The LGBTQIA-community

[Supernature]

I've changed my mind on the word 'Queer'.

It's become so all-purpose that it pretty much obfuscates who is actually homosexual.

I don't like it.

[legion_quest]

What part of "you are forcing people to make choices about imaginary categories" confuses you?

What part of you are forcing a word we have told you we dont like on us are you not getting?

It shouldn't matter how old any one is, whether they have anything to do with Thatcher or anything else.

What should matter is you are using a word to group describe people that aren't happy with being group described in that way.

LGBT+ is fine and dandy as a group thing - it covers the big four, and leaves the plus for anyone else, and people are welcome to self identify however they like, but how you identify is not how I do - so I would thank you not to lump me in with your offensive catch all and would hope that people would understand that just because you are happy with a word, doesnt mean everyone else is.

What is so hard to grasp about that? What makes this word so precious that you are willing to upset people just to use it? What gives you the right to tell people they have to conform and use and identify with the word to be part of your 'unity?'

[poorzero]

What part of you are forcing a word we have told you we dont like on us are you not getting?

It shouldn't matter how old any one is, whether they have anything to do with Thatcher or anything else.

What should matter is you are using a word to group describe people that aren't happy with being group described in that way.

LGBT+ is fine and dandy as a group thing - it covers the big four, and leaves the plus for anyone else, and people are welcome to self identify however they like, but how you identify is not how I do - so I would thank you not to lump me in with your offensive catch all and would hope that people would understand that just because you are happy with a word, doesnt mean everyone else is.

What is so hard to grasp about that? What makes this word so precious that you are willing to upset people just to use it? What gives you the right to tell people they have to conform and use and identify with the word to be part of your 'unity?'

well said. i personally use 'queer' for my own reasons. but it would be a mistake to push it on others who dislike it. i mean, it is a slur. we can 'reclaim' it as an individual choice, but we can't pressure others in the community to do the same if they do not desire to do so. it seems odd to me that a group as excluded as LGBTQIA+ peoples would want to exclude people within our OWN group :S

[Star_Jammer]

What is so hard to grasp about that? What makes this word so precious that you are willing to upset people just to use it? What gives you the right to tell people they have to conform and use and identify with the word to be part of your 'unity?'

Because "taking back a word" is supremely empowering.

And I feel I should remind you that this current discussion about "the Q word" did not start because someone was enforcing it upon another. A singular poster asked that no one use it at all.

[numberthirty]

well said. i personally use 'queer' for my own reasons. but it would be a mistake to push it on others who dislike it. i mean, it is a slur. we can 'reclaim' it as an individual choice, but we can't pressure others in the community to do the same if they do not desire to do so. it seems odd to me that a group as excluded as LGBTQIA+ peoples would want to exclude people within our OWN group :S

In addition to this, it seems like it comes down to choosing not to use the word on a single message board for the sake of not upsetting posters who have mentioned that they have an issue with it.

I just can't see pressing your personal desire to use it in a single place under those circumstances.

[numberthirty]

Oh, you found a third guy (unless that is legion_quest IRL?)

And correct me if I am wrong, #30, but aren't you just a straight guy who enjoys stirring pots and rousing rabble?

If you are going to decide someone else is "Stirring Pots" while you choose to use a word that upsets someone else, you might want to take a moment to step back and consider if the pot is accusing the kettle of being black.

[BroHomo]

That isnt how offence works. You dont get to tell someone what they can and cannot find offensive.

Either you accept that actually, just because you and US culture appears to have accepted and appropriated the word, outside of the US, it can still be incredibly offensive - or you accept that 'you' have been told over and over that that word is offensive to some and yet it keeps being used, and then defended in such a way that is so self entitled and ignorant of other people's feelings that it frankly makes you as bad as someone using it in an actually offensive way.

No one has the right to tell anyone they can't use a word to describe themselves; if someone wants to call themselves that, I dont get it, but they can go for it.

But what I can do, and what Kieran can do, is keep telling people to stop using it as a catch all word that we get described as by default, regardless of whatever else American culture is trying to do with it

you know Queer as Folk was a series that started in the UK?

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/gay-man...ry?id=20855582

lol lord....you know how I know Queer isn't the same as the scary 'N-Word'??
Cause you we are writing out the whole 'Queer' word but abbreviate the 'N-Word'

[numberthirty]

It's a pretty good thing I have not mentioned the word being "Scary".

The issue is not is the word "Scary". The issue is "Are There People Who Have A Seriously Negative Emotional Reaction To It's Use To Describe The Group They Are Part Of?"

