Does "LGBT" reflect a kind of social pecking order within "the gay community"?

[pensmama87]

I will say that when I was in college, I took a class where this was discussed at length (as well as if other letters should be added). The professor was rather active in “gay rights” issues.

It was a pretty silly class.

 

[livingwordunity]

You’re missing the point. We always say “one man and one woman” rather than “one woman and one man”, but this doesn’t mean we consider women to actually be lesser (though the may sometimes be treated as though they are).This is the same thing. This acronym isn’t even official in any sense- there are lots of permutations, including GLBT, LGBTQ, LGBTQ+, and LGBTQIA. Sometimes they make it even longer, but I don’t know the groups being represented past that far. I think they’re mostly added in the order that people become aware of them- gay and lesbian at the same time to start, which is why you see both permutations. Then bi, then trans added on to the end. Then queer/questioning. Then intersex and asexual as people become aware of their issues. Then other things. It’s not a plot, it’s just people adding more groups on to the end of the acronym.

Why do some “gay” men change the official “LBGT” to “GLBT” if no one cares which letter comes first?

 

[Joie_de_Vivre]

No, there is a bias against the B’s and T’s in the community. It’s small @ B’s and moderate-sized @ T’s, but it’s not a majority by any means. Many LGBs consider Ts to be ENTIRELY separate and think they should be a completely different movement. Bisexual women usually have no problems, but bisexual men can be seen as lacking in the confidence to come out as fully gay (as there’s a myth in society that men can only like one sex physically, period). This myth is heavily perpetuated in both straight culture (“you had sex with a guy once twenty years ago? Ew get away from me!”) and gay culture (“ah he just hasn’t come out fully yet.”)

LGB people don’t actually seem to give a damn about Transgender people except when they can throw them under the bus for political gain.

Bisexual women probably get a lot less hate because women are far more sexually fluid than men

 

[Kamaduck]

Why do some “gay” men change the official “LBGT” to “GLBT” if no one cares which letter comes first?

Well, some people do. Did I say they didn’t? I’m just saying that the acronym is roughly chronological in terms of which groups gained awareness when (which is why it isn’t alphabetical). Gay men and lesbian women would have been about the same time, and that’s why they’re at the beginning of the acronym.

I suppose you could argue that the rest of the acronym reflects a kind of heirarchy. The letters at the end- T, especially, and everything past Q in the longer acronyms- represent younger communities that seem to get less respect than groups representing the G and L. They frequently have fewer resources, too. So I think maybe there is a pecking order of sorts, but not the one you’re thinking of.

 

[Kamaduck]

No, there is a bias against the B’s and T’s in the community. It’s small @ B’s and moderate-sized @ T’s, but it’s not a majority by any means. Many LGBs consider Ts to be ENTIRELY separate and think they should be a completely different movement. Bisexual women usually have no problems, but bisexual men can be seen as lacking in the confidence to come out as fully gay (as there’s a myth in society that men can only like one sex physically, period). This myth is heavily perpetuated in both straight culture (“you had sex with a guy once twenty years ago? Ew get away from me!”) and gay culture (“ah he just hasn’t come out fully yet.”)

I missed this post. Yeah, I’ve heard a lot of stuff like this from LGBT activists. Seems like there is a bias against the groups towards the end if the acronym (especially trans individuals). I don’t think that’s why they’re at the end, it just works out that way.

I haven’t seen any bias towards lesbians over gay men, though. :ehh:

 

[ThinkingSapien]

Why do some “gay” men change the official “LBGT” to “GLBT” if no one cares which letter comes first?

I don’t think it’s been established that there is an official ordering to the letters. People have noted quite the opposite, that there have been many different permutations encountered.

 

[livingwordunity]

I don’t think it’s been established that there is an official ordering to the letters. People have noted quite the opposite, that there have been many different permutations encountered.

The US government (military and civilian) always has it as “LGBT” which is why I believe this is the official version of it.
Other “permutations” are the exception to the rule and are not found in any official documents.

 

[Kamaduck]

The US government (military and civilian) always has it as “LGBT” which is why I believe this is the official version of it.
Other “permutations” are the exception to the rule and are not found in any official documents.

So? Are you saying that the US government has a so-called feminist bias towards lesbians over gay men? I’m honestly not sure what you’re arguing.

If you want to address bias within the community itself, then you need to take into account the permutations, since a lot of the people in the community use different acronyms. It’s not a single set acronym, and different parts of the community are constantly arguing about which groups should be included. You’ll hear everything from arguments to drop the T, to arguments as to why it should be LGBTQ (with anything not covered by LGBT coming in under the Q for queer), to arguments to include as many letters as possible (leading to ones like LGBTQQIAPP), to arguments to ditch the whole acronym and use GSRM (Gender, Sexual, and Romantic Minorites). And yes, some people use GLBT. It’s by no means a settled issue, but I figure the US government has to use something.

