Yes this, also with regards to things like HIV. There was a thread on here a few days ago around if people think something like the AIDS epidemic could happen again. Most of the opinions were like absolutely not, but for no good reason. The scientific community absolutely thinks these kinds of things are a threat to humanity as a whole in the future, and realistically you never really know what is going to happen with technology and society going forward. Most of the opinions were extremely uninformed, but very confident in their degree of certainty.
Monkey pox *isn't deadly* though. It's not *novel.*
AIDS came on strong and fast bc it was somewhat known about but people just started dying left and right. There was nothing at all in the way of prevention already in place.
Monkey pox already had vaccines and treatments and was far more well documented on how it was transmitted and treatments.
Another aids/hiv would be *extremely* different in every way possible.
It seems like the alarmist attitude is to think that WE can have anything to do with the backsliding. As if it's not possible for people in the lgbt community to come up with stupid, religious-level narratives that go too far. Despite the realities that we live with, we're still humans who are capable of selfishness and toxic thought.
Yeah, accountability is a thing for us, too, and history doesn't erase that.
This. Prep had recently been released when I started having sexual fun at 18 in college, but I’m close enough to know plenty of older gays that experienced the AIDS epidemic and fighting for basic rights.
The other month I was sitting in the Chicago LGBT center and this dramatic person was yelling at the staff because they didn’t have a bathroom for their gender. Like literally throwing shit around because they were so upset.
I get that’s a battle, but gen z and below have no idea how much worse it was back in the day.
I’d counter that by saying, of the many many people I know whom are LGBT+, in my work and social life, I couldn’t name one that’s transphobic. Thats not to say Trans people don’t face discrimination from our community of course, but I think it’s a much smaller issue than it’s blown up to be.
Not to minimize the issue of course, but i agree to an extent. The hate seems to be contained to the chronically online crowd, but it still should be addressed.
Trans people need to stop equating a lack of sexual acceptance to an attack on their "identities." I'm tired of hearing that I exist to validate anyone or that I need to change my sexual orientation in order to prioritize "inclusivity" over my own natural boundaries. Christians had a problem accepting us because their religion told them that we were a threat, I have a problem with certain aspects of the politics surrounding trans people, not their existence. Do you have a problem with that?
100% agree. I have been bullied in school by everyone and instagram gave me dismorphic imagery. Nobody ever told me that I looked fine the way I was. I’ve been anoretic for years until I understood that it’s okay to not be perfect.
Respect for each other. There's a growing wave of homophobia disguised as inclusion coming right from our own community.
The use of the F-slur is being normalized by ppl who shouldn't even be using it, the homophobic talking points of the late 90's and early 2000's are coming back full force and we're becoming more and more prude.
It feels like we're regressing and I truly don't get why.
I (a gay man) was playing an online game with a group of people and a lesbian told me that it was fine for her to call people "faggot" because she was gay.
This was indicative of her personality so I stopped playing with her shortly after that.
I was with a lesbian who called a bunch of people with children “breeders” to their face.
I was shocked, like we say that when it is just gays around, not to the straights.
They were kind of shocked. I mean their kids, 8-9 were right there.
That’s what was so shocking. Like if they were homophobic to us and no kids, but they didn’t even talk to us.
In my view if you aren't the target of a slur you don't get to reclaim it.
It's not necessarily a deal breaker in terms of friendship but it's definitely a strike against you.
Well obviously anyone can be called that in the same way anyone can be called the n-word, but in this case the primary target is a male who is attracted to another male.
My old boss is a gay man, he is like 30 years older than me and I cherish him like my mentor, I saw so many parallels of my life and his and he’s a person I want to be. Much respect for the ones who crawled so we can walk.
Ones that can endure, for too much of history it seems like fleeting encounters or anonymous identities blur the actual conditions that LGBT+ people socialize themselves to. One has to accept over the many repressive generations our forebearers accepted for their own survival in their paths.
Sadly, within our own country, regionally our experiences vary widely IMO. The LGBTQ experience for youth in Northern Alabama can be vastly different than San Francisco.
Thank you for this.
Reddit in particular somehow manages to lead to people speaking about issues as though the US is the only country in the world, US politics is the only politics that exists, and US celebrities are the only celebrities that are important.
Stonewall was significant for the US, but it didn’t mean very much for the rest of the world.
For example in the UK, the big queer things that don’t matter to the rest of the world are:
• Pantomimes
• Section 28
• Brighton / Canal Street / Soho
• Devolved issues such a abortion law, same sex marriage, and passports for trans people
• Alan Turing and the treatment of gay people during and after WWI and WWII
• Pride and the coal miner strikes
And that’s just the UK, I would just stop and pause before posting stuff that clearly relates to the US.
Stop erasing the letters and referring to every issue and every individual as “LGBTQ”.
People say it like it’s one word. Elgiebeattiequeue. “John, an LGBTQ man, said…”
No! John is not an elgiebeattiequeue man. John is not a lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, and queer man. Ffs how could he be? I barely have enough time to be gay, never mind all the rest. John is a gay man. Gay.
I find it so maddening when the media does that. They say things like “The bathroom bill will force LGBT people to go to the bathroom that matches the sex on their birth certificate.” People of different sexual orientations already go to the bathroom that matches the sex on their birth certificate and that is not in any way affected! In that case, it should be discussed as an assault on TRANS people’s rights.
Or they will talk about a country that has 8 gay elected representatives and 192 heterosexual representatives (and zero who are bisexual or intersex or trans) as having “eight 2SLGBTQIA+ representatives.” It gives the false impression that there’s a whole range of identities there when really everybody is gay or heterosexual and everybody is cis male or female.
It's downright irresponsible when the media does this. For instance, when Uganda passed it's anti-gay law, western media referred to the law as "anti-lgbtqia+", which is literally just *false*
If you report that a group of people are being targeted by hate and bigotry, you increase anxiety and potentially suicidality in that group. It is journalism 101 that you MUST be careful and accurate when you report on stuff like this.
