As the title states really. I need to refer to this diverse group of people, who somehow have gotten put in the same box labeled “sexual minorites”.
I’m a boring CISHET vanilla white male, so I don’t really know. I want to include as many as I can when I refer to “lgbtq+ people”. I’ve been studying various flags, trying to find the one flag I need. But I can’t really figure it out.
Is lgbtq+ the preferred term, or what should I use? Is a flag better? I don’t want to hurt someone by not including them.
I just use “the LGBTQ community”
If that offends anyone, they’re that 0.00000001% of attention-seeking twats that get upset about anything for the sole reason of making any issue about themselves, no matter what
They are also the loudest, mind you
Like I give a fuck
I hear you loud and clear. I’m probably adding the “+” as well, but I also realize that some people just want to be offended. If I can get people to be offended that I don’t oppress lgbtq+ people, then that’s fine. But I don want to accidentally hurt people by being ignorant.
I’m going to open this in a way that is probably not lending credit to much, but I’m a CIS straight white male.
I’m also Aromantic.
I’m a tiny part of the A at the end of LGBTQIA+, and I have no strong opinions on being left out! I love that we are included at all!
I hit the big supportive events in my community, and occasionally visit a couple of the gay bars while sporting my Aro flag ring and dying my beard in various colors.
I can’t remember where I was going with this comment.
That’s ok, I was distracted by my slight misreading of your second sentence and found myself wondering why you would mention that you smell nice 🙃
My two cents as a trans person: The Q (queer) is an umbrella term for everyone who didn’t fall under L G B or T, so adding anything after that is just unnecessary and begging for right wingers to make a joke out of it.
So “LGBTQ” is safest, but most of the time I just say “LGBT” tbh
I get where you’re coming from, but what about the wide swath of people in this post, who are not covered by the term? Like aromantics and asexuals?
begging for right wingers to make a joke out of it
Who’s to say I’m not kinda looking for it? Come at me, I’m angry, I sorta want a fight. I can hold my own in a debate, and if I can get you to expose your obsolete and inhumane views by attacking me, then YOU are the one who’s outed.
aromantics and asexuals
They’re covered by the term “queer” too because they’re not heterosexual. And if anyone identifies as “agender” they’d be covered by the Q too, since they’re not cisgender.
I’m angry, I sorta want a fight
I don’t think we have anything to fight about lol
I’m not looking to fight anyone here. I’m sorry if I came across way. I want to stop my boomer coworkers from hurting LGTBQ people in our organization, and if that resolves in me debating my coworkers then that’s a fight I’m not gonna back down from… #imactuallynotverybadassjustextremelytired
I want to stop my boomer coworkers from hurting LGTBQ people
As a 70 year old lesbian, I’d like to suggest you might find some more allies in your organization, please don’t assume all boomers are bigots. I have many grey haired allies. I doubt you’re as alone as you think you are, but maybe you’re just more “out” than they are. Give them the chance to come out and join you.
Oooh I see what you meant now lol. But yeah, I feel you.
What’s funny is that a lot of my coworkers would shit-talk trans people until they learned I was transitioning. Now all of the sudden they’re more nuanced and understanding 🤔
Do you call them boomers to their faces?
Last time I did was today, but that was in a teasing funny setting, and to a person I hold a great deal of respect for.
I wouldn’t in a discussion, I hate name calling, it’s counter productive. But in my mind…
But it exists in your head, right? Like you have mentally categorised an age of people as boomers, and you’re associating a behaviour with that category?
The reason I say is that age is also a protected category…
Hmm I guess you’re right… I hadn’t thought of it that way before.
I think I describe the behavior more than the age group, but I still see what you’re saying. Thanks for call me out on it.
I don’t want to fight either!
Speaking as an aromantic though, I am very heterosexual. I just don’t enjoy all the lovey dovey squishy romantic things… Holding hands is mostly ok, anything beyond that kinda grosses me out. (Kissing is so weird…) I very much enjoy most of the more intimate physical things though.
