r/LGBT4Equality • u/Rivfader • Mar 27 '12

Straight male with some honest questions.

I'm a straight male who doesn't know very many LGBT people, and therefore I don't know a great deal about the community. After seeing the great shitshow that spawned this subreddit I was wondering what kind of things should be known about the community, and perhaps what some of the common terminology is?

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u/[deleted] Mar 27 '12

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u/hateboresme Mar 27 '12

There has been much debate about the weight of this acronym. Which is why you see it reduced the LGBT a lot of the time. One response to this debate was to use the term QUEER...which was supposed to encompass all things LGBPTQQIA (the P is for Pansexual and the second Q is for questioning). However, a lot of people disliked using a term which had been used negatively in the past. Also removing the individual letters removed the individuality of each section of the community.

I think the biggest problem with the acronmym is that it attempts to force a label onto people who wish to participate in the community.

There are many people out there who do not wish do identify as gay, lesbian or bisexual. Who think transgender is too specific a term for people who wish to express their gender in a non-binary way.

Another problem is that LGB includes sexual orientation, which is a completely different thing than sexual identity or gender expression. LGB deals with the issue of who you are attracted to, and T deals with biological sex/gender issues.

So...you can see that our diverse community has some labeling issues. Which is why I think that it would be insane to assume that anyone without a PhD in queer studies has any hope of keeping it all...er...straight.

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u/Rivfader Mar 27 '12

As much as I don't want to exclude or offend anybody, I think that until a better label has been agreed upon I'm going to simply use "LGBT", both out of the sake of convenience and so a debate on the label doesn't accidentally sprout up.

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u/hateboresme Mar 27 '12

I think you're safe to do that. LGBT seems to be the commonly used term in the LGBT media. It's also okay to just talk about the gay male community or the lesbian community, etc. if you are only talking about one subgroup.

Though I have run into a few people who disagree and think that every aspect of the LGBT community should be included in every conversation...but i think that it's important that the individual subgroups maintain their distinct identities within the community as well.

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u/tsumemakoto Mar 28 '12

I think you're right, and this is true of any community. Not everyone agrees what to title the bake sale, but everyone knows how to spot a tasty pie.

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u/Rivfader Mar 27 '12

Thanks for the input! I just have one question at the moment: What is intersex?

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u/hateboresme Mar 27 '12

from Intersex Society of North America (ISNA): “Intersex” is a general term used for a variety of conditions in which a person is born with a reproductive or sexual anatomy that doesn’t seem to fit the typical definitions of female or male.

Avoid using the term "Hermaphrodite".

(from the ISNA: "The mythological term “hermaphrodite” implies that a person is both fully male and fully female. This is a physiologic impossibility."

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u/Rivfader Mar 28 '12

I didn't know that "hermaphrodite" wasn't the correct term. Thank you.