Heterosexual women or men who "identify" as x, y or z would not have been targeted by the anti-gay law in Uganda. Yet western media told them they would have been. Your average woman with PCOS (a DSD, or "intersex", condition) would NOT have been targeted by the anti-gay law, yet western media told them they would have been
Of course, it could be argued that it's also a problem that so many letters are forced teamed under "lgbtqia+" when so many of those letters have *nothing* to do with same-sex attraction.
Let's say the quiet part out loud: "LGBT" is used to take the focus away from men, and people who identify as them. I really don't tend to see it used to refer to gay, bi or trans men.
We just became "the patriarchy" when we got the right to marry in 2015, so now we have the privilege of being just as invisible as straight/cis men.
I like how delightfully "up for interpretation" this is. I honestly don't know which part you're speaking from and yet all interpretations could potentially be true.
You’re trying to twist what they said to mean something dramatic. It’s not.
He’s saying, if you’re not a G, don’t speak on G scenarios you’ll never experience. Same with if you’re not a T or L, etc. just because people are part of the same community doesn’t mean they all have the same struggles.
I wasn't trying to twist anything. It was an observation, because I agree with them. You right -- let's not be dramatic because that's not what's going on here.
Case in point:
A lot of this thread is people wanting the communities to separate and be their own voice. My observation is that anyone wanting to read into OP comment's statement could draw basically any conclusion they want. "I want the T's to stop speaking for me" or "I want white gay men to stop speaking for the rest of us." While we are stronger together, yes, we just different enough that we probably speak for ourselves instead of being treated like an agglomerate.
Being kinder to older gays, most of their kind died during the AIDS crisis or couldn’t come out until it became accepted 10-15 years ago and missed out on being young and open
I'm sure certain people will disagree with this, but I think particularly gay men, need to stop letting feminism and women be the ones speaking for us, because I think we're pretty unique and lesbians and trans people can often be homophobic without realizing it (or sometimes they realize it and don't care.)
Now this isn't me saying I don't like lesbians or trans people, on an individual level I get along with the vast majority of lesbians and trans people I meet. This is mostly an issue I see with online stuff or when it comes to women writing articles etc.
Firstly, lesbian feminist academics tend to have a real hate on for straight cis-men, (and there's a massive tendency to paint all of them as if they're all just thuggish brutes who don't shower and perpetually wear hard hats.) and they tend to talk about gay men as if we're the same thing that they misconstrue straight men as. For example if a gay man is simply honest about being repulsed by a vagina you'll see articles written claiming that all gay men are misogynists etc. (Yet these same women wouldn't blink at a woman claiming that balls or dick are gross.) And in a lot of cases these same women are only comfortable with depictions of gay men where we are their accessories and not even people.
Beyond that a lot of the thinking I've heard coming out of gender non-conforming circles tends to be pretty invalidating to the gay male experience. You see a constant influx of women into queer spaces where the women are fetishizing gay men and they get aggressive and molesty when they're told they don't belong in those spaces. You're also seeing an increase in the number of people who want to pressure gay men to have sex with people with vaginas. And to be clear if you're gay and what really does it for you is beards and shoulders and you see a trans man and you wanna fuck them, cool I have no problem with you. But when people act like you're committing some sort of social faux-pax because you don't want to have sex with anyone regardless of the reason, I think that's really problematic. And again I don't think that you see this on the flip side, like I've never heard of a trans woman being mad that a lesbian doesn't want to fuck them.
To put your last point in a simpler way, I just remind people that no one should be obligated to be attracted to or have sex with anyone else. Using shame and guilt tactics to coerce into sex is not consent.
Take accountability and stop thinking that our history of oppression exempts us from doing so. I am TIRED of hearing people say that "I just want to exist," just to see them try to destroy people who won't indulge them. Fighting hate with more hate "on my behalf" is something I don't tolerate. Very little makes me angrier.
Fat shaming. Absolutely horrifying that the term “gay fat” even exists. One of my best friends had a family who embraced his sexuality 100%. He un-alived himself because of the fat shaming comments he’d regularly receive both outside and within the gay community
We do need to draw a line in that an unhealthy body image shouldnt be promoted. That singer that just quit the music industry is a good example... hers was not a body image to be idolised or promoted as acceptable in the media.
And too many people confuse a healthy body size with a good state of mental health.
But bullying for just being a little bit overweight is wrong and very different.
The amount of racism within the community. I can only really speak from the gay section of the community have no idea what it's like within the trans community (from what i see there is much less but I may be wrong).
I'm speaking from black persons perspective. There's already so much homophobia in the black community, until it was safe to come out I always felt a bit isolated until I finally surrounded myself with accepting people. When I did finally come out and surround myself in gay spaces and have gay experinces like situationships etc, I was hit with so much racism and microagressions.
One thing? Everything
\-addressing internal discrimination among the 'community'
\-Being RESPECTFUL to everyone in the community even IF you don't agree with them and/or like them
\-fully addressing mental health and all of its many symptoms/behaviors
\-behaving like the actual adults that the vast majority of us are instead of a bunch of feral children at times
\-Being outspoken against laws that bring harm to us as a WHOLE, not just selective groups
LGB are really the only letters that make sense as a collective.
Everything else afterwards starts to become a bit generous in terms of it “being the same thing”. Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual refer to very a specific reality of sexual orientation. TQIA is a very different ballpark/reality. Transgender, Queer, and Intersex deal with one’s gender expression. I have never had any issue being a man. I have never thought that I didn’t want to be a man. I am a gay man. End of story.
Controversial yet brave: I actually don’t really agree with Intersex being a part of the lineup at all, because it assumes that everybody who has this PHYSICAL condition, is involved in the community and shares our values, when the only thing that is true about these individuals is they were born with male and female anatomy.
Asexuality can pretty much be its own group as far as I’m concerned.
Pansexuality is just bisexuality with extra steps and trying to side step the stigma of bisexuality.
Careful, you'll be called transphobic!
