#damn-- lgbt just saved me keystrokes on mobile

[jottingprosaist]

So close, yet so, so very far away from accuracy.

The acronym "LGBT" didn't spring fully formed from Zeus' head with the value-neutral passive-voiced intent to support some people but not other "just because." The idea that the modern acronym was "created to support L G B and T people specifically" is a lie unbased in actual queer history, meant to fuel modern intracommunity exclusion politics. Let's have some history:

The acronym began as "GL." As in "gay and lesbian." The nearest gay bar to me was called, up until like 2015, "the GLC" as in "Gay and Lesbian Community." Now gay and lesbian didn't mean quite the same thing a few decades ago as they do now: namely, they could include bi people and ace people (who didn't specifically use that label yet). We know this from oral histories of actual bi and ace people who were in the "GL" community of the time, using those labels. Unfortunately I can't cite links because I'm on mobile, but you can look in my "queer history" tag.

Anyway. History moves on a bit and the "B" gets added as bi people gain and desire greater visibility. There was pushback against this from biphobes within the community. Since bi people were and always had been in the community, though, they stuck around.

Then, due to an organized push by lesbians to have gay men be somewhat less the singular unrepresentative focal point of the entire movement, the acronym was shaken up a bit: from GLB(T) to LGB(T).

Where's the T? Not there from the start, that's for sure, even though trans people were damn well there. Even as recently as the early 2000s I remember hearing the term "LGB" from adults around me, newscasters, etc. (I was a smallish child and not involved with the community yet.) Many cis LGB people did not want to be associated with transgender people. Many still don't. I think it was in... 2011? 12? that there was a publicized attempt by some cis gay men to push the T out of the acronym because "gender issues aren't the same as sexuality issues and we're not really the same community, go make your own." (Sorry again for shoddy citing, but again, see my 'queer history' tag.)

Thus, saying that the modern community should rightfully exclude certain groups of people who are newly organizing/getting vocal/putting labels on things that have always existed, just because the modern acronym doesn't already include them, is an ass-backwards bit of logic designed to exclude. "They're excluded because they were always excluded." (Never mind that ace people were always in the community, even if they didn't self-identify as such. Never mind that ace people who weren't in the community, who didn't KNOW yet that they could be something other than a "broken" "heterosexual," truly deserved and could have benefited from inclusion in the community.) The acronym isn't set-in-stone community law. It's a flexible and evolving description meant to serve the community, not a dress code meant to define us.

In fact, "LGBT" HAS been expanded multiple times to include more people, since at least the mid-2000s (in my memory alone): LGBTQ+, LGBTQIA, LGBTQQ2IA, QUILTBAG, etc. Like it or not, people within the community have been officially opening more doors for a decade. If you choose not to acknowledge that and stubbornly stick with LGBT because it serves your purposes... that's on you.

Re: the comparison to feminism vs. humanism-- I disagree. You're suggesting that adding "QIA+" to the acronym (and welcoming those people into the community) would be letting unmarginalized people into the community, and would distract from the true political purposes and needs of the "real" community members, all to serve a need for liberal lip-service to "true equality" without regard for historical context. This is not the case. "LGBT" (more like "LGB.....T?") is comparable to "white feminism." It serves members of a marginalized group who are also privileged on another axis. They're generally respectable and their voices are now fairly mainstream. They've made social and political gains (good for them) but now they refuse to help others. In fact, they made some of those gains by throwing other members of their own group, who are multiply marginalized or otherwise less respectable, under the bus. (Women of colour. Trans, ace, NB people.) The group would be stronger, more effective, more compassionate if it included everyone. But they don't want to.

You're right that the acronym has always left people out. But that's because people inside the acroynm WANTED to leave others out. All cis people can be transphobic. All binary people can be binarist. All monosexual people can be bi/panphobic. All allosexual people can be aphobic.

We can all also do better than that.

Take a look at your history and decide what your actions are saying about you.

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