Many aromantics enjoy physical relationships, but don’t understand the more romantic aspects of them.
I go with lgbt. Those who know all the letters, know all the letters. Those who don’t will make fun of you for listing out more letters.
I’m not saying lgbtqia2s+ fuck no. It’s cringe af
I agree that in an effort to be as inclusive as possible we have created a completely unmarketable acronym. That matters because we are still having to defend our very existence to a lot of people whose bigotry is being gathered up and weaponized politically against us.
What about “rainbow people”? I kinda like it, the letters can quickly become unmarketable cringe while still not include everyone.
As an lgbtqia+ person, I say screw 2S. That’s so silly.
The best term you can use is just “the queer community”. It’s a broad and vague word that asks no questions and offers no answers beyond “these people have sexual orientations and/or gender identities that are not exclusively heterosexual and/or cisgender”. It’s gender-neutral unlike the previous catch-all term “gay”. It includes people who were originally excluded and unrepresented by the original LGBT acronym, such as intersex and third-gendered people. It also includes people who find it culturally difficult to put a label on what they do, such as same-gender-loving Black people who don’t call themselves “gay”.
That being said, it is not always the perfect, use-it-all-the-time panacea that you’re looking for. “Queer” was originally a pejorative term, and although it has been reclaimed as positive terminology since the Stonewall Riot days (think of the chant, “We’re here! We’re queer! Get used to it!”), some older members of the queer community remember it as hurtful.
In addition, sometimes it’s important to be specific. Exclusively using the word “queer” to refer to the queer community flattens the queer experience to one single uniform word, when reality is anything but uniform. For example, when trans people are targeted by executive orders and bathroom bills, it’s important to be specific about who those actions harm: trans people, intersex people, and so on.
For these reasons, while it is safe to use “queer” as a blanket term, some individual people don’t like the term and some individual circumstances call for a more specific word.
As far as your flag question goes, if you’re looking for a visible signal to signpost that you’re a queer ally, you’re probably looking for the Progress Flag. It’s the original rainbow pride flag, but with added representation for trans people, intersex people, people of color, and those who died during the AIDS crisis.
It’s gender-neutral unlike the previous catch-all term “gay”.
Exposing my own ignorance here, but is “gay” necessarily gendered? I had thought that lesbian women sometimes identified as “gay”, is that not the case? No offence meant, genuinely interested.
I don’t think there’s a contradiction there, a term being gendered isn’t all-or-nothing. Certainly, some men attracted to men identify as gay, as well as some lesbian women, and even some bisexual folks of any gender. In that way it isn’t exclusively gendered.
But if I say “the gay community”, I’m guessing the image that evokes in your mind leans heavily towards gay men, compared to a phrase like “the LGBTQ+ community”. Even if the speaker means the same thing by those phrases, the listener likely interprets them differently.
Fair point, I agree a lot of people probably would think that way, although on a personal level, I would say that if I heard “the gay community” my reaction would be to consider it to mean both gay men and lesbian women. Not sure if it’s different in different places though (UK here), maybe there are geographic differences too?
Anyway, thanks for the good answer :-)
“Gay” is either gendered or not the same way that “guy” and “dude” are either gendered or not.
Exposing my own ignorance here, but is “gay” necessarily gendered?
The difficulty of answering that question, and the fact that both “yes” and “no” are both valid answers that individual people of every gender could sincerely give, are two of the reasons why “queer” has become more popular than “gay” as an umbrella term. The people who do think “gay” as an umbrella term is gendered prefer the word “queer”, while the people who don’t think “gay” as an umbrella term is gendered are not upset by the word “queer”.
Another reason that “gay” isn’t used as an umbrella term is because it’s also a specific term. Imagine being a man and saying “I’m gay” and having someone ask you, “ok but are you gay or are you gay gay?”. Sexuality and gender are already sensitive and difficult things to explore, so removing ambiguity from the language surrounding those topics will make things clearer and easier for everyone involved.
