Alliances yes, but NO to LGB, LGBTQXYZ or Queer.
LGB of course leads to LGBT and then eventually LGBTQIAAPP+++
UPDATE 1: At the end of this essay.
First let me make it clear, I do believe in alliances with the other letters on specific issues of mutual interest. For example the Lesbian and Gay communities have a share interest in fighting the current wave of trans extremist efforts. However, we are different communities with different interests and just trying to lump us together in one common group doesn’t serve the interests of Lesbians, Gays or bisexuals. Initialisms, like LGBTQIA+ does serve the interests of others in managing us, or their agendas, such as pushing trans extremism, but it doesn’t serve us.
There is a proliferation of LGB groups, with the slogan “LGB and drop the T.” This doesn’t make logical sense. It is like expecting a waterfall to stop in mid-air half-way down or the Mississippi river to stop flowing once it gets to Memphis.
The very process which lumps together L & G & B leads to adding T and other letters until you get to LGBTQIA+ and then to LGBTQQIP2SAA or 2SLGBTQQIA+ used by the prime minister of Canada in 2021, or LGBBTTQQIAAPP and other series. I have an article on these initialisms which I will put at the end of the post.
I am going to discuss bisexuals in a post script.
The life choices and issues faced by Lesbians, Gays, and bisexuals are different. There aren’t Lesbian bathhouses nor do you hear of Lesbians hanging out in parks or other venues to have sex. There are lots of Gay bars, few Lesbian bars exist. Other comparisons could be made. Lesbians and Gays exist in a heterosexual society that has issues regarding the sexes and their relation to each other, and depending on the society and its issues, Lesbians and Gays will have different issues in relation to that society.
Now, before going forward, I want to preclude a common response that Gays and Lesbians get in regarding discussing their issues and in dismissing their issues. You will hear someone say, “But in a society without XXX, things would be YYYY, and it wouldn’t make a difference.” In this case it might be, “But in a society without sexism, Gay lives and Lesbian lives would be similar.” Lesbians and Gays live in the here and now, we don’t live in a utopia or a Nevernever land. How things might be in a fantasy land isn’t applicable to Lesbians and Gays working out how to live, act, and defend and advance their communities in the present. This argument should always be understood as an attempt to shut down community interests for someone else’s interest.
Even without sexism, the interests of Lesbians and Gays are going to be different.
In the beginning, circa 1970s, the laws against same sex sexual activities were a common interest of Lesbians, Gays, and bisexuals. The general severe discrimination against persons engaged in homosexual activities regardless of whether they might be, Lesbian, Gay or bisexual, was a common interest. Violence against Lesbians, Gays, and bisexuals in Gay or Lesbian venues was a common interest. Not only were they common, but immediate urgent issues that Lesbians, Gays and bisexuals needed to deal with. In the beginning, the groups were mostly known as Gay and there was a discussion whether Gay would apply to all homosexuals, that is, include Lesbians. There were concerns that not having a common name would mean less unity.
The result of that discussion is fairly obvious, Gay became Lesbian and Gay. However, organizationally things didn’t split up into Lesbian groups and Gay groups, or Lesbian groups, Gay groups, and Lesbian Gay groups, but into Lesbian groups and Lesbian Gay groups. There stopped being Gay groups. The organizational idea behind Lesbian Gay (LG) groups has evolved into the groups that are LGBTQIA+ or longer now now.
Also, the issues of anti-homosexual laws regarding sex were mostly resolved. Police raids on Gay and Lesbian bars and Gay bath houses stopped. Violence significantly lessened against Gays and Lesbians. Social attitudes towards Lesbians and Gays changed and the number of out Lesbians and Gays became more common. A whole infrastructure of neighborhoods, bars, restaurants, travel groups, etc. developed. With that the pressing common issues of persecution against those engaged in homosexual activities became less pressing and the differences in the various groups engaged in homosexual activities became more manifest.
This started almost from the beginning. Lesbians have different issues than Gays and different priorities. We exist in a society that has issues with sexism. Groups are mobilized around their priorities. So having Lesbian groups is sensible and also logical. What is a problem is that there aren’t Gay groups for Gay issues, but instead some group conceptualized as being a group based on some initialism (LGBTQXYZ) and Gay interests are neglected and not developed.
Different groups are mobilized on different issues of concern to those groups.
February is Black History Month, not People of Color Month. It is the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, (NAACP) and not the National Association for the Advancement of Colored, Latinos, Asians, Muslims, Indians, Indigenous, Oceanic, and Aboriginal People (NAACLAMIIOAP).
It is the League of United Latin American Citizens, (LULAC), not League of United, etc. etc. for some really long acronym.
The independent Gay organizations, like the Gay Activist Alliance, have long since ceased to exist. Instead, it has been thought that Gay interests would be served by groups that don’t even mention Gay in their name, like Stonewall Democratic Clubs and Log Cabin Republican Clubs. These groups work more as vote harvesters for their respective political parties and for them the long initialism would just mean a wider field to harvest votes.
