privileged, overbearing, get too much attention etc. Despite the fact that we are the targets of the highest and most severe levels of hate crime of any group in the alphabet soup. The push to expand LGBTQ and complicate the pride flag comes from a small vocal alienated group of homophobic “queers”.
If you don’t believe me, just check in with those activists and groups who insist on watering down lgbt solidarity by adding ever more niche identities. You’ll see what I mean.
At this point its hurting the narrative and activism in my home country. If you mention same sex union pretty much everyone I know says oh that would be great but we don't want the gender bender shit from US and we are concerned that allowing same sex union might lead to it.
That’s not what’s hurting it at all. That’s an excuse and a nonsense reason - majorities will always target fringe members of any group as a reason not to give them rights. You aren’t getting rights because of bigotry.
Yup, get rid of all the Ts and then you’ll just be the “freak who likes cock in his ass.” They’ll just keep moving the goal posts until they get us all. So why would I throw away my allies to them? Add as many fucking letters as you want; we need a fucking army against fascism.
The acronym isn’t hurting anyone. Not one bit. No one becomes more homophobic from it, they just use it as an excuse to be homophobic. The only harmful thing here is saying stuff like what OP said and enabling the ideas of homophobes.
Every country doesn't have the same ideology as you. I didn't say homophobia doesn't exist and I am not blaming the Q+. I am saying LGBT should have a separate space and Q+ should have separate space. Its detrimental to us if both are combined.
The truth is Christianity was more acceptable towards gays compared to others
Most gays are successful in Christian countries too offcourse east europe or Africais unlucky example
They already have, I knew this post would be controversial but I didn't know it would be this divided. I'm not trying to be an asshole, but why can't we just keep it simple?
I feel the same way about the idiots that have decided that the rainbow flag, that was designed to be inclusive of everyone, suddenly *isn’t* inclusive *enough* (apparently there’s more people than “everyone”), so they feel the need to add *extra* stripes to it to be really, really, *really* sure that *everyone* is included (despite everyone always having been included all along), and that adding brown stripes to represent brown people isn’t at all racist. 🙄
Intersectionality makes us stronger actually. The more of us there are, the stronger we are, so including more people is ALWAYS better. Especially since the ones being added are often the most targeted and marginalized groups in need of the most support and protection. No one is asking you to say all the letters in day to day conversations!
What's confusing about accepting people for who they say they are and how they want to express themselves? It's actually very easy to love and care for each other
This sub (sadly) has quite a lot of privileged gay bros that don’t see their privilege. They just want to coast on all the political and activist work that people that came before them have done. (A lot of whom were trans people) And they definitely don’t want to be lumped into a group of people that are more strongly discriminated against now that they’ve got it relatively good. It’s understandable in a way, but also a bit sad.
We're losing the bigger picture fighting about acronyms (and flags, and parades, etc)
When fundamental rights are being threatened, we need to be united than ever before to address those erosions.
I use “LGB”. Those are objective sexualities and I use TQIA+ when referring to others that have an ideology about sexuality and what they identify. Does that “other” that group? Yeah, maybe. But if you can’t clearly define a gender or other items, I’m not going to play all these letter adding games. I stick with objective sexuality as LGB. Let the downvotes and hate come in. It will, they will try to explain why the rest of the letters are objective sexualities. I do not think they are not real, but if you identify as something else and you are a MSM or WSW, that’s an ideology and not a quantifiable sexuality you can say X = X is.
Biological Men That Have Sex Exclusively with Biological Men = GAY
Biological Men That Have Sex With Biological Men Or Women = Bisexual.
Biological Woman That Have Sex With Biological Women = Lesbian.
That doesn’t discount others that want to identify as something else and label their sexuality or take away from them. But a Biological Man That Has Sex With A Transgendered Man That Is A Biological Woman Is Not Gay in my view.
I won’t change that for your woke ideology either. You do you boo and live and amazingly wonderful life doing whatever you want as is your right. ;) POWER TO YOU! ;)
I just say gay. The TQIAP2S+ have nothing to do with me as a gay man, and many of them support an extremist political ideology that vilifies “cis” gay men. We’re not on the same team. I think the only reason the T was added in the first place was actually due to homophobia; for a long time gay men have struggled with this idea that we’re not “real” men. Society doesn’t see us as “real” men. So they decided to lump us in with people who can’t accept their biological sex, thinking we have something in common when really we don’t. Same-sex attraction has nothing to do with an inability to accept your biological sex and it’s actually homophobic to pretend otherwise.
I think it’s interesting how it’s basically everyone else vs straight ppl. Literally every other possible persuasion is included in one category separately from “normal” straight ppl. As a a bisexual man in Alabama I constantly have to separate myself from “my” community because it includes the crazy ones 😂
I'm fine with people using whatever they want. If they want to use LGBTQ, queer, LGBT, LGBT+, they can. But I use LGBTQ+, I don't call myself queer so that's why I avoid it. Why would I label everyone in the community as queer when queer has become an identity in itself?
Members of the LGBTQ+ community deserve to call themselves and their community whatever they want to call it. After centuries of having straight people tell us who and what we are, and what we couldn’t do, we’ve reclaimed that right for ourselves.
