35 replies to this topic

[Sodomize-it Soro]

The problem with "blue states" and "red states" is that it creates a mindset that homogenizes all the people within them as having one political ideology. If you want a more accurate view of things, I'd suggest a map similar to the one Iggy posted in the shoutbox a while back.

[Lexaeus]

Ya, most of the country's landmass is red. It gets blue in urban areas. That's not to say red areas = 100% conservative and blue areas = 100% liberal.

[Sodomize-it Soro]

I'll just put this in here since Iggy found it for me. As you can see, as you get more refined it's mostly varying shades of purple. The point being that claiming any specific land area as "red" or "blue" is problematic because it creates expectations of everyone who is from there, when more often than not it's much closer to evenly split.

[Valor]

In response to a student’s question about his unyielding support of laws that would ban consensual sexual relations between gay people, even in the privacy of their own homes, Justice Scalia responded, “If we cannot have moral feelings against homosexuality, can we have it against murder?”

That's right. Homosexuality = Murder.

Enjoy that.

http://www.allegianc...erers-mr-scalia

[The Dream]

This is a topic I would like raise mainly because I'm interested in seeing what people's stance on it would be. I grown used to using queer in place of LGBT* because I've heard other people use the word instead and it just feels more natural to say.

 

I'm wondering if other people would prefer to use "queer" in place of LGBT*.

 

Many people have mentioned, both joking and seriously, that the ordering of the letter LGBT* list's the order of importance, relevance, and acceptance of members in the queer community. You could argue that "acceptance" is loosely thrown here considering lesbian relations are accepted as a sexual kink people grow out of, and gay people are seen as an accessory for certain scenes. While this idea sounds ridiculous it sounds true when you are exposed to the community and realise how mainstream society treats everyone from the letter "T" and beyond irrelevant. 

 

The LGBT* community is all about equality and acceptance (despite the disgusting levels of discrimination found within the community that is considered normal) and so the community as a whole should be referred to in the same manner when talking about them. Simply labeling out certain members based of popularity keeps the awareness of the rest of the community in the dark, or in this case concentrated into a tiny star. Labeling all of them would exhausting and excessive so why not just use an umbrella term that has already been used?

 

Now to combat that explanation you could raise the issue that people have used queer as a slur and that certain people see it as a slur. That is the only reason at the moment that I could see for combating the use of queer instead of LGBT*, but I feel that if we used that term it would also be an act of laughing at the face of those who would use it as a slur. A way of saying "yes, we're queer and we're proud".

 

What is everyone else's stance on this?

[Dion]

I think tumblr needs to find more important things to complain about.

[The Dream]

I think tumblr needs to find more important things to complain about.

 

If this is in relation to my post then I'll just let you know that what I posted about was not a "tumblr issue". It was legitimate curiosity on a topic I never formally investigated.

[Valor]

I think the word queer is bad taste in all forms. Queer outside of sexuality is used for something odd or peculiar. It's most definitely a slur, and I think it's as appropriate to use as calling black people negros or colored.

 

That being said, I do think there's a decent argument to be made that there could, or should, be an umbrella term for all non-heterosexual sorts. My big issue or stopping point is basically that there's so many different sorts of people being lumped together in the LGBT community that it's going to be impossible to not annoy at least one group of people.

 

I think that thinking comes from tumblr and how shitty people are on there about how much of a special snowflake they are as an individual and they put their own ego ahead of the cause. Then again, this is coming from a pure outsider cis-hetero white male, so I have literally no room to speak on the subject.

[Dion]

I think tumblr needs to find more important things to complain about.

If this is in relation to my post then I'll just let you know that what I posted about was not a "tumblr issue". It was legitimate curiosity on a topic I never formally investigated.

Yeah I was talking about your post. Val summed up my thoughts on the subject pretty well. This definitely seems like a Tumblr shit post topic to me and I honestly think there are more important LBGT topics to be discussed than this. "Oh I'm gay my letter comes third in LBGT! I'm being trivialized compared to lesbians!" Is so stupid it has to be from tumblr. It's like saying the term STEM trivializes math. Seriously?