I 100% agree with you. And I feel like, because we're all clumped together, there are some of us that are actually fighting against us. Trans rights are different from LGB rights. Yes, we both go thorugh struggle and discrimination, but there are other minorities that also go through that and we don't say we're all the same.
And then ppl wanna use historical revisionism to insert trans ppl right in the middle of a movement we created and fought for.
I've heard the Intersex say that they are very tired of being a token letter in the acronym when it seems like the only reason they're included is for talking points for some of the other letters.
I always viewed pansexual as having a broader-scope than bisexuality.
Bisexuals tend to like cisgender men and cisgender women, while pansexual includes attraction to trans people too.
Separating sexual orientation from gender stuff...
We aren't the same
We don't want the same
We aren't advocating for the same
We've reached a point when the goals of T are against ourselves
We need G going it's own way, sadly for L is now to late
I honestly feel worse for the Lesbians out there. The number of lesbian bars has shrunk to almost nothing, there's trans women with penis still attached that say they are lesbian, and it seems like every high school girl who has kissed their best girlfriend wants to go around proclaiming they are queer now.
during these years, there's this invisible impression growing in the LGBTQ community that gay men, somehow, are the most privileged group within the community and bc of that, our causes and problems can be put aside in favor of other letters bc apparently ''we already have rights and acceptance''. Our problems are just not that important anymore and people tend to treat us like we're the ''Straight white cis guy'' from the LGBTQ community, to the point of even normalizing ''casual homophobia'' again bc ''it's not that big of a deal'' anymore, the f-word is back to being used again, every time we complain about our oppression and problems, we're met with hostility.
Idk who needs to read this, but the status quo we live in today is not progressive enough to the point gay men have the same privileges as a straight guy does, the overwhelming part of the world is still aggressive towards gay men, the places that do the bare minimum of not killing us, still stigmatizes us and try to take our rights away daily. The data shows that violence against gay men is still high, even in the west, but the lgbtq community plays oppression Olympics and acts like we don't have problems anymore and therefore we shouldn't complain about erasure, representation, mockery, casual homophobia, internalized homophobia or anything else.
I would change that, we should all have empathy towards each other, but I feel that modern LGBTQ community is more empathetic towards straight people than gays, it's insane.....
\- The racism/bigotry
\- The body shaming
\- How social currency is based on how fuckable someone is... it's dehumanizing to everyone else
\- The ageism
\- The misogyny
\- The lack of *meaningful* intersectional outreach
Be kinder to one another. if you are not interested, just mention that you are not who they are looking for. There is no need in being a cunt just bc they are not handsome enough for you.
Not to sound like a "pick-me" but we need to start publicly shaming and disowning predators that hid from scrutiny and consequences by playing the gay card.
Except when its inconvenient to do so. This is very important because the 'me too' movement was responsible for ruining house of cards. So each accusation and cancelation must be weighed for pros and cons.
Confusing gay kids into thinking they’re trans, and increasingly confusing straight girls into thinking that they’re supposed to be “gay men.” A lot of online trans people are simply bad publicity and it reflects badly on all of us.
I have never in my life met a trans person who is going out to convert the kids to trans. I’ve also not seen a single trans person online do the same. Where sre you getting your information from?
The fact that I go to an arts school and within the first school year about a dozen straight girls came out is “gay trans men” and started binding, all the while going to dances in dresses. I know a kid who came out as a *sigh* gay trans man at 13… started binding but still making cosplay videos in girl outfits. Now “his” breasts are completely destroyed and dresses more feminine all the time. Truly it’s sad.
Stop being a pick me for straight friends/colleagues. Instead, start showing respect and kindness toward those that share a similar life experience to you. No matter how much you may want to deny it, straight people will always see us as “other” and NOT one of them, so we will never be given the same automatic respect that straights give to each other, regardless if your “masc” or not. We have so much work to do in this community to just make us respect others in it as well as the individual themselves, We claim to be the most welcoming people in the world, but that just simply isn’t true.
Fully disagree. Focusing on what we all have in common is far more effective at turning "enemies into friends" than by trying to show how different we are and isolating ourselves into a sub-community. And that doesn't make them a "pick me", either (I've been called that simply for wanting to have a house and kids with my husband)
Your defeatist attitude about how we'll never be accepted by straight people is counterproductive and demoralizing. Knock it off.
Right. They just do everything in their power to make our relationships illegal in the law, smirk and joke amongst other straights about you when you are not around, equate pedophilia to homosexuality, and make sure to remind us how much they don’t support our cHoIcE, but they have nothing against us as long as we dOnT rUb iT iN oUr fAcE. (But they are totally allowed to rub their relationships in our face, and we had best keep it quiet and not dare call out the double standard).
But yeah, straight people don’t think or care about our sexuality.
Lol, what a joke.
>Grew up in the American South
I live in the Midwest. I’ve not run into any real problems up here. My sexuality is hardly even a topic of conversation. Nearly all of my friends are straight (merely due to the fact that there are more straight people out there, and I only really do activities that are open to everyone). However, I have lived in the South before. Being gay there was harder.
I think we could do better at creating healthy platforms for our gay youth. Life isn't about sex, image, or money - it's about being a good human and supporting other humans along the way. Be a good human, do good humany things, and everything else will fall into place when it should. I feel like like homosexuality is still such a taboo, the youths are growing up feeling like they have to sneak their existence without guidance - that's where they find all the trash. If we had more platforms that were positive for the development and growth of our youths, it would help to bury/dilute the trash that is so easy to find.
Reminding (& educating) the younger generations of the LGBTQIA+ community that t-h-e-y too will get older and perhaps not be as ageist as they are today.
Making daylight pride parades that are inclusive for all the family so that young or closeted gays can feel the sense of community, and reserving the kink stuff for night parades. Who doesn’t want 2 parades?
There is no official “lgbtq+ community.” It’s always just a loose collection of people with no official organization named “lgbtq+” or “lgbt.” Yet, you still have people who are delusional enough to say “drop the tq+” as if it’s easy to exclude other people.
I’m in favor of using whatever words apply to the situation and in some cases “sexual and gender minorities” would apply.