Somebody’s letter has to come first, and there’s no compelling reason to put G before L, or vice versa. Both get more resources than B, which gets more resources than T. Most people don’t even know about the A or I or P. So there you go, that’s the answer to your original question. There’s bias, but it’s not L over G, it’s L and G over every other letter.

(SMGS can correct any of this if it’s wrong. It’s just what I’ve seen lately.)

 

[ThinkingSapien]

So? Are you saying that the US government has a so-called feminist bias towards lesbians over gay men? I’m honestly not sure what you’re arguing.

I’m curious as to what can be done with any conclusion that comes out of this discussion? If I were to discover that, say, bisexuals had higher status than homosexual females is that information actionable in any way?

 

[Lokadottir]

/headdesk

No. Absolutely not. It’s just normally that way, I’m guessing, due to pronunciation easiness.

And please, for the last time, with all due respect, stop with the bloody questions and topics about the gay community. I mean, it’s good to have questions about it or anything you’re not familiar with. The problem is, it’s starting to border on insulting.

The questions are becoming really nitpicky and nonsensical really.

 

[Lokadottir]

Just the sound of it perhaps, but who knows? In either case, transgender comes last, and I suspect there is some bias toward transgendered people in the gay community, apart from the straight community. There is also some bias toward gay people of color as well as lesbians. After all, why should gay men be so different from straight men in this respect?

If there is because jerks and idiots don’t have to be straight. I think they’re just in the order they came into public awareness. No matter what there has to be an order of the letters. Should the gay community (which means the community of people who have same sex attractions, livingwordunity) stack the letters on top of eachother to indicate equality?

 

[Lokadottir]

The acronym getting longer is the “gay” lobby’s recruiting attempt to puff up the numbers.

As the understanding of sexuality increases. Anyone not straight has trouble in society. I don’t know why them working together is “recruiting”.

 

[SMGS127]

I missed this post. Yeah, I’ve heard a lot of stuff like this from LGBT activists. Seems like there is a bias against the groups towards the end if the acronym (especially trans individuals). I don’t think that’s why they’re at the end, it just works out that way.

I haven’t seen any bias towards lesbians over gay men, though. :ehh:

Lesbians and gay men are basically two completely separate communities. They only are “one” community for the purposes of identifying with being attracted to the same sex (and the fears of abuse, evictions, firings, being beaten or killed, and being kicked out of their homes as kids as a result). So while they have a common thread there, their interests differ fairly widely. In fact, outside of like…theatre geeks, there’s not even really a stereotypical interest both groups share. And the humor and conversations are completely different. Back in the day when I was actively lesbian, my gay male friends used to get so annoyed at me and other lesbian friends of theirs, because we’d talk endlessly about Glee (specifically Rivera, Morris, and Agron [and I’d imagine Lovato now!]) and The L Word, etc., which they had like no interest in. Plus, we’d have entire conversations where our gay male friends would have no idea what we were even talking about afterwards (which, tbh, is actually really funny when it happens). On the flip side, I still to this day have no idea what gay men talk to each other about . It’s like grouping straight men and women together; they are not in common at all.

But no, there’s no hierarchy; they pretty much stay separate from each other outside of support group meetings/festivals/dance parties (well…I suppose they stay separate there too?).

So? Are you saying that the US government has a so-called feminist bias towards lesbians over gay men? I’m honestly not sure what you’re arguing.

If you want to address bias within the community itself, then you need to take into account the permutations, since a lot of the people in the community use different acronyms. It’s not a single set acronym, and different parts of the community are constantly arguing about which groups should be included. You’ll hear everything from arguments to drop the T, to arguments as to why it should be LGBTQ (with anything not covered by LGBT coming in under the Q for queer), to arguments to include as many letters as possible (leading to ones like LGBTQQIAPP), to arguments to ditch the whole acronym and use GSRM (Gender, Sexual, and Romantic Minorites). And yes, some people use GLBT. It’s by no means a settled issue, but I figure the US government has to use something.

Somebody’s letter has to come first, and there’s no compelling reason to put G before L, or vice versa. Both get more resources than B, which gets more resources than T. Most people don’t even know about the A or I or P. So there you go, that’s the answer to your original question. There’s bias, but it’s not L over G, it’s L and G over every other letter.

(SMGS can correct any of this if it’s wrong. It’s just what I’ve seen lately.)

This is pretty much correct, though I haven’t heard of GSRM; that’s an interesting term that I didn’t know existed Kamaduck.

The government’s going to use a term LVU. If they used GLBT, would you argue they were favoring gay men over lesbians?