Edited by Dion, 22 August 2015 - 01:53 PM.

[The Dream]

I think the word queer is bad taste in all forms. Queer outside of sexuality is used for something odd or peculiar. It's most definitely a slur, and I think it's as appropriate to use as calling black people negros or colored.
 
That being said, I do think there's a decent argument to be made that there could, or should, be an umbrella term for all non-heterosexual sorts. My big issue or stopping point is basically that there's so many different sorts of people being lumped together in the LGBT community that it's going to be impossible to not annoy at least one group of people.
 
I think that thinking comes from tumblr and how shitty people are on there about how much of a special snowflake they are as an individual and they put their own ego ahead of the cause. Then again, this is coming from a pure outsider cis-hetero white male, so I have literally no room to speak on the subject.

On account of the word being distasteful, words change meaning over time and feelings about them also change. Members of the community already use the word in other situations and are fine with it. I would prefer that the community as a whole didn't need labelling because we're all just people in the end but the world we live in, where a lot is still unknown in mainstream society, requires us to be identified differently until everything changes.

A name change to queer would an attempt to step forward into normalising everyone by just counting it as one large community instead of an acronym to identify different people. The word queer would do that too, of course, but it would just blend everyone together and normalise everyones identity.

The reason I suggested the use of the queer is to somewhat evolve and grow the communities identity. Dark skinned americans were called negros, a name that is offensive now but commonplace in the time it was used (which frankly, was not even 100 years ago). That word has been replaced with black and you could very well argue that that term is offensive as well, however it's just a name that has evolved and grown.

Yeah I was talking about your post. Val summed up my thoughts on the subject pretty well. This definitely seems like a Tumblr shit post topic to me and I honestly think there are more important LBGT topics to be discussed than this. "Oh I'm gay my letter comes third in LBGT! I'm being trivialized compared to lesbians!" Is so stupid it has to be from tumblr. It's like saying the term STEM trivializes math. Seriously?

When I was making that point I wasn't saying that people actually get mad over the ordering of the letters. I was suggesting this because it showed how even the community is shown as one only seperate people are focused on, and these people happen to be the ones who are directly mentioned in the acronym.

This is coming from someone who doe not identify as something beyond the acronyms in lgbt

Edited by The Dream, 22 August 2015 - 09:19 PM.

[Sodomize-it Soro]

@Dion, tbh your comments are not intellectual in the slightest and do not add anything to this topic or forum. If you can't add anything constructive on the topic - which, as a cishet male, your opinion is of very little value in discussing LGBT*/queer politics anyway - refrain from saying anything.

 

First, of note, generally when jokes are made about the acronym listing order of importance in society, they refer to people using the alternative acronym GLBT - which solely exists to place gay men first for no determinable reason. However, the joke is grounded in reality, as there is less accepting talk about lesbians, bisexuals, and trans people in general. And then everyone else rarely ever gets mentioned.

 

The use of an umbrella term is beneficial in speaking on issues which affect many or all groups in the LGBT* community; otherwise, individual labels are still just as useful. Personally, I do use the word "queer", but it is mostly from lack of a better widely used word in its place. I recognize its use as a slur - particularly in past generations - and cannot completely defend its usage. However, problematic language is present across all forms of social issues, and the solution I find best at current is to alter my language depending on whom I am talking to.

[Yuko]

I guess I'll toss my two cents in here too. Often the world queer, gay, lesbian etc.etc. Always has a part of it that a handful of people find a offensive. ex. "Haha you're so gay, you queer," yadda yadda. And I kinda wish people wouldn't use it in such an offensive way? And I understand where you're coming from with queer, I've mostly seen it as a slur, but remember that it's also a general term for the LGBT+ community. Me personally, I'm in neutral standing. I just say I'm bisexual. It's wierd, I've never been like horribly persecuted for it, but boy do I not like being the butt of jokes among my fellow queers for the sake of straight people. I've always seen the term 'gay', as the general term that stems from anyone who's not queer, but that's also under the whole slur part too so really it's just a giant mess. As long as your using the term as something other than a slur, joke or whatever it should be fine.