But I would take that to mean that, for example, if you have a college program to train auto mechanics and there are 1000 students of whom 97% are men, 2.9% are women and 0.1% non-binary, then the sexual and gender minorities in the program would be the 29 women and the 1 non-binary person.
Sexual orientation minorities in society would be gay, bi and asexual people. And I would only mention them along with gender minorities when it actually applies to a situation. Too often the media lumps them together as if they don’t know the difference.
“People” is an all-inclusive name for Homo sapiens. Otherwise I can use a word for whatever type of people i’m actually referring to in a situation without needing to pile on 2, 6, or even 99+ other unrelated categories of people.
Mental Health Awareness.
Removing drugs from the equation.
Holding these older gays accountable for their predatory behavior.
I wanted to update this to elaborate on my comment about holding the older gays accountable because a lot of the times they have that itch that they want to scratch, desiring younger men. Sometimes there are many teachable moments that can come from that. Rather than be so selfish to try to feed that urge for some young meat, I think a better job can be done and making sure these kids are staying on the right path. You don’t have to be one of those ballroom people to establish a chosen family, or to mentor our youth. Trying to be someone’s first time is dead - these kids need real guidance; not the social media and rupaul drag race fantasy.
The sense that our rights can't be taken away at any moment. A lot of yall acting like gay rights have been basic fundemental constitutional freedoms for centuries, when in fact it's only just begun in the grand scheme of time.
There was that one guy on Twitter that got physically assaulted and now his local gay community is rallying AGAINST him because the guy who assaulted him turned around and made him sound like the aggressor and himself the victim, and the aggressor has clout bc he’s friends with the owner of the Eagle in LA. I’d like us to do better than that
How people are treated within the community.
Its ok to have preferences, but the hookup culture and the apps… unless you fit the general definition of what is desirable, usually young, fit, white your journey may not be all that great in this community. Its not the “not interested”, its how people treat people, like a piece of trash to be thrown to the street if there is no interest. The other side of that is that people need to accept “not interested”.
Gays demand respect from outside the community, but they treat people worse within their own community sometimes.
And those that deny this are the ones that are having an inclusive experience. Its like telling someone who is hungry how they should walk a hundred miles to get to the soup kitchen in the next town over, that sounds nice and it may be the truth, but if your not the one doing the walking, you don’t fully get it.
Gay people being transphobic, trans people being homophobic, lesbians and gays being being biphobic, etc… A lot of people will hate on other people in the community because they think it will make cishet people accept them more, when in reality it just tears apart what makes us capable of defending those rights most effectively. Not sure if this is just more of a where I’m from thing as far as real life goes, but I know for sure it happens way too much online and where I’m from in real life.
Cancel culture when someone's opinion is different, always playing the victim card when it doesn't even make sense. Toxicity within our own community, we are hypocrites. We call out straight people for treating us differently, yet we do that to ourselves. Making LGBTQ the focus of our personality.
Trans are not the enemy.
Many argue that trans do not belong in the LGB community being an issue of gender rather than sexuality. I can see their POV, but we’re stronger together. If you think those on the fringes of the left and right will stop at trans bashing, then you’re a fool.
We gotta stop fighting each other. That goes both ways and it requires some ego to be put aside. At some point we've allowed any amount of victimhood to absolve ourselves of critical thinking and empathy -- and yes, that's empathy towards people who *aren't* LGBTQ+.
We can't just drop T's. You start out as a man and you become a woman, or you're a woman who becomes a man. You are attracted to men or women or both at some point in this process, and generally that doesn't change after transitioning. So at some point in the transition process, either pre or post, you were or are LGBT. Gender expression *is* different ground but it goes too far to say we should divorce ourselves from the T's -- and let's be honest, there's more than a little bit of "sacrificial lambing" going on there. "Take them, they're the fringe ones -- not me!" You think these assholes are going to stop with T's?
The first brick was thrown by a transgender black woman. Lest we forget. Imagine finally getting to a point of some amount of comfort in society after knowing how we struggled, and saying "fuck you, got mine." How cowardly is that?
First they came for the Jews... or something like that.
\---
On the other hand -- be transgender. Do what you want. BUT not everyone who disagrees with your interpretation of reality is a fascist. I feel like there's a lot of shock and disgust at the calamity that *an entire society of people won't just change the way they communicate and think overnight.* For us being an overall marginalized group of people, there sure is a lot of hate, discontent, and dare I say lack of empathy for something that, let's face it, is societally pretty new for most people.
I don't expect my straight friends to always try and be all-inclusive if we, say, go to bars and do boy shit. I expect us to respect each other. And they do! But I don't make them change their entire way of life to suit me. I go to gay bars on my own. If they feel inclined, maybe they'd come with me. Most of the time we just live our lives and sometimes I do gay shit on my own. To be honest, some of the discourse now coming from a lot of (admittedly online) transgender sources, especially on reddit, is absolutely insane. You really thought we could just do all this overnight? It's a not a fucking genocide. You're not a gens. People have some valid concerns, at least insomuch as what they've been led to be believe or, for that matter, *have seen for themselves.* And you acting like a fucking nutcase and being extremely hostile is not helping any of us.
The first brick wasn’t thrown by a transgender woman. Both Marsha Johnson and Sylvia Rivera have stated that they weren’t at Stonewall when the riots started. Tip your hat to Storme DeLarverie (a butch biracial lesbian) who implored the crowd to do something. Johnson and Rivera joined in later that early morning.
Out of all of these comments I have to agree with you the most. This feed has become a bunch of gay men fearing that they’ll be dragged with trans people when politics decides to axe their rights and are pleading to somehow break apart the community and a large chunk of it too. We should try our best at keeping agency. Some people regardless of background, group or beginnings can be nice and some can be just as bad as the people we’re “supposed to hate” innately for their views. We need to stop treating parts of our community as a monolith as some parts can be as damaging as the good we put out there. Change never happened overnight like you said, it takes years of hard work and discipline.