Once you have established that there actually are those people, you have a choice to make.

Insist on reserving the right to use it no matter how it makes those folks feel because you have no issue with it's use, or decide that there are times where your feelings about the word should take a backseat to the feelings of folks who have voiced their being ill at ease with it.

[BroHomo]

It's a pretty good thing I have not mentioned the word being "Scary".

The issue is not is the word "Scary". The issue is "Are There People Who Have A Seriously Negative Emotional Reaction To It's Use To Describe The Group They Are Part Of?"

Once you have established that there actually are those people, you have a choice to make.

Insist on reserving the right to use it no matter how it makes those folks feel because you have no issue with it's use, or decide that there are times where your feelings about the word should take a backseat to the feelings of folks who have voiced their being ill at ease with it.

the first one

[numberthirty]

the first one

If that's the case, you should be able to ask yourself if being for "Community" ends where you being able to say whatever you want starts.

[jeanvaljean]

Because "taking back a word" is supremely empowering.

And I feel I should remind you that this current discussion about "the Q word" did not start because someone was enforcing it upon another. A singular poster asked that no one use it at all.

But his offense is more bigly than my offense, for reasons!

[Kieran_Frost]

Firstly, can I just say how happy I am seeing all this support for the majority who understand why that word is offensive. It really does bring a smile to my face. So thank-you all, I really appreciated that.

Secondly: Ireland has their first ever ELECTED gay leader. EPIC!!! Which got me thinking... how many confirmed LGBT+ elected leaders can we name from across the world? I know Prime Minister for Serbia was just announced, and she's their first female AND GAY PM. So cool.
EDIT - done a little digging and I think this list is accurate?

Can we try and build a list of LGBT+ leaders, and of the highest rank an LGBT+ person has held in elected politics in various countries? I'll update it as best I can.

LGBT+ leaders:
Iceland. Prime Minister Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir (2009–2013) [FIRST OPENLY LGBT+ ELECTED LEADER]
Belgium. Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo (2011–2014) [SECOND OPENLY LGBT+ ELECTED LEADER]
Luxembourg. 24th Prime Minister Xavier Bettel (2013-PRESENT) [THIRD OPENLY LGBT+ ELECTED LEADER]
Ireland. Taoiseach Leo Varadkar (2017-PRESENT) [FOURTH OPENLY LGBT+ ELECTED LEADER]
Serbia. Prime Minister Ana Brnabić (2017-PRESENT) [FIFTH OPENLY LGBT+ ELECTED LEADER]

For the UK: I'd guess the highest rank might be Ruth Davidson who is leader of the Scottish Conservatives. I don't think (and I could be wrong) any major party has had an LGBT+ leader, though Angela did run against Corbyn to become leader of Labour (and lost).

thanx for offering your perspective on this. firstly, i'm sorry i offended you with the word i use. its just how i describe myself, but obviously i shouldn't describe anybody & everybody that way. specifically if, like you say, they don't want to identify as such. just to offer my perspective - i was born in the '90s, & there was a lot of casual and explicit homophobia and hate in the public school i went to. i got called queer and f** and gay (as a slur) all the time. i think 'queer' has always been my identifier of choice to sort of take that power away from my tormentors.

Firstly and most importantly I'm really sorry you got called those things in highschool. I was very lucky in my school in the 90s, that we didn't have such hatred on such a level. Very, very lucky (and my case is not the norm). I think it's great you want to reclaim the word, and I wasn't offended you used it, because you weren't to know. And based on your reaction, it's clear there is no malice in your use. I just think it's important new posters know how controversial that word can be in this thread and on CBR. Because someone of us really, really hate it. As long as we are vigilant in how we use it, and never, EVER apply it to anyone else without categorically knowing they are okay to be categorized by such a word... then we'll be golden.

but i agree with you almost completely. i sort of resent the implication that there is a correct way to be gay, if this makes sense. i'm never trying to convert anybody to my views. i'd just like them to be heard and/or at the least considered.

We spend all this time fighting to be treated equal by society... and then some act shocked when we (rightly) behave as a beautiful multi-fascinated (??? am I using the wrong word there???) spectrum like. any. other. group. The idea all LGBT+ people must vote one way, must agree on this thing, must do this, must love that. It's absurd. We want to be treated equal, let's use all the crayons in the box when depicting us in media, on-line, in the wide gorgeous world.

i sometimes think there is a pressure in these groups to all be on 'the same page'. but this is, in itself, a sort of homophobia to me. we don't expect heteros to all have one global 'hetero' viewpoint in terms of politics or philosophy. i think we should allow ourselves the same rite ... again, as long as it isn't something super hateful or evil.