[Dion]

@Dion, tbh your comments are not intellectual in the slightest and do not add anything to this topic or forum. If you can't add anything constructive on the topic - which, as a cishet male, your opinion is of very little value in discussing LGBT*/queer politics anyway - refrain from saying anything.

 

Or you know, I say anything I want because being a cisgendered heterosexual male doesn't make my opinion on ANY matter less valuable than anyone else's?

[Sodomize-it Soro]

I understand your need to be an entitled, whiny brat, Dion, but your opinion isn't always going to be valuable. Sorry. I wouldn't have had an issue if you had had anything to say that had shown any amount of knowledge or thought put into it (see: Val), but...

[The Dream]

@Dion, tbh your comments are not intellectual in the slightest and do not add anything to this topic or forum. If you can't add anything constructive on the topic - which, as a cishet male, your opinion is of very little value in discussing LGBT*/queer politics anyway - refrain from saying anything.

While Dion's first comment was not constructive, or meaningful, on this matter, his opinion on queer issues is still noteworthy. Queer issues need to concern the majority of mainstream society, the society including cishet males and females, in order for the queer community to be considered "normal" and "commonplace". To know what someone outside of the community thinks gives us insight on how effective we are as a community in raising awareness about issues and topics in the queer community (granted thoughts this topic was just pure curiosity on my end). Keeping our scope focused only on ourselves will not help us move forward.


That aside, it was interesting on getting everyones thoughts on the topic. Everyone has mentioned the use of queer as a slur and thinking about it I feel that the word is something we should reclaim instead of shy away from using (which many us don't do, but still).

Edited by The Dream, 25 August 2015 - 06:58 AM.

[Dion]

I said this in the SB but I wanted to put it here anyway

 

I think that I was pretty vague about what I meant in that thread and that caused me to be misundersrood. I wasn't talking about the using queen as an umbrella term issue - I literally have no capacity to talk on that matter since I do not know if LGBT people think of it as an offensive term. I just think that making a big deal out of the order of LGBT seems so... tumbr-esque. I've seen the stuff that goes down on that site and this issue reminded me of it a lot.

PS. I do have an understanding of the topic and it is something very important to me because my friend us undergoing hormone therapy and is a trans male. I've been trying to help him with that and all in any way I can and have gotten pretty attached with the movement in a way. But literally I hate tumblr and it's special snowflakes with a passion and will speak out against and call out its bullshit 100% of the time.

 

In any case, if you want me to really contribute to the discussion in a more meaningful way than pointing my fingers at tumblr - my $0.02 (they don't have any value according to Soro but w/e. You can make assumptions all you want but idgaf):

 

I do not think that the specific order of the terms in LGBT really does anything to trivialize any of the people that are  grouped under any of those terms in any way - it is a shame that there are people that are being left out of that acronym and definitely some efforts can be made in order to include them in a more meaningful way but honestly, with the number of different sexual and gender identifications it really would be difficult to include more letters in that acronym without offending at least someone. (This is where tumblr comes in with its special snow flakes)

 

I agree with Val in regards to the negative connotation of the word "queer" but I honestly can't say anything about whether it's a nice fit for as an umbrella term for the community. I've seen people in LGBT meetings use the word and I do think its connotation is changing (the same way some other words have changed their meaning drastically over time) but since I literally have no space to talk on the matter since the word does not apply to me, I just go with it. I do think this will be a harder word to have its connotation entirely changed because it is still used negatively to discuss LGBT matters - especially by people from the church and what not. But like I said before - I can't really say since it's not my place to. [The distinction here is that I choose to not have a valuable opinion on this matter] <_o

Edited by Dion, 25 August 2015 - 08:55 AM.