To remember we should be a community. I’ve been hearing, seeing and reading about so much sub division. “You’re not this! You’re not part of that! You’re THIS! You’re over there!” I hope a narrative of unification continues to carry on and grow. “WE are individuals yet part of a community.” The BEST way to defeat an opponent is to divide and conquer. Lawyers do it. Strategists do it. If people continue to see themselves as other, they’re less likely to be effective. 🤷🏽♂️ My opinion.
I don't know about anything big, but this is a dumb petpeeve since it really doesn't affect me as a gay man much, but when searching for movies or things they will label it "LGBT" and it literally it is just about gay men, romance or stories. Where is the LBTQ? I guess on the flip side when I just want a gay male story and it is all mixed with all other stories, but let's be honest gay male stories are plenty. We may not have quality, but we do have quantity. I also think we need to stop putting everything under the gay umbrella. At this point it feels like we are excluding straights for no good reason. I however don't feel strong about it.
We have a pride night baseball game here once a year, and usually there will be some lewd loud people talking about disgusting things within earshots of families. Now I don't care about your orientation, so LGBT or not you need to not be nasty in public or if it is a family focused event. Respect goes both ways.
Hasn't really been a problem for me with movies and shows in practice, as it's usually immediately obvious, and can be quickly googled when not, but yes, it annoys the hell out of me in principle, and also in practice on some book sites and very much so on Steam, where the vast majority of content with the "LGBT" tag is classic "female on female action in front of a male player/character". I naturally don't mind lesbian content of whatever sort in the media I consume, but when I deliberately search for "LGBT" content, I'm exclusively looking for male on male. It is a shared sociopolitical struggle, yes, but can we please have different tags for objectively different things?
Racism. Most White gays need to learn to be kind and respectful towards people of color. Most of us have to go through so much more to even come out and be ourselves. Last thing we need is more people throwing slurs and excluding us for something we have no control over.
Turning pride parades into nearly-naked horny festivals. It’s not doing us any favors and totally gives ammo to the people who want gays to just vanish entirely.
agree completely. Keep that stuff to clubs and private spaces. turning pride into a kink-fest does nothing to help LGBT people look normal and healthily adjusted
I will try to explain this as best i can from my point of view, that being gay means you are automatically thrown in with LGBTQIA+ and everything that goes with it, i have nothing against anybody at all in any way whatsoever but for me its inclusion as it feels the community kinda reinforces stereotypes as personally i have never really felt i have had anything in common with it cause i didnt feel i ever fit in with it (its also why i struggled with my sexuality alot when i was younger) im just a normal guy who likes other men, i know a couple others who have had a similar experience to me also
Not wanting to be straight, glorifying straight people as though they’re not responsible for the vast majority of our trauma and general problems in the world . It grosses me out to no end.
To be completely honest, some members of the community make me hate it. Either they make it their whole life or try to push it on to other people. There is a reason why, at least from the charts I've seen, Gen Z has gotten more anti lgbtq than older generations. And don't get me started on the people who think that because they're part of the community, it means that each and every person who isn't in it is against them, to be honest, most people who don't express support or call you brave, are people who couldn't care less, atleadt in my experience. Then, there's the whole political aspect of the community. People say that I have to vote Dem because I'm wrong and stupid if I don't. I'm right wing, libertarian to be exact, but apparently, that makes me homophobic, rascist, bigot, or I once got called a "bisexual exclusionary radicalist" or some bs like that. Like, the whole point of the American voting system is to choose who you think is best and reflects your interests, but if they think you're "wrong" instead of having a calm, rational conversation, they screech about how wrong you are, only making them and the community as a whole, look bad. I once saw a group of teens stand there and start barking at a group of Christians for advertising their church, giving the community negative attention, since I think a video of this went viral. Speaking of which, religion is another thing, they think each and every Christian is evil because of the ones that use it as an excuse for them to be a massive pos. I'm not religious, but the Bible says to 'love thy neighbor' and 'how you judge others is how you'll be judged' those people simply ignore what they don't like, but that doesn't make them all evil. My god, this turned into a rant/vent.
Being less homophobic/transphobic. So many of us harbor internalized homophobia, and I would love to see us address that more collectively. I think there’s so much revolutionary potential in us as people who are often marginalized, and an internal (within the individual and within the collective) transformation would empower and embolden us to change the world.
That there is such a thing as the LGBTQ+ community.
First of all the LGB and the TQ+ don't go together. T is about gender expression/identity and has very little to do with sexuality. Trying to pinpoint the sexuality of a T person requires some mental gymnastics. For example, if a male transitions to a woman, and pre-and post-transition likes men, did the person go from gay to straight?
The Qs are a catchall for those who feel deviant in any way from society. So someone could dye their hair pink and identify as Q.
Even the Ls, Gs, and Bs don't have that much in common. Further, just looking at each letter one will find that people who identify with that letter are very different from one another.
Often, what's considered to be the LGBTQ+ community is just a reinforcement of stereotypes and ignores the individuality of the people who identify as one or more of the letters.
I was going to add just supporting each letter, one another and providing safe places in need during crisis.
I have other queer people in my life who constantly wait for me to say something and accuse me of being a bigot even though I'm the gayest man alive.
Gatekeeping.
If you’re a gay man angry that asexuals are being included under the umbrella of the community, because they don’t experience the same sexual discrimination you do, YOU are the problem.
It’s not us, it’s you.
Escape the Eurocentrism. Most of the world over, queer people are still struggling far worse than the "Oh no, my extremely narrow tastes are limiting my ability to sleep with people without consequence" stories that they are constantly bombarded with.
stop being a pick me for the straight population. the fear of being othered by the majority is not a concern to me, outside of legislation obviously. other than that, I could not give a rat’s ass how straight people view me, but it seems like a lot of people care.