Edit: Oh you forgot the second A Kamaduck! A for Asexual, A for Allies

[P.S. long acronyms are dumb]

 

[livingwordunity]

Lesbians and gay men are basically two completely separate communities. They only are “one” community for the purposes of identifying with being attracted to the same sex (and the fears of abuse, evictions, firings, being beaten or killed, and being kicked out of their homes as kids as a result). So while they have a common thread there, their interests differ fairly widely. In fact, outside of like…theatre geeks, there’s not even really a stereotypical interest both groups share. And the humor and conversations are completely different. Back in the day when I was actively lesbian, my gay male friends used to get so annoyed at me and other lesbian friends of theirs, because we’d talk endlessly about Glee (specifically Rivera, Morris, and Agron [and I’d imagine Lovato now!]) and The L Word, etc., which they had like no interest in. Plus, we’d have entire conversations where our gay male friends would have no idea what we were even talking about afterwards (which, tbh, is actually really funny when it happens). On the flip side, I still to this day have no idea what gay men talk to each other about .

This is very interesting. I was just thinking today how unlikely a pairing it is to pair two diametrically opposed groups (lesbians and “gay” men) who each base their identity on how they reject the other group. “Gay” men base their identity on how they reject women while lesbians base their identity on how they reject men. I use the term “gay” in quotes because it is a political term the same way “Pro-Choice” is. I use it for people who are political activists and loudly homosexual as opposed to those who are quietly struggling with same-sex attraction.

 

[SMGS127]

This is very interesting. I was just thinking today how unlikely a pairing it is to pair two diametrically opposed groups (lesbians and “gay” men) who each base their identity on how they reject the other group. “Gay” men base their identity on how they reject women while lesbians base their identity on how they reject men.

No, that’s not what I said at all.

Gay men and lesbians do not base their identity on the rejection of the other. Gays and lesbians (and I include myself here even though I’m celibate) are still good friends with each other, but we don’t have much in common usually. Again, it’s like a straight man and a straight woman trying to be friends. Sometimes they have things in common, but most of the time, straight girls want to spend time with other girls and straight guys want to spend time with other guys. The only exceptions are the occasional tomboy/male equivalent and those they are dating. In the case of gay men and lesbians, their ideal partners (again entirely from an attraction standpoint) are members of the same sex, so really there are few members of the opposite sex in general they’ll be spending lots of time with. Believe it or not (many don’t), a majority of lesbians are femme and a majority of gay men are butch, and they “blend in” very well.

So what I was saying is that lesbians and gay men tend to isolate themselves by virtue of their attractions to the same sex and the resulting media that plays to that (e.g. The L Word, a show about lesbians in LA, is intensely subtle [well…most of the time] in its character interactions, so girls love it and guys don’t understand it at all), NOT some straight-mind-conceived idea of a “rejection” of the opposite sex. It has nothing to do with rejection at all.

 

[Lokadottir]

This is very interesting. I was just thinking today how unlikely a pairing it is to pair two diametrically opposed groups (lesbians and “gay” men) who each base their identity on how they reject the other group. “Gay” men base their identity on how they reject women while lesbians base their identity on how they reject men. I use the term “gay” in quotes because it is a political term the same way “Pro-Choice” is. I use it for people who are political activists and loudly homosexual as opposed to those who are quietly struggling with same-sex attraction.

“Gay” is not a political term. “Gay rights political activist” is a political term.
“Woman” is not a political term. “Feminist” is a political term.

Also to be noted. I have a very close friend in possesion of a penis. I think of him as nothing more than a friend though he’s far from homely. I’m not a lesbian. I’m bi. I have two boyfriends. Not being sexually attracted to someone =/= rejection.

 

[Kamaduck]

I’m curious as to what can be done with any conclusion that comes out of this discussion? If I were to discover that, say, bisexuals had higher status than homosexual females is that information actionable in any way?

I don’t think it’s very useful to us at all, except in the sense that it’s always good to know about people and where they come from, and to be aware of the hardships that groups other than our own face. This would be a very useful discussion for LGBT activists to have, though, so that they could correct the problem as much as possible (just like in feminist discussion, if you want to push for equal treatment of women, you also need to discuss and root out as much internal racism in the community as possible. Otherwise you’ll be pushing one group higher at the expense of another). They’re already having this discussion, of course, and some people are already trying to correct for it.

Lesbians and gay men are basically two completely separate communities. They only are “one” community for the purposes of identifying with being attracted to the same sex (and the fears of abuse, evictions, firings, being beaten or killed, and being kicked out of their homes as kids as a result). So while they have a common thread there, their interests differ fairly widely. In fact, outside of like…theatre geeks, there’s not even really a stereotypical interest both groups share. And the humor and conversations are completely different. Back in the day when I was actively lesbian, my gay male friends used to get so annoyed at me and other lesbian friends of theirs, because we’d talk endlessly about Glee (specifically Rivera, Morris, and Agron [and I’d imagine Lovato now!]) and The L Word, etc., which they had like no interest in. Plus, we’d have entire conversations where our gay male friends would have no idea what we were even talking about afterwards (which, tbh, is actually really funny when it happens). On the flip side, I still to this day have no idea what gay men talk to each other about . It’s like grouping straight men and women together; they are not in common at all.