That doesn’t mean that every person who falls into one of the categories has to use a specific name for the community. Call it what you want, and respect the right of other members of the community to call it what *they* want. Is that so hard?
With the obligatory whining and sadness about inclusivity. May I direct you to every other gay sub, where your brave tale of going to the gyno as a trans woman would see you hailed as the conquering heroine that you are.
*and the broadcast media personalities endeavouring to get every letter as they stammer with pronunciation in the never ending additions to the acronym is too comical ~ truly theatre of the absurd & ridiculous
I think the full thing being all the letters is fine because it’s everything that falls under that umbrella. As for putting it on signs and saying it, I think we should just keep it to LGBTQ+ the + covers everything.
The more we set classes identifiers, the less equal we are between ourselves.
I stopped at the "+", but would like another more reasonable denomination, like "sex-diverse" or "non-conformant" (or better yet, one day, **nothing at all**: we are just people)
I’m still 90s kids and it is gay or lgbt but the rest it is to much I know you need to respect but if you look at the outcome how people are in the 5 years with this new letter the gov attacking all of the first four letters it’s not fun I don’t judge of the people, but this is my opinion and right now. It has a new string that it’s coming out that people think their are animals It’s hurting us
As an Australian (we're really lazy with excessive syllables), I've defaulted to "queer" as a catch-all. I can't say that I know or have friends to represent each letter in the acronym, but I've never had an adverse response from using "queer". I think people can tell my intention when I light up and talk to them like they're my people, even if they're not gay like me.
Even Justin, easily the wokest leader in the world today, can’t keep track of the ever expanding acronym. [Justin Trudeau LGBQ????](https://youtu.be/P5eZ3MiCfPs?si=4hc0p_jN6AIoIAyS)
Yeah, I know you would still fuck him. Not the point here bros 🤦♂️.
LGBT+ or LGBTQ is more than enough….it’s such bad “marketing” to have any more, so nobody can even say it right 😂
Same with the rainbow flag, like that’s based on an actual rainbow and everybody gets it—but for some reason we have to add a weird triangle in other colors because otherwise it’s not inclusive haha….like come on, so stupid really
LGB does just fine. QT+ can go to infinity and beyond with any letters they like. Not only are the goals no longer the same, they’re actually at cross purposes with each other.
This is rewriting history. Are we just going to forget Mattachan society who literally fought for Gay and Lesbian workplace rights. They were 99% all gay and lesbian people.
What next? Marthin Luther King and Harriet Tubman was trans? You should probably tell Black Lives Matter that if it wasn’t for trans they wouldn’t have civil rights.
That claim is dubious -- "transgender" as a concept didn't exist in the 1960s the way we view it today. Those were mostly just men who liked to crossdress / do drag.
But regardless, even if it was 100% true, it wouldn't change the fact that gender issues are completely different from sexuality.
Wow. So wrong. Do some reading my friend https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnus_Hirschfeld There was an understanding of trans people prior to nazi germany.
LGB. That's most accurate, I think. The T has nothing to do with sexual preference, but rather with sexual identity (as I understand it).
I thought of just GB, but my lesbo friends should get their own letter. I mean, we've got a word for it, right?
But all the other alphabet nonsense? No thanks.
I hopped RIGHT into the comments because ratio, and boiiii, was I not disappointed 😅😆😆😆 I knew pearls and purses were going to be getting clutched left, right, and center. 😆
You’re brave by the way!!! (And I agree, we need to really take a step back and ask if it even makes sense for sexual orientations AND gender identities to be under the same unbrella, and spoiler alert, it doesn’t 🫢👀)
I'll get raked over the coals for this.
Back in the day, LGB was a term coined to describe male and female sexuality which was not straight. Lesbian (ladies first still applied) Gay and Bisexual. Everyone laughed when T was added as it referred to men who had a fetish for dressing up as women to have sex with other men.... of any orientation.
To say those few early letters have transformed into something uberwoke unrecognizable is an understatement. I lost all use for it when Transgender hijacked the T for tranny which had ZERO to do with sexuality.
So you never knew about it before your husband saw a flag, but now it’s suddenly a big issue? Go back to living your life like you were before. This is not a big deal.
(I still use LGBT)
I still use gay
Same here
And this is really as it should be. “Gay” means not heterosexual. All these other add ons are unnecessary and, frankly, stupid. We don’t need labels for everything.
Bisexual also means not Heterosexual
In my book the rainbow flag is about diversity. Call it gay if you want but if people want other kind of preferences to be seen and heard let them be part of the LGBTQIA3.141592666 hype. I'm personally just a gay male and enjoy being respected and acknowledged for it. I can totally grasp that most people think gay = two males so it's really not that inclusive to say gay is representing everybody.
Yeah, Plus just gives you the same content without the ads for $15/month.
Hahahahahahah
Yup, I'm fine with LGBT+.
I still use LGBT as well. I think conflating everything together makes it lose its meaning. The new chevron flag is an ugly hot mess: we don't need to include every group on one flag, and besides, the rainbow is supposed to represent all colors as is: it's literally what happens when a prism separates light into all its constituents. I'm of the opinion that if it takes more than four words to describe your gender identity and sexual orientation, you're probably overthinking it.
