Department of Public Works employee Eric Batman claims that having to see a Progress Pride flag flying outside the department’s Alhambra, California, headquarters during the month of June effectively forces him to “celebrate, recognize, and solemnize conduct and actions that he views as sin” in conflict with his sincerely held Christian religious beliefs, according to a lawsuit filed in March by anti-LGBTQ+ evangelical nonprofit the Liberty Counsel.
That’s basically my problem with the term “LGBT(Q(IA(+)))” but as a basically straight white dude my input has very little weight. I think SAGA is cleaner (Sexuality And Gender Acceptance/Alliance), covers all the bases while being a pronounceable word with a poetic meaning. “Queer” works too but has too much baggage in some regions.
I never understood the arguments about adding extra letters to the acronym. The suggestion seemed always to be that if I said “I support the LGBT community” I was actively discriminating against everyone else who isn’t included in that acronym, which of course was never actually a thing. You either support people of different sexual arrangements to yourself, or you don’t. I don’t know anyone who “only supports the gays”.
I also think it’s hilarious that they themselves seem to realise that it’s become a bit of an acronym soup, that people are struggling to keep track of, which is why they’ve included the plus at the end. Surely they could have just done that from the start?
LGBT and other variants, yeah i agree but with one exception: LGB is often used explicitly to exclude trans people and postdates LGBT in use. It’s one thing to use it when there’s a reason to exclude straight trans people from a statement (eg LGB people may struggle early on because they don’t have a relationship script to follow in same gender relationships). But yeah, I use LGBT with the understanding that other queer identities exist and are to be included as warranted.
The + came pretty early, and the alphabet soup largely is pushed by specific groups who worry they’re underrepresented or underacknowledged. This began with asexuals who were kinda late to organizing with the rest of us and felt the need to really push for visibility. The Q was basically meant to be the same as the +. The I is related to the debate as to whether or not intersex people are inherently part of our community (my stance is that it’s not my place to tell any intersex person whether or not they are, though idk what my cousin would get out of it as a straight cis woman who’s chromosomally sterile). By the time QIA was in the mix some people just kept going and a lot of us pulled back.
It should also be noted that LGBT was an acknowledgement of the fact that each letter had developed a separate community and we’d been working together and we had an overarching community. Over the years since a lot of that has blended, but early on a lot of organization was separated into those 4 boxes, in a way that just isn’t as common anymore.
I like to just call it the Alphabet Mafia, considering how many places around the world that our existence is still illegal.
Also because it gives the finger to Google’s parent company’s trademark lol
I’m partial to GRSM (Gender, Romantic, and Sexual Minorities).