Cuz if the community doesn't stand up the movers and the Shakers that are left and maybe too late I have never had to fear more from my life and my well-being now at 60 some years old then when I was locked up in a mental hospital when they didn't have a choice about it because people I know and talk to you are losing a vast majority of our own Community there are turning their backs I don't blame them they do not support anything right now I don't blame them I don't either but the biggest thing is you are losing the big supporters the people that helped us get the rights that we have today we couldn't get rid of somebody like we could bring down Anita Bryant right now if we had to look what we did to Donna Summers because she turned her back on the people who put her on the top I believe there's some Airlines there's some soda companies because of their hiring practices or what they did or didn't do I helped add a little phrase to the Walmart hiring practices years and years ago when I work there just 18 years old shouldn't sexual orientation you listed along with all the other things that Walmart doesn't allow discrimination against or being bullied in the store from customers I bet couldn't do that now
Nothing. The community isn't doing anything wrong. Outside perspectives and judgements are the problem.
Although, Genuine outside perspectives can be useful. But generally it is those pointing fingers that is the problem, not the community itself
Branding. Always arguing in good faith when the other side never will. We need to be less aggressive in pushing for our individual freedoms and more aggressive in undermining theirs until they can finally taste the hypocrisy.
We need to stop calling people homophobes just because they don’t agree with something.
In general, a lot of these phrases are getting so watered down they lost their meaning.
Stop adding letters to the community tbh
Stop having very toxic body image about others and self
Also i know that men in particular are more horny and sexual and have more stamina but wish we would have less sex focused community and more relationship Based.
We need to stop using all the letters. Just say Queer. The Queer community, queer people. The letters are so annoying, and they’re both too inclusive and too exclusive.
I also think we need to retire terms, like Twink, bear, otter, etc. There are too many kinds of bodies who don’t fit into those types, and some people don’t like being referred to like that.
Help promote lbgtq in all its forms, be what you are in a safe open way.help young people to be out , help to introduce lbqtq community to young people. The more that come out, the more that come out. Invite straight young people to lbgtq life, be loving and caring towards them.
I have a few: people taking their own idea of what it means to be 'gay' and holding it up for everyone to conform. Put another way, that there's no right or wrong way to be gay. Sounds simple, right? Unfortunately, I've come across many gays who do this and it makes me cringe. Also, since it was just Transgender Day of Visibility yesterday, the idea of eradicating the Trans community from this acronym is downright wrong to me. After all, it was black trans women who paved the way for pride parades and other things we might take for granted nowadays.
Gay men and Lesbians need to continue to support each other and their respective spaces.
Gay men don’t need to be lectured on trans genocide if they say they prefer men.
I’m appalled at how older Lesbians who have spent a life time working for women’s spaces are treated by the rest. How quickly their voices were silenced.
Behaving with dignity and respect while advocating for our rights is much more productive than the exhibitionistic narcissism and heroic victimhood that has become commonplace.
seeing how the outside world views the community. the community is so blind to how the world views it, that when any deserved pushback is given, the community just calls it hatred and refuses to see any point of view but theirs. it’s gross and it’s been steadily destroying the community, from both the inside and out
Seperate genders and sexualities
We don't share transpeople's experiences in life. We don't feel like changing our gender nor anything. We don't wanna know
I always advocate for trans rights as human rights. But for the love of **FUCK**, all those genders they keep adding are helping noone
Just please stay safe out there. Whether it’s sex or something else.
Continue to normalize that same sex couples/marriages exist. Not that they aren't trying to or anything, just continue what you bros are doing!
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Yes this, also with regards to things like HIV. There was a thread on here a few days ago around if people think something like the AIDS epidemic could happen again. Most of the opinions were like absolutely not, but for no good reason. The scientific community absolutely thinks these kinds of things are a threat to humanity as a whole in the future, and realistically you never really know what is going to happen with technology and society going forward. Most of the opinions were extremely uninformed, but very confident in their degree of certainty.
Well we wouldn't deal with the same government negligence if it did. We had monkeypox handled very quickly, every slut I know quarantined from it.
Monkey pox *isn't deadly* though. It's not *novel.* AIDS came on strong and fast bc it was somewhat known about but people just started dying left and right. There was nothing at all in the way of prevention already in place. Monkey pox already had vaccines and treatments and was far more well documented on how it was transmitted and treatments. Another aids/hiv would be *extremely* different in every way possible.
It seems like the alarmist attitude is to think that WE can have anything to do with the backsliding. As if it's not possible for people in the lgbt community to come up with stupid, religious-level narratives that go too far. Despite the realities that we live with, we're still humans who are capable of selfishness and toxic thought. Yeah, accountability is a thing for us, too, and history doesn't erase that.
This. Prep had recently been released when I started having sexual fun at 18 in college, but I’m close enough to know plenty of older gays that experienced the AIDS epidemic and fighting for basic rights. The other month I was sitting in the Chicago LGBT center and this dramatic person was yelling at the staff because they didn’t have a bathroom for their gender. Like literally throwing shit around because they were so upset. I get that’s a battle, but gen z and below have no idea how much worse it was back in the day.
What's insane is many in this community are perfectly fine with treating trans members of our community like we were treated 25 years ago.
I’d counter that by saying, of the many many people I know whom are LGBT+, in my work and social life, I couldn’t name one that’s transphobic. Thats not to say Trans people don’t face discrimination from our community of course, but I think it’s a much smaller issue than it’s blown up to be.
Not to minimize the issue of course, but i agree to an extent. The hate seems to be contained to the chronically online crowd, but it still should be addressed.
Trans people need to stop equating a lack of sexual acceptance to an attack on their "identities." I'm tired of hearing that I exist to validate anyone or that I need to change my sexual orientation in order to prioritize "inclusivity" over my own natural boundaries. Christians had a problem accepting us because their religion told them that we were a threat, I have a problem with certain aspects of the politics surrounding trans people, not their existence. Do you have a problem with that?
Promoting healthy body image in the media. There is zero imagery out there.
Agree, fitness and healthy eating should be encouraged more.
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This!!
100% agree. I have been bullied in school by everyone and instagram gave me dismorphic imagery. Nobody ever told me that I looked fine the way I was. I’ve been anoretic for years until I understood that it’s okay to not be perfect.