It's hypocrisy, but that's part of using all the crayons too. Some of the most prejudice people I've come across are gay "liberals" (I use the quotes because they spout all the ticked "liberal" views on politics, but then show their true colours -- where they lack any tolerance for anyone else's view or opinion, and then start behaving verrrrrrry cruel). It's amazing how many gay "liberals" suddenly show a prejudice for colour on dating apps, who suddenly use derogatory wording (linked to their sex) to describe any woman they disagree with. But that's part of the crayon box too. Gay people can be bigots, gay people can be misogynists, or just mean. We are as varied and messed up as everyone else, and one day society we realise that. To truly treat us equal, they need to see we don't all think one way, or act one way (and that stereotype is applied just as much from within our community than from outside, I'm not just blaming str8 people for this).

That isnt how offence works. You dont get to tell someone what they can and cannot find offensive.

Either you accept that actually, just because you and US culture appears to have accepted and appropriated the word, outside of the US, it can still be incredibly offensive - or you accept that 'you' have been told over and over that that word is offensive to some and yet it keeps being used, and then defended in such a way that is so self entitled and ignorant of other people's feelings that it frankly makes you as bad as someone using it in an actually offensive way.

No one has the right to tell anyone they can't use a word to describe themselves; if someone wants to call themselves that, I dont get it, but they can go for it.

But what I can do, and what Kieran can do, is keep telling people to stop using it as a catch all word that we get described as by default, regardless of whatever else American culture is trying to do with it

Your post is all kinds of awesome! QUOTED FOR YOUR EPIC #TRUTHBOMBOFLOVE A MILLION TIMES!!!

Queer mean people who are not herosexual, why have it when the G and L already exist ?

It's seen as a "catch all" term for someone you know isn't heterosexual, but you don't know SPECIFICALLY what they are. Why everyone can't use LGBT+ is beyond me? Unlike the Q word, that doesn't offend people and was never used as a homophobic slur.

[Kieran_Frost]

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/gay-man...ry?id=20855582
"I think queer harkens back to a time when being gay was a documented medical abnormality," he said. "Queer is also not a gender, and if you want to list sexual orientation, that's even more egregious. To me, this was an attempt by the university to scare away anyone who wasn't straight."

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/m...ea17aa65d.html
However, the term is not universally embraced in the LGBT community, especially among those middle-aged or older.
Houldsworth refers to queer as “an inside word,” a term to be used only by those within the LGBT community. “Outside the community, unless they are quoting someone, I’m not OK with it,” he said.
Growing up in the 1960s and ’70s, Houldsworth knows how the word was used to hurt. Even as someone who marched with Queer Nation and ACT UP in his hometown of Boston, saying the word queer as an act of defiance then remains very different than hearing it tossed about in today’s general vernacular.

Thank-you for that.

I've changed my mind on the word 'Queer'.
It's become so all-purpose that it pretty much obfuscates who is actually homosexual.
I don't like it.

This also made me smile.

What part of you are forcing a word we have told you we dont like on us are you not getting?

Ding ding ding ding. It's the age old "I have the right to free speech, don't oppress me" (then objecting when someone uses that same free speech to disagree with their point). I wish everyone would get the two-way street about free speech.

What should matter is you are using a word to group describe people that aren't happy with being group described in that way.
LGBT+ is fine and dandy as a group thing - it covers the big four, and leaves the plus for anyone else, and people are welcome to self identify however they like, but how you identify is not how I do - so I would thank you not to lump me in with your offensive catch all and would hope that people would understand that just because you are happy with a word, doesnt mean everyone else is.
What is so hard to grasp about that? What makes this word so precious that you are willing to upset people just to use it? What gives you the right to tell people they have to conform and use and identify with the word to be part of your 'unity?'

Agreed. I simply don't understand why some insist on using a homophobic slur as a "catch all" term, when it literally doesn't catch all, since some/a lot in the LGBT+ community categorically REFUSE to be identified that way. It's a "catch-all" term doomed to fail (thankfully), because if some will never accept it, then it's very purpose is mute. Why any LGBT+ person can't understand why others don't like a homophobic slur... but we come in all shades and colours, and that's okay. It's their right/purpose to not get it. We can't all be astro psyhisists (okay, it's too funny to NOT show you how badly I spelt that... especially when making a point about being 'smart' LOL!!!)