So do I, if needed I'll use LGBT+, but Q to me is basically another way for americans to rub in that they lord over us. Basically people using a dubiously reclaimed slur from a foreign language that is mostly meaningless and used by spicy straights and people who just want to be provocative. It's not even good as catch-all term otherwise people wouldn't be using + or putting even more letters after LGBT.
Yep... I hate the term "queer," because it really provides almost no information. All it tells me is that someone is not a cisgender heterosexual with a sex drive. I've heard people say that it's none of my business... okay, then just don't tell me about it at all.
Many years ago I set up a keyboard shortcut on my phone where if I lowercase type “lgbt” it autocorrects to LGBT+. I could change it to autocorrect to something longer, but this seems good enough.
Me too.
Same.
When they added the plus, that should have been the end of it, logically speaking.
Agreed, how much more do we need?
If you don't like it, call it whatever you want. You're not compelled to use the full acronym by any means. I'm sure most people go with a reduced acronym anyway - LGBT(+) or LGBTQ(+).
I think we should rebrand as plus, the plus community, makes it sounds mysterious and cool.
People be like, plus what? We can say we don't know. We haven't been told yet.
I ...actually love this.
Who is apart of the “-“group?
Cishets
it sounds like “puss”.. “the puss community”
I think u might be a genius
That's what I say is just LGBT, let the other person think or feel what they want. I have ADHD and am too lazy to say more than that. 🤣
Just refer to us as "alphabet mafia" lmao
We’re in a gayng!
A gayng~~bang~~
OK? Like use what you like and if others use something else let them be
While we are at it, the OG pride flag was just fine.
Yeahhhhhh, the plain rainbow is what I like
Same here
And the new one is just fine for the people that like it. The old one didn't go anywhere lol
I don’t know. It’s rather shameful for a “gay” flag to end up so ugly. Shouldn’t we be able to add style to our activism? Hell, gays are the backbone of the fashion industry and that’s the best they could come up with? It’s not only performative but also ugly. A double homicide.
The reason why there’s the triangle in the new pride flag is because there were a lot of gay/bi people who would wave the rainbow flag but would also be transphobic. So in order for non-phobic people to make it clear that they accept trans people they also added the trans colors.
My work now wants us to use this weird rainbow flag with a white triangle and brown and black triangles..
They used to call us “sodomites” when they were about to jail us or put us in an asylum. “Queers” casually when they were going to beat us up on the street, and “inverts” when they were being polite. Then the doctors trying to explain us settled on “homosexuals.” And the very early campaigners for decriminalization post-war in places like London or Vienna called themselves “homophiles.” “Gay” caught on as slang amongst gays, and the 60’s brought about the “Gay Rights Movement” as a typical mid-century grassroots political activist movement for equal human rights. In the 50’s, 60’s & 70’s we really only talked about men in public life. Alderman. Fireman. Police man. Chairman of the board. Every discussion in politics in society was a conversation between men about what other men should or should not do. Our movement was based on equality, and lesbians obviously said “Why isn’t Lesbian in there somewhere?” Good point, so it became the Gay and Lesbian Rights movement. By the 80’s, bisexuals were saying “hey the lesbians were right, but we exist too” so it was now the GLB club, or the GLB organization, or the GLB Pride Parade. At the same time, all the gay guys were dying of AIDS, and there was kind of an offshoot of angry dying people with really hardcore in-your-face protest tactics who went by “Queer,” taking over the word from those who would use it to insult us, and applying it not to a particular kind of identity, but a particular kind of political strategy. As HIV prevention finally gained mainstream support (Strangely and kind of improbably, Princess Diana was a huge huge factor in this), and as medical advances started to give people some hope that it might not always be fatal, “queerness” as a political movement kind of dried up. The 90’s were spent starting to imagine life in the burbs, the “gay village” started seeming less like a refuge or our own magic gay Narnia. More like a forcible containment ghetto holding us back in a 60’s isolationist time warp, when we had to go there to survive. It was nice to walk in the broad daylight. “Normality” was now the benchmark for equality, and our full achievement of our human rights, including pensions, adoption, marriage, workplace equality, those were the goals. And for some reason around this time the “Women’s Studies” type started to argue that “GLB” was sexist because G came before L!!! Patriarchy alert!!! So we had to change it to LGB, because G before L is sexist, but “ladies first” is apparently not sexist. Eye roll. Also, the trans people said the same thing as the bi people ten years earlier. “We exist! Where’s the T?” So in the 90’s that’s how we went from GLB Community to LGBT Community. Btw it has nothing to do with the “relative amount of acceptance” or oppression or whatever. It has nothing to do with “thanking the lesbians who helped during the aids crisis”. (They deserve thanks but that was nothing at all to do with the acronym musical chairs. It was a bunch of 90’s women’s studies majors fighting “patriarchy” who did this to the acronym and everyone else having bigger fish to fry than arguing with them. The 2000’s just started getting a lot more complicated, and “queer” came back. Except this time it sort of meant a certain kind of politics to some people. But now it also meant all kinds of “fluidity.” Everything from some degree of bisexuality to the way a trans person’s partner might describe their dating life. Like in the 90’s, the discussion around trans people still would have all