But no, there’s no hierarchy; they pretty much stay separate from each other outside of support group meetings/festivals/dance parties (well…I suppose they stay separate there too?).

This makes sense. I can’t think of any stereotypes that apply to both groups, either, other than maybe rejecting traditional gender roles, which would look different for each group. I suppose the main areas of common ground (other than unrelated things and perhaps a shared feeling of isolation) would be political. They wouldn’t gain anything by working against each other, because they don’t seem to be competing for the same resources.

This is pretty much correct, though I haven’t heard of GSRM; that’s an interesting term that I didn’t know existed Kamaduck.

The government’s going to use a term LVU. If they used GLBT, would you argue they were favoring gay men over lesbians?

Edit: Oh you forgot the second A Kamaduck! A for Asexual, A for Allies

[P.S. long acronyms are dumb]

I did forget that debate! Whoops!

I have heard a lot of discussion about the A, actually, but most of the arguments I hear are about why it should never ever stand for Allies, since they’re not a minority group. My A was for Asexual, because that’s what the bloggers I follow use it for. Asexuals kinda keep to themselves most of the time, though. They seem to mainly stay within the asexual community itself. And then within asexuality there are other groups based on “romantic” orientation- heteroromantic, homoromantic, biromantic, panromantic, aromantic, gray-aromantic, demiromantic, lithromantic, sapioromantic, and again, probably even more groups that I don’t yet know about. There are so many words.

Asexual communities only rarely intersect with LGBT ones (that I’ve seen), so there are a lot of them who aren’t interested in being a part of the acronym anyway. The meaning of the A (or whether to include two A’s) is another point of contention between allies, asexuals, and general activists, and another way in which the acronym is far from settled.

GSRM is certainly more compact, but there are concerns about it being used to include pedophilia and other things that most LGBT activists find completely unacceptable. That’s why it hasn’t gained a lot of traction, as I understand it.

 

[livingwordunity]

No, that’s not what I said at all.

Gay men and lesbians do not base their identity on the rejection of the other. Gays and lesbians (and I include myself here even though I’m celibate) are still good friends with each other, but we don’t have much in common usually.

I respect that you are celibate. If the homosexual political movement promoted celibacy I would see your point. But, “gay rights” has generally come to mean the right to indulge in and seek public approval for homosexual behavior. So, when I’m trying to make a point about the political alliance between lesbians and “gay” men, I’m speaking in general political terms without reference to the anecdotal celibate homosexuals.

Having said that, friends usually have a lot in common. Whether homosexual or heterosexual, men and women generally have little in common. But when a hetero man and woman don’t have much in common they have sexual attraction to each other in common, and this attraction is what draws them together. If they didn’t have this in common the human race would have died out almost as soon as it first began, and none of us would be here discussing this because none of us would have ever been born. But, homosexual men and women have little in common and are sexually repulsed by each other. So, this makes it a counterintuitive alliance.

 

[andrewstx]

Absolutely not. I’ve seen LGBT, GLBT, and I’ve even seen BLT (har har) in lesbian communities. I’ve also seen GLBTQQIA, and clearly there’s no hierarchy in that either.

Edit: by the way, I’m intensely curious. Why is “the gay community” in quotation marks in your OP?

Yes, me too. Why the need for scare quotes? These people exist in reality so why surround them with scare quotes? Personally I doubt the existence of one gay community. They are individuals and as divided as anyone else.

I think that some put more faith in their far right politics than the teachings of the church. The CCC states that these individauls are to be treated with dignity and respect, yet I see little of either from the right, just derision.

It is my hypothesis ( and I could be way off on this) that the right always needs a “other, an enemy” to keep people stirred up and paranoid about. First it was Jews, then Communists and the no longer extant Soviet Union, then African Americans and that is still present in the right with their “birtherism”, and now homosexuals. Who will be next?

 

[SMGS127]

But, homosexual men and women have little in common and are sexually repulsed by each other. So, this makes it a counterintuitive alliance.

No, NO we are NOT sexually repulsed by each other. We just aren’t physically attracted in the same way. This is what I’m trying to get across to you LVU. I think James Roday is highly attractive, for example, but I don’t avoid Psych in the way that I literally ignore my TV when VS commercials come on. I can recognize he’s an attractive guy, but I have no visceral reaction of being turned on. Attraction to the same sex is not the same thing as repulsion to the opposite sex.