QUESTION: Can we try and build a list of LGBT+ leaders, and of the highest rank an LGBT+ person has held in elected politics in various countries?

LGBT+ leaders:
Iceland. Prime Minister Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir (2009–2013) [FIRST OPENLY LGBT+ ELECTED LEADER]
Belgium. Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo (2011–2014) [SECOND OPENLY LGBT+ ELECTED LEADER]
Luxembourg. 24th Prime Minister Xavier Bettel (2013-PRESENT) [THIRD OPENLY LGBT+ ELECTED LEADER]
Ireland. Taoiseach Leo Varadkar (2017-PRESENT) [FOURTH OPENLY LGBT+ ELECTED LEADER]
Serbia. Prime Minister Ana Brnabić (2017-PRESENT) [FIFTH OPENLY LGBT+ ELECTED LEADER]

For the UK: I'd guess the highest rank might be Ruth Davidson who is leader of the Scottish Conservatives. I don't think (and I could be wrong) any major party has had an LGBT+ leader, though Angela did run against Corbyn to become leader of Labour (and lost).

I'm just going to quote this sexy, cool cat. So: my contribution (shamelessly stolen from wikipedia)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catego...itical_offices
[SIDE NOTE: is it interesting that there are only lists for UK, America, Canada and Australia, or is that just a wiki thing favouring English speaking nations?]

UK
Only two openly LGBT+ people had led parties: the co-leader of the Scottish Green Party (Patrick Harvie), the leader of the Scottish Conservatives (Ruth Davidson). And adding to our spectrum talk, the deputy leader of UKIP is openly LGBT+ (Peter Whittle).

I "think" the highest rank reached in government is the current Secretary for Education Justine Greening (2016-PRESENT)

Landmarks:
1976 - Maureen Colquhoun (Labour) first ever MP to come out as LGBT+ (she was deselected by her party in 1997 )
1984 - Chris Smith (Labour) is the first MP to come out in office
1997 - Chris Smith is the first openly LGBT+ person to be appointed to a Cabinet position
1997 - Stephen Twigg (Labour) is the first LGBT+ person to be elected an MP (who was openly LGBT+ BEFORE taking office)
1998 - Lord Alli (Labour) first openly LGBT+ Lord (as in the House of Lords)
1999 - Tom Spencer (Conservative) first openly LGBT+ MEP (for the UK)
2002 - Alan Duncan is the first Conservative MP to come out
2005 - Chris Smith is the first MP to come out as HIV Positive
2005 - Stephen Williams is the first out Liberal Democrat MP
2010 - Baroness Stedman-Scott (Conservative), first openly LGBT+ Lady (as in the House of Lords)
2013 - Nikki Sinclaire (UKIP) the first openly transgender MEP (for the UK)

[nx01a]

Just popped in to talk about Drag Race's Ru-union episode only to realize this thread is drama, too.

I've been doing courses and reading critical work since the very late 20th C with titles like 'Queer Lit' and 'Queer Theory' and other variations thereof. I've pretty much approached the word from a purely academic standpoint as an adult as opposed to my younger years hearing it as a curse and disparagement. I personally no longer feel any sting from the word but I can understand why others still might.

[Kieran_Frost]

Just popped in to talk about Drag Race's Ru-union episode only to realize this thread is drama, too.

Even saying that is drama filled, because Netflix in the UK has postponed showing it! We haven't seen the Ru-union yet, won't until Saturday. IT SUCKS! The finale is delayed till July 1st too. Netflix gave a stupid excuse of "we have to edit and it takes time" which makes no sense, since it's been shown in America. GRRRRRR!! But anyone... I think Instgram spoiled Ms Congeniality for me BUT DON'T SAY in-case I'm wrong.

Sadly there is no way I'll be able to dodge who won for a week, so... that's a shame...

I've been doing courses and reading critical work since the very late 20th C with titles like 'Q***r Lit' and 'Q***r Theory' and other variations thereof. I've pretty much approached the word from a purely academic standpoint as an adult as opposed to my younger years hearing it as a curse and disparagement. I personally no longer feel any sting from the word but I can understand why others still might.

You know oddly the only two times I don't mind it is "We're here, we're queer" and "Queer As Folk". Because both are quotes, and for better or worse the quote doesn't change/cannot change. It has history behind it, which makes it powerful and important. Any other time... ugh. And the casual way it's used, like that tone deaf BBC show...