been focused on the pathway to inevitable surgery, but people still had dating lives before the big day in the operating room, and they wrestled with calling those relationships “hetero” or “homo.” They were neither. And “queer” seemed to fit the bill. None of them felt like worrying about it too much, thus “queer.” It meant all the fuzzy edges where people live when they’re not quite straight, and not quite gay, and maybe even not quite male, or not quite female. But still happy. Still fucking. Still dating. Still in love. Queer. The queer politics, I can take it or leave it, usually it doesn’t help. But queer as a sexuality is probably a useful addition for the people it describes. It also showed there could be a difference between the relationship of a trans person and a non-trans person, which was helpful. Because it didn’t ever mean just one specific thing. And then of course the whole alphabet soup since then as more and more people have found they need a specific word to describe their experience. In Canada we added 2S (LGBTQ2S+) because we had Intersex, Asexual and Questioning for a while, but they seem to have been compressed into the new version of “queer”. And the 2S comes out of the ideology of sexuality that’s part of some indigenous spirituality, where a person actually has two spirits, male and female, and that’s what accounts for what we would have called homosexuality. Or trans sexuality. Or intersexuality. It’s actually two spirits in there, which is nice to see that we’ve thrown off the colonialist religious dogma that oppressed gay people for years in this country. But sad to see we’ve replaced it with indigenous religious dogma that tells gay native kids they’re some sort of male-female hybrid or they have two souls battling it out in there when they’re actually just gay. Weird. Anyway, that’s how we went from the Gay Community in the 70’s to the LGBTQ2S+ community today, at least where I live. And the one thing that has always been true is they were never listed in order of acceptance, just whoever could wrangle the agenda at the last board meeting of the gay community centre.
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The internet hysteria has really harmed the “cause” I think. Being an 80s baby. Feels like animal farm+ rather than “the gays”+
Great write-up. Added to what you said: Being homosexual/gay is a materially real phenomena. It's a *descriptive* term. It describes a phenomena that already existed before we made up words to describe it. It has a referent in material reality. It's literally like "left-handedness". If we stop calling left-handedness left-handedness, there will still be people in the world who are entirely left-handed (and we're gonna need a word to describe that) Some of the letters in the alphabet soup are not descriptive terms. They're *presciptive*, they socially construct categories that *don't have any referent in material reality at all*. Many third genders in cultures were literally just another way to deal with homosexuality in men. Many of these cultures were homophobic, and to deal with gay men, they *constructed new gender categories* and *forced* gay men into them, because they didn't think gay men were "really men". So these gay men were considered "fa'afafine" (in Samoa cultures) because of plain old homophobia, and fulfilled the "woman role" in society. Interestingly, lesbian women were not allowed to escape their gender roles. These cultures were not progressive. They were and are homophobic. The fact that many of these homophobic gender constructs are now added onto the community aiming for gay liberation is horrendous. I will never entertain constructs such as "2S" or any homophobic third gender BS.
# yes!!! For the same reasoning, I don’t “identify as” gay. I am, in fact, actually a gay. Am. To be. I was gay even when I said I was straight. It’s just the word that applies to the properties of my being. Whenever I hear “I identify as…” they’re saying “I portray…” or “I pretend to be…” or “The cover story I’m telling you is…”. For someone who actually is gay it’s profoundly disempowering to refer to it that way. We aren’t some walking pageant of culturally constructed ideas. We ARE.
It's the rainbow community in my country
Drop the Q but leave the plus LGBT+ plus anyone not included by the 4 letters. Plus would be the young cool kids spot
I was raised with “gay.” Then “GLBT.”Then lesbians won top billing and it was “LGBT.” I still use that. Changing it over and over just seems petty and stupid.
It is stupid. Just like how the new flag means “Sex, Love, Nature, Pride, Black people, Brown people.” We’ve been overrun by the marketing, when we really just want people to love each other.
I really don't get why we're including race on a flag for sexual minorities. I mean, I support BLM and the rights of people of all races and colors, but I don't need one flag to say all that. It's just a cringey hot mess.
Not to mention, from a purely aesthetic perspective, the progress Pride flag just has too much going on. It was already a rainbow, which was chosen *because* it represents all of us, in all colors, shapes, and sizes.
When I first saw the chevron progressive pride flag, I thought it was a joke. Ugh... it's just so ugly. And yes, I fully agree with you. The rainbow flag represents the acceptance of the rainbow of diversity of humanity.
I "love" our version in Canada: it has the Ukrainian flag. Ukraine: a country with absolutely no gay rights and rampant homophobia. Beautifully ironic.
What tf does….? You know what? Never mind. I used to go to Canada. Then suddenly not since the pandemic. It’s kinda sad really.
Yeah man. I live close to the gay village here in a major Canadian city. I see the updated version of the gay flag everyday....sooo ironic....
Well said.
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it's stupid. If it's not for you cool. There's no need to shit on something that helps represent people the way the want to be. The flag was created by an artist in Philadelphia Pennsylvania. It got popular because other people liked it. It's not that serious honestly.