Also, the hostility of American conservatives towards homosexuals has meant there is some common issue among Lesbian and Gays, and given that the Democrats have over time become stronger on the issue of LGBT rights, it has seemed sensible that a LGBTQXYZ group is the way to go. The LGBTQXYZ Democrats seem credible against the religious right and their political party, the Republicans. Certainly there should be unity against this formidable and deadly foe. This has obscured the issue of disparate groups being lumped together and the fact that the Stonewall Democrats function as vote harvesters and as an instrument of the neoliberal management of sexual minorities.
For other groups, LGBTQXYZ is about expanding a portfolio of interests for the further advancement of that group’s self-interests.
The rise of trans extremism as surfaced and made obvious the problems with the neoliberal management of sexual minorities, the portfolio idea of grouping them together for various agendas.
The letters making up the lengthy initialism can and do have antagonistic interests. These antagonisms aren’t the basis of mobilizing people. Except for those wanting to act out fantasies of being saintly. Gays in general aren’t interested in attending a meeting where they are denounced.
Even now, despite the need for unity in fighting trans extremists, radfems and Lesbians denounce Gays. Despite the fact that there is a major movement that is a formidable foe against feminism and sexual minorities, Gays are denounced. There have been reports done on this. It is fairly obvious that some feminist and Lesbians denouncing trans extremism, wish that they were instead setting the agenda of denunciation and exclusion.
The author has joined multiple LGB groups only to have these experiences.
The one administrator of an LGB group wanted to ban drag queens from pride events.
In another LGB group I stated that perhaps we should compare gender theory to the discredited pseudoscience of recovered memory. A Lesbian promptly replied that I was a supporter of rape and pedophilia.
In yet another LGB group, a Lesbian had a post that perhaps there should be a revival of the idea of “political Lesbians.” That is straight women should change their sexual orientation to be Lesbians, as if that is possible, because almost all men are evil. When I pointed out that this idea of changing sexual orientation is the basis of transbians having “girl dick” and things like that, the response was just over and over that, I was a man, and didn’t appreciate the problems of sexism. You can’t have the discussion of ideas in a group or even be a group if members in the group are silenced or dialog is just shut down.
The idea of “political Lesbianism” is justified on the claim that all men are so evil that a heterosexual relationship is inherently anti-feminist. Gays are men. The idea that there can be alliance with Lesbians who think men are generically evil is ludicrous. The idea that a Gay movement can be based on Gays who would agree with “political Lesbianism” or not recognize that it is anything but crazy, is also ludicrous. These types of Gays are self-hating Gays who seek to redeem themselves as saints through self-abnegation.
On twitter and elsewhere Lesbians don’t want any kink at the parade. They hate porn. They are hostile to sex workers. A lot of Gays earn supplemental income with OnlyFans. I knew a local DJ on Facebook who with the pandemic lost his job and earned money that way. A lot of Gays consume porn. These are members of the Gay community and we should be concerned over their welfare.
Also, the LGB groups have generally not given much focus on what might mobilize Gays. The G in the LGB groups is a lower case “g”. The trans launched two major attacks on Lil Nas X. He is a super star and has a global fan base. I tracked down 22 translations of Montero on YouTube alone, from Korean to Spanish, from Serbian to Thai, from Chinese to Hindi, and French to Indonesian. His streams for just “Montero” top a billion. Yet when I brought up the attacks to the short-lived Lesbian & Gay News, there was no interest, in fact in general there wasn’t interest among feminists or Lesbians, or most of the Gay activists against trans excess.
The issue isn’t whether you like Lil Nas X or not, the issue is that as a global celebrity attacks on him are news items and there could have been a discrediting of trans extremism and the issue of trans extremism could have been brought to the general public’s attention.
Part of this is due to the fact that a lot of the Gay opposition to trans excess is conservative and they don’t like Lil Nas X either. Another issue is that I think that radfems and Lesbians are likely negative towards Lil Nas X.
But the other issue is that there isn’t a Gay centric focus on fighting trans excess and mobilizing Gays on the basis of Gay interests.
Though it is possible for a Lesbian to get a Sexually Transmitted Disease (STD), it is much more a concern with Gay men. When I brought up the issue of STDs in a Stonewall Democratic Facebook group as a concern, a respectability Gay, a real LGBTQXYX type of Gay was so upset that he posted the unscientific and absurd assertion that it was not possible to make a vaccine for a bacterial disease.
This is another consequence of having an LGBTQXYZ group instead of a Gay group. The other letters working in an alliance with Respectability Gays can shut down Gay issues.
You aren’t going to mobilize Gays for Gay interests in an LGB group. You mobilize Gays based on Gay interests. Gays aren’t going to be mobilized by groups with members denouncing Gays and by groups which avoid Gay interests. The Lesbians are quite right in their organizing Lesbian groups. When we are aligned on an issue an alliance is a sensible thing to do, but an alliance as a Gay group, not individual Gays subsumed into a LGBTQXYZ or LGB group.
