What do you think of when you hear LGBTQ+?

[purpledaze24]

It seems these days, when people see/hear LGBTQ+ they think of trans people & the trans debate. Is this accurate do you think? Or AIBU? I read on here recently about someone rejecting a rainbow badge given to her to wear at work to celebrate pride month (presumably not cos she was homophobic but rather, anti-trans). As a lesbian, this makes me really sad. I’ve always been proud to be a ‘rainbow family’ and want my kids to be proud too, but this association, and takeover imo, of the rainbow symbol & LGBTQ+ acronym by the gender ideology brigade, is creating, at best erasure of LGB people, and at worst, (maybe unintentional) homophobia and discrimination. I respect & understand that trans people have played an important role in the LGBT struggle historically, but it’s this ridiculous escalation of it & all these ‘trans trenders’ and being able to identify as one of 72 different genders etc 🙄

I think trans ideology has stamped all over LGB pride.
I still support all my LGB friends, but struggle to support trans ideologists.

I think of my friends, mostly! I'm a lesbian and my friends are mostly a mix of bisexuals, other lesbians, and trans people. I also have other gay people in my family. So I think of them. I think of community, and how much love I felt at my first ever Pride.

Unfortunately I do also brace myself for homophobia or transphobia when I hear it, because such rhetoric seems to be on the rise again recently. It's only the last few years I've started to actively hide my sexuality in some situations.

I was lucky to grow up in a very accepting environment, but outside of my relatively-safe hometown I'm wary of appearing visibly queer these days.

lesbian or gay fine whatever. My daughter is a lesbian. I know lots of gays and lesbians who don’t shout about it.

white the rest of the alphabet are attention seeking rainbow wearing people i cannot be bothered with.

OP you said
'I respect & understand that trans people have played an important role in the LGBT struggle historically'

Who would that be then?

The T was added to charities after gay marriage was won and they wanted to keep up the income stream, this history has been manufactured and inserted so I'd be interested to know who you think these people were.

I can tell you that.

It was a brilliant PR stroke on the part of the trans movement, combined with Stonewall needing a new cause in order to keep going after achieving same-sex marriage.

Was it ever LGB? I only ever head the acronym when it was LGBT. Then the Q et al were added.

You don’t think intersex and asexual are valid?

It makes me cringe then feel very sad.
It’s become all about the TQ+ in a very bullying, force-feeding way.

LGB was such a force for good - fighting for people to safely love whoever they wanted (within reason!), and now we have the TQ+ that have taken over with hugely bullying and grooming tactics, and so-called child experts (like drs, teachers, social workers, mental health workers) have lost their minds and are validating notions that 5 minutes ago would rightly have been seen as bonkers and dangerous.

We’ve seen things that go against safeguarding - both for children and women - being relabelled as inclusive and progressive, and those who want to preserve or reinstate them are called far right bigots.

We now see men being held up as women, even though every part of their behaviour is male, from the way they expect women to give them a free pass to whatever they want, to the behaviour when they’re told “No”. But if we call this out we are the problem.

I’m a lesbian but currently want no part in the LGBTQ+. It’s such a vile, men’s rights movement that too many have been groomed into supporting.

Me too. Absolutely hate it. People can obviously refer to themselves however they want, but there's no way I'd use that word to describe someone.

Intersex is a medical/developmental difference, not a sexuality

No one lost their job or were kicked out of their family for being asexual.

Edited to add: of course they’re valid, but including them in what started as LGB makes a mockery of what that stood for and the fight they had to be accepted.

Gaysoc / Gay Pride
then
Gay and Lesbian Soc / Lesbian and gay pride
then
LGB around the time of Aids
it stayed LGB for 20 years

TQand the vomit alphabet only started after gay marriage

I think it has been taken over by TQ. I support LGB people but TQ not so much. I wouldn’t wear a rainbow pin or lanyard at work as I don’t see work as the place for support for personal views. However I am fine with the rainbow flag and items based on that, but not the progres pride one, and I am a bit judgey of people who wear or use progress flag paraphernalia

Here are pictures of some of the early London Prides
https://www.bishopsgate.org.uk/the-pride-archive

I’m part of the ‘B’ and when I hear that particular combination of letters, I think only of people who have tagged themselves onto the LGB sexual attraction grouping in order to advance their own very different agenda. To me, LGB is a category of its own. Anyone claiming to be LGBTQIA+ or ‘championing’ it or claiming to be a ‘ally’ may mean well but I’m going to assume they aren’t well-informed and are a bit of a sheep. For starters, it is a clear sign that someone has no grasp of how homophobic it is to claim men can be lesbians and lesbians should find them innately attractive. It’s also a sign that a person believes that personality traits, gender stereotypes and sexual kinks are comparable to being gay. Absolute guff.