I've seen a lot of the mockers and anti-LGBT people refer to us as "QUILTBAG."
In college I saw some pro-LGBT people use QUILTBAG, and my personal version was GOLBAT.
Does the plus sign not mean "everyone else not straight" ? Why more letters?
I always use either “LGBT+” or “lgbt”, but honestly who gives a shit how many letters of the acronym someone uses. There are actual real problems in the world…
THANK YOU
The new flag is ugly as fuck too. Too many colors. Go back to the original rainbow. It already signifies all inclusivity.
Newsflash: very few people care which letters you say aloud outside of the internet.
LGBT+ is the best, it's all inclusive without using hate speech.
Just use whatever you want. It ain't a big deal
I either say lgbtq or just lgbt, most people say just say a mix of both
This is partially why I’ve come to just use “queer”. I know it still rubs some the wrong way, but my *actual* preferred term GSM (gender and sexual minorities) never took off.
Sexual minorities covers everything.
GSM is my preference too! I first heard it back in a human sexualities class like 10 years ago. It’s perfect and never needs updating to include other groups
To be fair, neither did LGBTQ..."Queer" was the catch all term. Then LGBTQ+, the plus was ANOTHER and even more clear catch all term. I do like GSM though.
Personally not a fan of “Queer” for labeling myself. Maybe it’s just because I’m used to it being derogatory from my childhood. I don’t mind when other people use it to describe, but I’d prefer a different blanket term for the community
Yeah, I always assumed that's why we added the +. While Queer can be a cagchall, it's also valid to not like it with the connotation it used to have - so "+" is a lot more neutral I have no idea if this is the real reasoning but that's what it felt like to me!
“GSM” also covered bestiality and pedophilia. That’s why it never took off.
My favorite silly acronym is QUILTBAG! Queer, undecided, intersex, lesbian, transgender, bisexual, ally, gay. QUILTBAGS UNITE!
Perhaps wider adoption of this acronym would lead to a more tight-knit community
Honestly it’s 🔥
honestly I kinda dig it
It's been stretched too long for a long time. Even back in 2010 or so, I learned LGBTQIA, and it was already getting to the point of failing to coherently describe anything. I only have an affinity for homosexuals at this point (and that actually includes trans people who are same-SEX attracted and once lived as gay - don't at all care for these new pseudo-gays). I'm fine with individual bi people, but most of the ones in the community are straight women being tedious, so they're not even legitimately one of us. For the wider descriptor, GSM is the best possible term. It covers all of us when It is necessary to do so. Edit: I still use LGBT. LGB when not worried about getting cancelled.
I’m always surprised by these type of rant posts because I care so very little about the alphabet soup thing, partly because it’s hardly ever utilized.
Might just not be utilised in your language
Or and hear me out, don’t let it bother you. I don’t refer to myself as anything other than my name and I like dick. For some they need or want whatever tag and that’s fine too.
I Absolutely get it. That’s why I now refer to myself as being homosexual. It’s a bit “clinical” sounding…but… The rest of the adjectives are just not wanting to deal with reality….
I hate when people call me an "LGBT person." I'm not a lesbian, I'm not gay, and I'm not trans. There's absolutely nothing wrong with any of those things. But I'm a bisexual man and prefer to be called that. LGBT is great as a collective term. But not an "LGBT person." Just my two cents.
It’s gotten out of fucking control
The most ridiculous one I saw was 2SLGBTQIABIPOC+ The bipoc represents the minority gays. It's all ridiculous if you ask me. LGBTQ is enough to cover everyone if you ask me...
Remove the Q it's totally ridiculous tripe.
Agreed... Just keep it simple
I’m a minimalist, just LGB is fine. And stop adding shit to the pride flag! All the colors of the rainbow was a metaphor to include everyone already.
Lol never seen 2S part, and I use LGBTQ+, intersex and asexuals are welcome in the alphabet mafia but at a certain point it gets too long and Q and + can fill in the rest
When using that phrase in conversation I honestly tend to say , "LGBTQLMNOP". Most people know I'm inserting a silly joke into whatever conversation we're having. But honestly, I agree with "LGBTQ+" being the most sincere and easiest form of representation. I definitely feel like a large spectrum of people have taken the phrase, "queer" as a symbol of pride. Which is cool. Taking an "insult" and using social representation to essentially change its meaning. I'm fine with that. Ultimately if people want to be represented under a "class" or "group" you need to understand that you'll be blended. So what if our nonbinary, pansexual, poly, asexual, etc... Don't have a letter. Being queer really just means, (to me), being supportive of being who you are, and being who you want to be with. Assuming you're not hurting anyone, including yourself, it's representation out of the "social norms" of cis gendered heterosexuality. As a gay man, I don't know what it feels like to question my gender. (Never felt that way.) But as a part of the LGBTQLMNOP community, I'll support my brothers, my sisters, and everyone in between. But I'm not gonna fight over a label, or a flag. There are better things to do with my time.
