LGB Alliance: 'Dont Call Me Queer' & Separate LGB and TQ+

[SoupDragonsFriend]

The LGB Alliance has just posted a short film on Youtube, launching their 'Don't Call Me Queer' report and, in parallel, are launching their campaign to separate LGB and TQ+ in law and policymaking. Links and info are here: https://lgballiance.org.uk/dont-call-me-queer/

Being a separate voice to the TQ+ controlled one was kind of the whole thing, that was what created the LGBA in the first place, so yes, obvs, gender is a big thing at the moment?

Your reaction to their escape pretty much proves it.

Naughty naughty LGB people having thoughts and feelings and voices that are not TQ+ sanctioned.

PlanetJanette

L, G and B describe specific sexual orientations.

What sexual orientation is queer?

And what’s the last thing Stonewall actually campaigned for that benefitted lesbian, gay or bi people that wasn’t just about gender issues?

PlanetJanette · Today 09:48

But people who use the term queer are routinely policed and told not to use that term.

Surely you can understand why? It's been frequently prefaced with "fucking" and suffixed with fists and boots. If people wish to describe themselves and ask to be referred to as "queer," that's fine, but they cannot insist that others have to accept it.

It's not a difficult concept to understand.

Signed,

A. Straight.

Quite. All of the letters in the LGBTQIA+ that come after the B, are straight people. If they were L,G or B people, they'd be encompassed in the first three letters. To quote the below re so-called 'queer joy', which is a meme that I (depressingly) seem to be using a fair bit at the moment:

"'Queer' was never joyous. It wasn't joyous when my fellow gay men were being beaten to death by homophobes screaming the word at them. And it isn't joyous now when it's used by men who beat women up and the corporations that support them."

Spicy straights can all get in the bin imho.

I react to the 'Q' word like I do to the 'N' word and the 'P' word. I can't help an involuntary gasp when the terms is thrown around with gay abandon (!) at work. Horrible.

I find it illustrative of how disconnected LGB Alliance are from the wider LGBT+ community that so many of their supporters think that these conversations don't happen with LGBT+ circles. There's a very lively conversation ongoing about the compassion & respect needed to navigate the terms we use for ourselves and others, and it includes not imposing queer on those of us who don't like the word. The difference is between those who are doing so from the perspective of being a part of a community and understanding consensus & solidarity, and those who are so keen to be acceptable to straight society they have made it very clear they are willing to let their work be hijacked by anti-gay people who are very keen to roll back equality.

It's amazing how easy & effective it is to ask not be called queer and then go about your day when the community you're part knows the request isn't solely a wedge to start pushing out all the folk you've judged as unacceptable for whatever reason.

Plenty of people find gay difficult too, as it has been the more recent LGBT+ term to be used as an insult, and like queer, it still is. Because any word used to describe us will be a pejorative for people who don't like us. But we take them back. Don't know if you've seen the film Pride, but there's a scene in that where a brick gets thrown through a window and the characters talk about why we reclaim words.

As to hearing 'queer bashing' but never hearing 'gay bashing', words fail me. The confidence with which those within the GC bubble proclaim their insularity is always such a good reminder to me why separatism just doesn't do anything useful.

I’d guess that most people who embrace the term queer also embrace gender ideology - including ‘cisgender’.

Fine for people to use it for themselves if they want, as long as they don’t inflict it on those of us who think gender as a concept is essentially sexist and also homophobic if it’s used to negate the concept of same-sex attraction.

TQ+ kicked the people of LGBA out.

Then moaning that they're in another group, thinking and saying other things, is a bit daft really.

Who's moaning? I noticed the conversation happening and had some thoughts to add based on some of the assertions here about words being imposed on lesbian, gay and bisexual people regardless of what we think about it, and I added another perspective. Personally I disagree with LGB Alliance's campaign for the government to change terminology and my post explains some of the reasons why LGB Alliance haven't got much traction on this particular idea outside of GC circles.

Would it astonish you that this view of the word queer, or any other word that has been used as a slur, is the position of the vast majority of the non-GC LGBT+ folk I know?

The vast majority of people who describe themselves as queer are cisgender gay or lesbian people.