Some might cry for unity to fight for rights. I support unity on common interests but a unity of different groups finding a common interest on a specific issue. False unity in the end is demobilizing.
I am not advocating for separatism either. I think that there will be many occasions to work with other groups, and I think that often joint social functions would be good also. Also, this isn’t about exclusion. If we had a Gay cultural interest group, a person who has a shared interest would be welcome to join regardless. The issue isn’t excluding others, but having a Gay interest being legitimate, and Gay organizing towards Gay goals being legitimate..
We are homosexual minorities. It is alright that we have single sex organizing.
I think also the Lesbians and Gays would find more harmony between them if they were separate groups. We would work together on those issues for which we agree, but not try to force on each other agendas for issues for which we don’t agree.
When I first came out, I joined a local Gay group. I was constantly told that there had been much more participation in the past. The big draw was chartering buses to go visit New York City. However, the Lesbians said that it wasn’t something they were interested in doing so it was stopped. An opportunity to draw large numbers of Gay men into being exposed to Gay liberation ideas was lost. The group steadily declined. Then, when the group had declined, Lesbians decided to have their own group, and the group died. Had there been two groups with a joint campaign for publicity, but their own agendas, I think both would have done better.
The LGBTQXYZ grouped activities often don’t represent Gay interests and poorly serve the interests of the individual letters.
LGB or LGBTQXYZ groups won’t be developing a Gay community agenda. The Gay community is left defenseless since it doesn’t have specific Gay organizations to develop a Gay agenda and defend it.
We need to have Gay centric groups with Gay centric thinking and not initialisms however short. A mobilized community working for Gay goals will be able to have an independent course and not bullied by various sexual minorities. Also, with Gay organizations we can be for something which will exclude other things, rather than just be against things, that is we will have a positive agenda instead of a defensive negative agenda.
More importantly we can start conceptualizing goals for the Gay community and start an agenda of realizing these goals for ourselves. We can think about who we are and what we want and how we might exist and then act.
POSTSCRIPT:
Bisexuals, where are they in this struggle? I was watching the Pride parade in Los Angeles in 2010, (or 2011), and there were thousands of people marching. Then there was a bisexual group of about seven people and one was holding a sign saying “Beyond Gender,” insulting probably over a 100,000 Gays watching the parade go by with this bi-supremacist slogan that they are better.
A group which argues that its sexuality is superior because they have sex with both sexes is not that different than trans demanding sex from Lesbians and Gays. It is the idea that having a same-sex attraction is bad.
But that isn’t the biggest issue about the phantom letter “B.” For bisexual men, they simply aren’t present in activism. Sure, there is the occasional person who is bi and present, but generally they aren’t there for whatever reason. As mentioned earlier, the group in the Los Angeles pride parade had about seven people.
Gays generally have run across the guy at the bars who is claiming that he is bi, but it is often some guy who dated a woman once 17 years ago and he is just clinging to a shred of heterosexuality. Generally, these guys are not happy that the Gays they meet don’t find his assertion of being bi credible. Also, a guy clinging to a shred of heterosexuality is not a person you would want to date. So, we have the never-ending articles in the general media of bi guys whining that we don’t want to date them. The reality is that as time goes on, usually these “bi” guys acknowledge that they are Gay and it was about self-acceptance.
These “bi” guys clinging to a shred of heterosexuality are not likely to be activists and are often still closety.
As for real bi guys, they have really different life choices. They can get married and see guys on the side as anyone with a Gay hook up app knows. There is also the slang downlow for guys who have a girl friend and are hooking up with men.
They represent a group that is going to be likely participating in heterosexual life as heterosexual actors with side interests in men being primarily sexual. Being bisexual, they will have radically different life choices and issues than Gay men. Of course there are exceptions, but so what?
Bisexual visibility in the media is often around the issue that Gays won’t date them or consider them for a relationship. A group that is mostly known for complaining about you shouldn’t expect to be at the same time seen as a Gay ally or the basis for organizing a GB group. Also, the whole thing about being “beyond gender” is a forerunner of transman arguments denouncing Gays for not wanting to have sex with them. (Gender when the slogan first came out, meant beyond homosexual attraction also.)
If some bisexual guy shows up for a group, that is fine, but it needs to be clear that the group is Gay centric and if he feels that serves some of his interests, that is alright. If the bisexual guy starts complaining that the group isn’t serving the interests of bisexuals, he needs to be told that he should organize a bisexual group that serves his interests and even offer to give advice how to do that. Otherwise he is at the wrong address.
In a lot of situations, a bisexual guy who wants to be an activists might not have any place else to go, and so they should be welcomed, but with the understanding that you are running a Gay group.
UPDATE 1:
Feminists try to use trans excess as a justification for an anti-porn campaign.
https://reduxx.info/mother-warns-of-influence-of-pornography-on-gender-identity-among-youth/
Do you think the LGB Alliances will call this out? No. Again, many feminists and Lesbians in the anti-trans campaign are all anti-trans and all for repressing sexuality and porn.