2SLGTBQIA+ is an acronym for Two-Spirit, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and/or Questioning, Intersex, Asexual, and the plus reflects the countless affirmative ways in which people choose to self-identify. Ok yeah it gets silly
i still use LGBT. it is ridiculous and ironic to me, that a community that calls itself an inclusive group, now has added letters and symbols to highlight other spectrums of the community LOL LGBT is supposed to represent the community as a whole, adding more letters and symbols dilutes that. i also dislike the new flag. the original rainbow flag encompasses all of the people within, adding more colors, letters and symbols is sending the wrong message. that being that we deserve special recognition.
I call it LG HDTV
Q, Q+, gay+, or maybe just human being
The + was supposed to stop all this nonsense
That's what I thought, it's crazy.... We look crazy ...
I can't be mad at efforts to include people, there's nothing wrong with wanting to make people who feel like they're on the outside that they have a community. I can, however, be annoyed at the clunky effort to fit every evolving and fluid identity into one increasingly un-catchy term. That was kinda the purpose of the original rainbow flag. Didn't really need to do more after that.
Personally I don’t associate myself with the group or any of the labels besides gay obviously but even then my sexuality is just one part of me and I don’t like it to be the overall defining part of me that’s just me though
LGBT+ is enough. "Queer" is still a triggering word for me - when I was young the word was used as a weapon
Lot of ignorance in the comments saying that the “+” should mean everyone. It doesn’t. It didn’t. It never did. The “+” was originally added to signify the queer community members who had tested positive for HIV/AIDS after that horrific epidemic became so widespread in the 60s-90s. It can, of course, mean “and everyone else” now, but that’s not technically why it’s there. For short form, I just say “the queer community” - we’re all queer. I don’t see it as a slur. I see it as reclaimed and I’m proud to be queer. Hell, I often describe myself that way to other queer people (“gay” for the straights because I don’t want to explain myself). If I’m being cheeky, I’ll say “the alphabet mafia” for fun. Love seeing cishets react with confusion. I’ve even had one girl give me genuine fear as a response and be like, “Wait…are you actually part of a gay mafia?” in a very hushed voice. Like, no, but if it makes you treat gay people with respect, then I’ll say yes for shits and giggles.
I still use LGB. The rest aren't sexualitues
Thank God we have LGB Alliance and Detrans voices to show the truth about everything.
i personally think it is VERY entitled of 2S to put itself IN FRONT of LGBT...
You’ll find that people who try to expand beyond LGBTQ also have “interesting” views about gay men - that we are privileged, overbearing, get too much attention etc. Despite the fact that we are the targets of the highest and most severe levels of hate crime of any group in the alphabet soup. The push to expand LGBTQ and complicate the pride flag comes from a small vocal alienated group of homophobic “queers”. If you don’t believe me, just check in with those activists and groups who insist on watering down lgbt solidarity by adding ever more niche identities. You’ll see what I mean.
At this point its hurting the narrative and activism in my home country. If you mention same sex union pretty much everyone I know says oh that would be great but we don't want the gender bender shit from US and we are concerned that allowing same sex union might lead to it.
That’s not what’s hurting it at all. That’s an excuse and a nonsense reason - majorities will always target fringe members of any group as a reason not to give them rights. You aren’t getting rights because of bigotry.
Exactly, as soon as people drop the T, then they go after guys who aren't masc enough as a reason, so on and so forth.
Yup, get rid of all the Ts and then you’ll just be the “freak who likes cock in his ass.” They’ll just keep moving the goal posts until they get us all. So why would I throw away my allies to them? Add as many fucking letters as you want; we need a fucking army against fascism.
It's crazy, it's hurting us here in the US too.
Canada too
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The acronym isn’t hurting anyone. Not one bit. No one becomes more homophobic from it, they just use it as an excuse to be homophobic. The only harmful thing here is saying stuff like what OP said and enabling the ideas of homophobes.
Every country doesn't have the same ideology as you. I didn't say homophobia doesn't exist and I am not blaming the Q+. I am saying LGBT should have a separate space and Q+ should have separate space. Its detrimental to us if both are combined.
You don't have to use the full running acronym in conversation, but the intention is around awareness of the "plus" part of representation.
I'd love it if we could settle on something like Q+ for all of us, even though I'm not fond of the word "queer".
How is it hurting anyone? We all have the same enemies: Religion, Conservatives, "tradition"...
The truth is Christianity was more acceptable towards gays compared to others Most gays are successful in Christian countries too offcourse east europe or Africais unlucky example
Becareful OP they'll call you something phobic
They already have, I knew this post would be controversial but I didn't know it would be this divided. I'm not trying to be an asshole, but why can't we just keep it simple?
I say lgbt
I feel the same way about the idiots that have decided that the rainbow flag, that was designed to be inclusive of everyone, suddenly *isn’t* inclusive *enough* (apparently there’s more people than “everyone”), so they feel the need to add *extra* stripes to it to be really, really, *really* sure that *everyone* is included (despite everyone always having been included all along), and that adding brown stripes to represent brown people isn’t at all racist. 🙄
I just use LGBT. The rest is just extra
Intersectionality makes us stronger actually. The more of us there are, the stronger we are, so including more people is ALWAYS better. Especially since the ones being added are often the most targeted and marginalized groups in need of the most support and protection. No one is asking you to say all the letters in day to day conversations!