Whereas all the people who describe themselves as gay are gay, so by your own definition 'queer' is not analogous with 'gay'. I also don't buy that 'gay' has been used as a pejorative for 50 years. The unending desire of parts of the 'queer community' to rewrite history is tiresome.

Well obviously it would be the position of the vast majority of the LGB people you know and hang out with.

Just as the position of the vast majority of the LGB people I know and hang out with matches mine.

That's rather like saying the Labour Party can't really exist because you hang out in the young Conservatives club all the time and hardly any of them vote Labour.

Well, it would be if I was claiming that there are no GC LGB people. But as I'm not, it isn't.

It is being claimed on this thread that if LGB people object to being called queer they are villified for it and I'm trying to explain that this perspective is missing some context, notably that the objection is already part of the ongoing conversation within LGBT+ spaces, so LGB Alliance & their straight supporters who object strenuously to anyone using queer at all are viewed with suspicion because it's not coming over as a good faith conversation. Particularly with the obvious comments on here about those who use queer not actually being L, G or B.

I know homosexual people who don't like being called homosexual, or gay, but are quite comfortable with queer, and they acknowledge they are lucky to have never had queer used as a pejorative - but they do have significant experience with gay or homosexual being used in negative ways. There's far more going on in the conversation than the simplistic 'LGB vs TQ+' framing.

I'm completely fine with people being very upfront about their views on this, and if separatism is the way they want to go, I've no problem with it. I think LGB Alliance should exist for those with those views. I'm just explaining why those who aren't on board see it very differently.

In my circle of acquaintances "Queer" is most often claimed by heterosexual men with a girlfriend who identifies as nonbinary or heterosexual women with a boyfriend who identifies as nonbinary. Because they can't define themselves as straight (which they are) without impugning the gender identity of their beloved. The people who are homosexual or bisexual and don't have a gender label to add to that don't use the Q word.

@BobsyaRuncle
Particularly with the obvious comments on here about those who use queer not actually being L, G or B.

Are you saying that everyone who describes themselves as 'queer' is either L, G or B?

I'm a Lesbian, my previous social groups have been totally ruined by men identifying as women joining them. I am a proud exclusionary Lesbian.
I also have zero in common with aromantics ,and whoever else is fashionably clustered under the LGBTQ++ umbrella
thank the gods for LGB Alliance and frankly I would like Lesbian only groups too.
signed angry Lesbian

Nope. I am saying that there are plenty of LGB people who do.

So is it a collective term for bisexuality and homosexuality?

I'm still no nearer what it actually is.

L, G annd B are all sexual orientations. Where does the Q fit into that?

Sorry this may have been answered earlier and I missed it.

So given that, what is it that the 'queer' people who aren't LGB have in common with people who are? What makes them part of the same community? What are the rights they don't have that they need to fight for?

Says it better than I could.

Was also about to post about the ludicrous claim about the term gay bashing never being used.

I can certainly understand why some people might not want to use only the terms gay or lesbian or bi.

I can also understand why some people might not want to use the term gay and prefer to use only the term queer as the sole descriptor.

And I can understand why some people are happy to (or actively want to) use both gay and queer (I understand this particularly well since I use both for myself).

The point is that I have never once told someone calling themselves gay, or an organisation that refers to itself using the term gay, that they shouldn't do that in the way that some like to do about the term queer. The reality is that the usage of the term queer is a reflection of the attitudes of LGBT+ people to the term. Those who object to it from within that community are a minority.

And I am happy to respect their preferences in terms of how they describe themselves, but they don't get to dictate how an entire group treats terminology and slurs against it.

I hope that reaction is to respect the right of minority groups to decide for themselves how they engage with terms that have been used as slurs against them, rather than dictating how they should do so.

Talking to yourself again, Jan?

'Genderism' means there is no such thing as sexual orientation, beyond 'I'm attracted to people'. Because in genderism, sex doesn't exist. Gay and lesbian certainly can't exist in a meaningful sense if sex doesn't matter, nor can het orientation.

If you're a 'genderist' then you are by definition bisexual, which is fine, but you're also demanding everyone else in the world also be bisexual. Which is not.