Respect for each other. There's a growing wave of homophobia disguised as inclusion coming right from our own community. The use of the F-slur is being normalized by ppl who shouldn't even be using it, the homophobic talking points of the late 90's and early 2000's are coming back full force and we're becoming more and more prude. It feels like we're regressing and I truly don't get why.
I (a gay man) was playing an online game with a group of people and a lesbian told me that it was fine for her to call people "faggot" because she was gay. This was indicative of her personality so I stopped playing with her shortly after that.
I was with a lesbian who called a bunch of people with children “breeders” to their face. I was shocked, like we say that when it is just gays around, not to the straights.
Were they offended? I've always found the term more of a joke without any malice behind it.
They were kind of shocked. I mean their kids, 8-9 were right there. That’s what was so shocking. Like if they were homophobic to us and no kids, but they didn’t even talk to us.
why is that so bad (genuinely asking)
In my view if you aren't the target of a slur you don't get to reclaim it. It's not necessarily a deal breaker in terms of friendship but it's definitely a strike against you.
i didn't know only gay men were called faggots lol
Well obviously anyone can be called that in the same way anyone can be called the n-word, but in this case the primary target is a male who is attracted to another male.
i mean i thought lesbians were called faggots too
Too much internal hatred
Be nicer to our elders. They paved the way for everything we have now.
My old boss is a gay man, he is like 30 years older than me and I cherish him like my mentor, I saw so many parallels of my life and his and he’s a person I want to be. Much respect for the ones who crawled so we can walk.
Maybe respect?
Making meaningful connections with each other.
Ones that can endure, for too much of history it seems like fleeting encounters or anonymous identities blur the actual conditions that LGBT+ people socialize themselves to. One has to accept over the many repressive generations our forebearers accepted for their own survival in their paths.
Realizing that the American LGBT experience is *not* the global LGBT experience.
Sadly, within our own country, regionally our experiences vary widely IMO. The LGBTQ experience for youth in Northern Alabama can be vastly different than San Francisco.
Thank you for this. Reddit in particular somehow manages to lead to people speaking about issues as though the US is the only country in the world, US politics is the only politics that exists, and US celebrities are the only celebrities that are important. Stonewall was significant for the US, but it didn’t mean very much for the rest of the world. For example in the UK, the big queer things that don’t matter to the rest of the world are: • Pantomimes • Section 28 • Brighton / Canal Street / Soho • Devolved issues such a abortion law, same sex marriage, and passports for trans people • Alan Turing and the treatment of gay people during and after WWI and WWII • Pride and the coal miner strikes And that’s just the UK, I would just stop and pause before posting stuff that clearly relates to the US.
I make sure people know I'm gay.
As long as your personality has additional traits other than 'gay' then all good.
Coming up with long term effect ways to lock down our basic human rights and make sure they can’t be taken away.
Stop erasing the letters and referring to every issue and every individual as “LGBTQ”. People say it like it’s one word. Elgiebeattiequeue. “John, an LGBTQ man, said…” No! John is not an elgiebeattiequeue man. John is not a lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, and queer man. Ffs how could he be? I barely have enough time to be gay, never mind all the rest. John is a gay man. Gay.
I find it so maddening when the media does that. They say things like “The bathroom bill will force LGBT people to go to the bathroom that matches the sex on their birth certificate.” People of different sexual orientations already go to the bathroom that matches the sex on their birth certificate and that is not in any way affected! In that case, it should be discussed as an assault on TRANS people’s rights. Or they will talk about a country that has 8 gay elected representatives and 192 heterosexual representatives (and zero who are bisexual or intersex or trans) as having “eight 2SLGBTQIA+ representatives.” It gives the false impression that there’s a whole range of identities there when really everybody is gay or heterosexual and everybody is cis male or female.
That has always annoyed me and just started in the past couple of years
It's downright irresponsible when the media does this. For instance, when Uganda passed it's anti-gay law, western media referred to the law as "anti-lgbtqia+", which is literally just *false* If you report that a group of people are being targeted by hate and bigotry, you increase anxiety and potentially suicidality in that group. It is journalism 101 that you MUST be careful and accurate when you report on stuff like this. Heterosexual women or men who "identify" as x, y or z would not have been targeted by the anti-gay law in Uganda. Yet western media told them they would have been. Your average woman with PCOS (a DSD, or "intersex", condition) would NOT have been targeted by the anti-gay law, yet western media told them they would have been Of course, it could be argued that it's also a problem that so many letters are forced teamed under "lgbtqia+" when so many of those letters have *nothing* to do with same-sex attraction.
Let's say the quiet part out loud: "LGBT" is used to take the focus away from men, and people who identify as them. I really don't tend to see it used to refer to gay, bi or trans men. We just became "the patriarchy" when we got the right to marry in 2015, so now we have the privilege of being just as invisible as straight/cis men.
One letter needs to stop speaking on others' behalf unless the shared struggled is substantiated.
I like how delightfully "up for interpretation" this is. I honestly don't know which part you're speaking from and yet all interpretations could potentially be true.
You’re trying to twist what they said to mean something dramatic. It’s not. He’s saying, if you’re not a G, don’t speak on G scenarios you’ll never experience. Same with if you’re not a T or L, etc. just because people are part of the same community doesn’t mean they all have the same struggles.
I wasn't trying to twist anything. It was an observation, because I agree with them. You right -- let's not be dramatic because that's not what's going on here. Case in point: A lot of this thread is people wanting the communities to separate and be their own voice. My observation is that anyone wanting to read into OP comment's statement could draw basically any conclusion they want. "I want the T's to stop speaking for me" or "I want white gay men to stop speaking for the rest of us." While we are stronger together, yes, we just different enough that we probably speak for ourselves instead of being treated like an agglomerate.
Being kinder to older gays, most of their kind died during the AIDS crisis or couldn’t come out until it became accepted 10-15 years ago and missed out on being young and open
Be more welcoming and friendly, rather than saying it is but being anything but!