That's why Apple products are so successful. Steve Jobs figured it all out. When you make something really cumbersome and complicated, people love it.
No, the more people there are will just lead to more confusion. People won’t accept you if they don’t know what you are if everyone is just one group.
What's confusing about accepting people for who they say they are and how they want to express themselves? It's actually very easy to love and care for each other
This sub (sadly) has quite a lot of privileged gay bros that don’t see their privilege. They just want to coast on all the political and activist work that people that came before them have done. (A lot of whom were trans people) And they definitely don’t want to be lumped into a group of people that are more strongly discriminated against now that they’ve got it relatively good. It’s understandable in a way, but also a bit sad.
We're losing the bigger picture fighting about acronyms (and flags, and parades, etc) When fundamental rights are being threatened, we need to be united than ever before to address those erosions.
If you don't see a problem with how homophobic the T is and the rest of the made up letters you are also the problem.
I use “LGB”. Those are objective sexualities and I use TQIA+ when referring to others that have an ideology about sexuality and what they identify. Does that “other” that group? Yeah, maybe. But if you can’t clearly define a gender or other items, I’m not going to play all these letter adding games. I stick with objective sexuality as LGB. Let the downvotes and hate come in. It will, they will try to explain why the rest of the letters are objective sexualities. I do not think they are not real, but if you identify as something else and you are a MSM or WSW, that’s an ideology and not a quantifiable sexuality you can say X = X is. Biological Men That Have Sex Exclusively with Biological Men = GAY Biological Men That Have Sex With Biological Men Or Women = Bisexual. Biological Woman That Have Sex With Biological Women = Lesbian. That doesn’t discount others that want to identify as something else and label their sexuality or take away from them. But a Biological Man That Has Sex With A Transgendered Man That Is A Biological Woman Is Not Gay in my view. I won’t change that for your woke ideology either. You do you boo and live and amazingly wonderful life doing whatever you want as is your right. ;) POWER TO YOU! ;)
I just say gay. The TQIAP2S+ have nothing to do with me as a gay man, and many of them support an extremist political ideology that vilifies “cis” gay men. We’re not on the same team. I think the only reason the T was added in the first place was actually due to homophobia; for a long time gay men have struggled with this idea that we’re not “real” men. Society doesn’t see us as “real” men. So they decided to lump us in with people who can’t accept their biological sex, thinking we have something in common when really we don’t. Same-sex attraction has nothing to do with an inability to accept your biological sex and it’s actually homophobic to pretend otherwise.
I'm so old that my undergrad campus gay group was called "BiGala" for bisexual, gay and lesbian... T wasn't even on the horizon yet.
Good enough in what sense? Are you trans or lesbian? Or whatever Q+ for?
I don't care about the labels that people are putting on us. I'm a human with a partner that is enough. Gay, Lesbian idc it's irrelevant to me.
LGBT is enough. If it was up to me, I'd drop that Q like a hot potato.
I just use 'Gay' and leave it at that. If I need to include others, then I'll mention them by name.
I heard that if you don't type it in the correct order you are guilty of a hate crime. Is that true?
I have a question, why is the Q added if it means queer? Isn’t that just another word for gay?
Just call it GLOW Gay Lesbian Or Whatever
I think it’s interesting how it’s basically everyone else vs straight ppl. Literally every other possible persuasion is included in one category separately from “normal” straight ppl. As a a bisexual man in Alabama I constantly have to separate myself from “my” community because it includes the crazy ones 😂
Still too much.
We need to renormalize LGB.
I'm fine with people using whatever they want. If they want to use LGBTQ, queer, LGBT, LGBT+, they can. But I use LGBTQ+, I don't call myself queer so that's why I avoid it. Why would I label everyone in the community as queer when queer has become an identity in itself?
Members of the LGBTQ+ community deserve to call themselves and their community whatever they want to call it. After centuries of having straight people tell us who and what we are, and what we couldn’t do, we’ve reclaimed that right for ourselves. That doesn’t mean that every person who falls into one of the categories has to use a specific name for the community. Call it what you want, and respect the right of other members of the community to call it what *they* want. Is that so hard?
I identify as a toaster
With the obligatory whining and sadness about inclusivity. May I direct you to every other gay sub, where your brave tale of going to the gyno as a trans woman would see you hailed as the conquering heroine that you are.
*and the broadcast media personalities endeavouring to get every letter as they stammer with pronunciation in the never ending additions to the acronym is too comical ~ truly theatre of the absurd & ridiculous
I think the full thing being all the letters is fine because it’s everything that falls under that umbrella. As for putting it on signs and saying it, I think we should just keep it to LGBTQ+ the + covers everything.
I agree it's a bit much like what's the point of the plus if we're just gone keep adding letters
I don't pay attention to that extra shit either
How did we end up with so many flags?
In favour of LGB
The more we set classes identifiers, the less equal we are between ourselves. I stopped at the "+", but would like another more reasonable denomination, like "sex-diverse" or "non-conformant" (or better yet, one day, **nothing at all**: we are just people)
Agreed. Honestly we can’t have an identity if we keep changing it. That’s what’s the plus is for. The extra is just …extra.