That being said, you should always respect the way that people want to be identified. If you know a lesbian woman that identifies as “gay”, then just accept it and use it while understanding that not every lesbian woman will feel the same way.
All really good points - thank you :-)
I personally use “queer folks” as a general catch-all. It used to be a pejorative, but has largely been reclaimed with the whole “we’re here, we’re queer” type messages.
The LBGTQ : pronounced The luh-buh-guh-tuh-quah
The alphabet mafia
Or the southern version : all y’all
I tried “you people” but for some reason it didn’t go too well.
I’ve always thought we should use “plus” as in the + at the end of lgbt. It’s short, easy, all inclusive and has a built in positive association.
Not being part of that community myself, I don’t carry any weight in this debate, but I do like this suggestion a lot - the Plus community sounds kinda cool.
Only problem is that if it were written as “+”, that might also be read as “positive”, which might then lead to ‘hilarious’ jokes about HIV.
Nonetheless, I think it’s a good idea, if that was what the people involved wanted of course.
Personally I prefer just “sexual minority” as LGBTQ comes with political backage that I prefer not to be associated with.
“L G that thing there that gets more letters every few weeks”
why not just use “sexual minorities”?
Gender and sexual minorities is more complete. Trans and non-binary identities are not sexual minorities.
I treat them as normal people and don’t refer to them at all. They’re no different than anyone else in any way and shouldn’t be excluded or included as a result of their sexual identity.
This is all fine and dandy, but if you can’t name a minority group, then they are effectively forgotten. It’s not true that they are “no different than anyone else” otherwise we wouldn’t be having this discussion. When it comes to diversity and inclusion, you want to be able to identify and name the groups you’re trying to include.
In a normal world, there’s no need for groups. We’re all just people. No one is an exception- no one is special. To me, they are the same as eveone else.
Just people.
Well, we don’t live in that magical world and minorities still need support to avoid discrimination.
Treated the same, or treated special…. Pick one.
Personally, I don’t think anyone is excluded. And won’t treat someone differently just because others do. Everyone is equal in my world. Who you love is no business of mine. If others make it so- that’s not something I should adjust for.
Do as you wish.
That’s the different between equality and equity. When you treat me and women “the same” you get the current pay gap. So you need positive discrimination to correct for that. One day we won’t need it, I hope.
Here’s what I use:
- LGBT+ most formal (and old fashioned)
- LGBTQ+ less formal
- “people” most inclusive
Hello, I’m one of those queer people.
For my two cents, I find in conversations it’s easiest to refer to it as the “queer community” or “gay community.” If I’m feeling an acronym, the first one I reach for is LGBT. And that’s me speaking as one of those q+ folks.
Now for me, I prefer to use Queer because it’s sort of an umbrella term. For instance, all lesbians are queer, but not all queer people are lesbians. It’s also great for people who don’t like labels, because it doesn’t pigeonhole someone into a specific box.
The term “queer” has a little history behind it too. When I was in middle school, being called queer was like, the ultimate insult. It was used pejoratively, and it felt bad to hear it. Nowadays we’re reclaiming the word, and it loses its evilness. That all said, you can call people “queer,” but don’t call a person “a queer” or else you’re being insulting. It’s to be used like an adjective, not a noun.
For my money, this is the most inclusive flag without singling out a particular community.
Generally speaking, I don’t like an overly verbose acronym. It’s part of why I stop at LGBT or LGBTQ instead of going all the way to LGBTQ+, or as my government seems to want to say, LGBTQ2IA+. In my opinion, the effort to make the community more inclusive by adding more sub-communities to the acronym has the opposite effect.
Mm, problem is op is a cishet. We can use words like queer and alphabet mafia, but they are…different from the mouth of an outsider (for want of a better word)