Yes, OP, I'm afraid I'm one of those who really only associates LGBTQ+ with the TQ+ cohort nowadays. A real shame.

I'm not gay but I admit I used to see it differently. I used to feel it meant gay/bi and for the most part was a positive movement which was also necessary after years of mistreatment and discrimination. These days I assume it's a trans thing. I also think it's somewhat unnecessary to celebrate being gay now because no one really cares anymore and gay people rightfully have achieved equal rights. I think by pushing celebrations further it will only achieve hostility. I also really strongly disagree with forcing symbols on people, like assuming if someone doesn't display a rainbow they are somehow homophonic. Personally I would not display a pro LBGT+ symbol because it implies something different to what it used to.

Also fwiw I know a lot of people resent the way pride is now a month. Nothing else is represented as much, it makes it all a bit meaningless. Also I have heard many people saying that they feel bad for gay or bi people now as their voices have become lost somewhat in recent years. I think most people are extremely supportive of queer people and the worst thing that could happen is to lose that support by pushing luck so to speak.

LGB has been around for years! Cannot for the life of me see why QT etc was added.
I grew up aware of Q being an insult- hated the word
Oh wait... Stonewall
And there's money in the T.. business

Trans"women" (men)
Overweight angry, early 20s "non binary" women with blue short hair with a shaved bit at one side with a nose ring, big Square glasses, wearing a black stone washed t-shirt with an angry slogan on, black tight short leggings showing Lilly white sausage legs (no judgement on that part, I own a pair of those !) and converse white ankle boots with the straps undone. She'll be shouting with a placard.

That my honest answer.

It doesn't make me think of gay men or gay women.

@bumbaloothats really offensive to people who have medical conditions. They are not trans/ queer or ++

I think “boring”. More important things to think about, and I’m not wearing badges. 🙄

Yep absolutely I just think trans activists and it turns me off. I feel so sorry for the LGB community who have been bulldozed

I came here to say exactly this.

Why on earth are we focussing so much on who people have sex with and dont get me started on the leather-clad, male fetishists who now dominate the Pride marches.

It also makes me think of tall 'sexy' Stacey who's 30 with fake eyelashes, eyebrows and lips wearing a pink sparkly push up bikini top and mini skirt with high heels, with a kopparberg in her hand, giggling and tucking her hair behind her ears , as she speaks to straight men at the pride parade, declaring really loudly to them with a salicious look "god yeh, I'm totally bisexual, I fucking love doing girls " and waiting for their eager response hoping it's worked. Stacey claims she's "bi" - Stacey is straight.

it makes me feel slightly sick. As a quiet B who spent my formative years surrounded by the G & L I loathe the use of ‘queer’ like poison. It was a term thrown in the faces of many of my closest friends just before being kicked and beaten. The queens in the clubs were just another flavour of gay men, and no one thought they were women. My gay male friends spent fucking decades fighting being known as queer or kinky, and now have been permanently attached to the fetishists who pretend they ‘threw the first bricks’. The older gen lesbians I worked for in my twenties who were coerced into straight marriages and pilloried for wanting children after leaving those marriages are now quietly avoiding young lesbians for fear of censure if they are honest. I no longer work but I fear I couldn’t survive any major corp now as I’m afraid the minute the TQ+ bandwagon comes round, I wouldn’t be able to stay silent.

I have gay ex friends who have jumped feet first onto the ‘diversity’ gravy train, and I cannot fathom where they are coming from. Men who wouldnt touch a vulva if it came with millions attached but pretend TWaW and have made a living telling women to accept it. Ex friends because, hearing them talk on it made me realise the revolting misogyny I took as banter for many years. NAGMALT, but horrifying to realise how many are.

Why isn’t the LGB community sticking up for women’s rights? Why allow themselves to be associated with such a toxic campaign of misogyny from the TQ+ community?

I largely roll my eyes at it all now, out of exasperation.