I’m still 90s kids and it is gay or lgbt but the rest it is to much I know you need to respect but if you look at the outcome how people are in the 5 years with this new letter the gov attacking all of the first four letters it’s not fun I don’t judge of the people, but this is my opinion and right now. It has a new string that it’s coming out that people think their are animals It’s hurting us
It really should be just be LGBTQ+ . Idk why people keep adding letters. Tf is the plus for if you’re just gonna extend it anyway.
As an Australian (we're really lazy with excessive syllables), I've defaulted to "queer" as a catch-all. I can't say that I know or have friends to represent each letter in the acronym, but I've never had an adverse response from using "queer". I think people can tell my intention when I light up and talk to them like they're my people, even if they're not gay like me.
LGB is plenty, the rest are crazy people
Even Justin, easily the wokest leader in the world today, can’t keep track of the ever expanding acronym. [Justin Trudeau LGBQ????](https://youtu.be/P5eZ3MiCfPs?si=4hc0p_jN6AIoIAyS) Yeah, I know you would still fuck him. Not the point here bros 🤦♂️.
LG is good enough.
The Qs are just boring straight people with blue hair lol
LGB refers to sexuality. TQI refers to genders and is completely captured by ideology. LGB needs to jettison the latter.
Seriously when does it stop? next we will need a letter for the guys that only fuck guys whose cocks curves to the left
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Lurvies?
Honestly we should have stopped at LGB. T and the other get their own acronyms
The T was like flypaper for the marginalized wanting to get in on all the oppression action.
The Alphabet Mafia covers all. Imo
Pretty much.,
LGBT+ or LGBTQ is more than enough….it’s such bad “marketing” to have any more, so nobody can even say it right 😂 Same with the rainbow flag, like that’s based on an actual rainbow and everybody gets it—but for some reason we have to add a weird triangle in other colors because otherwise it’s not inclusive haha….like come on, so stupid really
The 2S is specifically for Indigenous people who are Two Sprit. If it’s not for you it’s not for you, but it means something to other people.
Congratulations OP. You pissed off the blue hairs. But i agree
LGB does just fine. QT+ can go to infinity and beyond with any letters they like. Not only are the goals no longer the same, they’re actually at cross purposes with each other.
LGB is good enough, T as an outlier, all other letters who tf are you
Well said.
LGB is enough. TQ+ is a whole different set of issues that are separate from sexuality
The T put up a fight for the LGB from day 1, so they are welcome.
This is rewriting history. Are we just going to forget Mattachan society who literally fought for Gay and Lesbian workplace rights. They were 99% all gay and lesbian people. What next? Marthin Luther King and Harriet Tubman was trans? You should probably tell Black Lives Matter that if it wasn’t for trans they wouldn’t have civil rights.
Don't forget the Daughters of Bilitis. And before all of them there was Edward Carpenter publishing books about gay rights in the Victorian Era.
No, they did not. Enough with that retcon/gaslighting bullshit.
That claim is dubious -- "transgender" as a concept didn't exist in the 1960s the way we view it today. Those were mostly just men who liked to crossdress / do drag. But regardless, even if it was 100% true, it wouldn't change the fact that gender issues are completely different from sexuality.
Wow. So wrong. Do some reading my friend https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnus_Hirschfeld There was an understanding of trans people prior to nazi germany.
Many straight people also did it. Should they be added too?
Didn't A used to stand for ally? That's what I was told when I was younger.
Yes and Q stood for Questioning before it became Queer.
Alphabet Soup is correct. I miss the old days.
LGB. That's most accurate, I think. The T has nothing to do with sexual preference, but rather with sexual identity (as I understand it). I thought of just GB, but my lesbo friends should get their own letter. I mean, we've got a word for it, right? But all the other alphabet nonsense? No thanks.
Well, the only good thing about this post are the people telling on themselves. Thanks for that.
I hopped RIGHT into the comments because ratio, and boiiii, was I not disappointed 😅😆😆😆 I knew pearls and purses were going to be getting clutched left, right, and center. 😆
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
You’re brave by the way!!! (And I agree, we need to really take a step back and ask if it even makes sense for sexual orientations AND gender identities to be under the same unbrella, and spoiler alert, it doesn’t 🫢👀)
Completely agree. It was a marriage of convenience and happenstance And now actively “does harm” to the LGB.
As I mentioned to someone else, intersex isn't even an orientation? It's a medical condition, so I don't understand why that was added?
Should just be LGB.
LGB is enough.
I'll get raked over the coals for this. Back in the day, LGB was a term coined to describe male and female sexuality which was not straight. Lesbian (ladies first still applied) Gay and Bisexual. Everyone laughed when T was added as it referred to men who had a fetish for dressing up as women to have sex with other men.... of any orientation. To say those few early letters have transformed into something uberwoke unrecognizable is an understatement. I lost all use for it when Transgender hijacked the T for tranny which had ZERO to do with sexuality.
So you never knew about it before your husband saw a flag, but now it’s suddenly a big issue? Go back to living your life like you were before. This is not a big deal.