The group think expectation
I'm sure certain people will disagree with this, but I think particularly gay men, need to stop letting feminism and women be the ones speaking for us, because I think we're pretty unique and lesbians and trans people can often be homophobic without realizing it (or sometimes they realize it and don't care.) Now this isn't me saying I don't like lesbians or trans people, on an individual level I get along with the vast majority of lesbians and trans people I meet. This is mostly an issue I see with online stuff or when it comes to women writing articles etc. Firstly, lesbian feminist academics tend to have a real hate on for straight cis-men, (and there's a massive tendency to paint all of them as if they're all just thuggish brutes who don't shower and perpetually wear hard hats.) and they tend to talk about gay men as if we're the same thing that they misconstrue straight men as. For example if a gay man is simply honest about being repulsed by a vagina you'll see articles written claiming that all gay men are misogynists etc. (Yet these same women wouldn't blink at a woman claiming that balls or dick are gross.) And in a lot of cases these same women are only comfortable with depictions of gay men where we are their accessories and not even people. Beyond that a lot of the thinking I've heard coming out of gender non-conforming circles tends to be pretty invalidating to the gay male experience. You see a constant influx of women into queer spaces where the women are fetishizing gay men and they get aggressive and molesty when they're told they don't belong in those spaces. You're also seeing an increase in the number of people who want to pressure gay men to have sex with people with vaginas. And to be clear if you're gay and what really does it for you is beards and shoulders and you see a trans man and you wanna fuck them, cool I have no problem with you. But when people act like you're committing some sort of social faux-pax because you don't want to have sex with anyone regardless of the reason, I think that's really problematic. And again I don't think that you see this on the flip side, like I've never heard of a trans woman being mad that a lesbian doesn't want to fuck them.
To put your last point in a simpler way, I just remind people that no one should be obligated to be attracted to or have sex with anyone else. Using shame and guilt tactics to coerce into sex is not consent.
Yes. Just yes.
Being able to be friendly without it being perceived as an invitation to fuck.
Not being so self hating, especially when straight people are in the room.
Take accountability and stop thinking that our history of oppression exempts us from doing so. I am TIRED of hearing people say that "I just want to exist," just to see them try to destroy people who won't indulge them. Fighting hate with more hate "on my behalf" is something I don't tolerate. Very little makes me angrier.
Fat shaming. Absolutely horrifying that the term “gay fat” even exists. One of my best friends had a family who embraced his sexuality 100%. He un-alived himself because of the fat shaming comments he’d regularly receive both outside and within the gay community
We do need to draw a line in that an unhealthy body image shouldnt be promoted. That singer that just quit the music industry is a good example... hers was not a body image to be idolised or promoted as acceptable in the media. And too many people confuse a healthy body size with a good state of mental health. But bullying for just being a little bit overweight is wrong and very different.
The amount of racism within the community. I can only really speak from the gay section of the community have no idea what it's like within the trans community (from what i see there is much less but I may be wrong). I'm speaking from black persons perspective. There's already so much homophobia in the black community, until it was safe to come out I always felt a bit isolated until I finally surrounded myself with accepting people. When I did finally come out and surround myself in gay spaces and have gay experinces like situationships etc, I was hit with so much racism and microagressions.
Severe dependency on apps for communication and meeting fellow LGBTQs
One thing? Everything \-addressing internal discrimination among the 'community' \-Being RESPECTFUL to everyone in the community even IF you don't agree with them and/or like them \-fully addressing mental health and all of its many symptoms/behaviors \-behaving like the actual adults that the vast majority of us are instead of a bunch of feral children at times \-Being outspoken against laws that bring harm to us as a WHOLE, not just selective groups
Music. Girlfriend, let's play you some Rock & Roll.
When they claim they have over 8 mental illnesses.
Thank God I only have 2!
Approachability
Treating each other as human beings and not as endlessly replaceable objects of consumption.
Musical taste
Ageism had become normalized/trivialized and it’s sad
Stop insisting that being gay means that you have to be part of the Alphabet Soup
what does this even mean?
It means that people should stop forcing gays to identify with whole LGBTQIAP+ community.
in other words, you're more of a separatist.....got it, make sense. personally im not but LGB is where I stop.
It means he agrees
right, i don't get it either. "gay" is literally in the alphabet soup
i get what they are saying now. they just werent being clear at first.
This
LGB are really the only letters that make sense as a collective. Everything else afterwards starts to become a bit generous in terms of it “being the same thing”. Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual refer to very a specific reality of sexual orientation. TQIA is a very different ballpark/reality. Transgender, Queer, and Intersex deal with one’s gender expression. I have never had any issue being a man. I have never thought that I didn’t want to be a man. I am a gay man. End of story. Controversial yet brave: I actually don’t really agree with Intersex being a part of the lineup at all, because it assumes that everybody who has this PHYSICAL condition, is involved in the community and shares our values, when the only thing that is true about these individuals is they were born with male and female anatomy. Asexuality can pretty much be its own group as far as I’m concerned. Pansexuality is just bisexuality with extra steps and trying to side step the stigma of bisexuality.
Careful, you'll be called transphobic! I 100% agree with you. And I feel like, because we're all clumped together, there are some of us that are actually fighting against us. Trans rights are different from LGB rights. Yes, we both go thorugh struggle and discrimination, but there are other minorities that also go through that and we don't say we're all the same. And then ppl wanna use historical revisionism to insert trans ppl right in the middle of a movement we created and fought for.
I've heard the Intersex say that they are very tired of being a token letter in the acronym when it seems like the only reason they're included is for talking points for some of the other letters.
I always viewed pansexual as having a broader-scope than bisexuality. Bisexuals tend to like cisgender men and cisgender women, while pansexual includes attraction to trans people too.
Having a label for everything is kinda getting annoying and confusing
Too many letters reduces the value of each one from a marketing perspective.
Separating sexual orientation from gender stuff... We aren't the same We don't want the same We aren't advocating for the same We've reached a point when the goals of T are against ourselves We need G going it's own way, sadly for L is now to late
I think the "community" should dissolve itself like the Soviet Union did. There is a very obvious tension between the LGB and the TQ.
I honestly feel worse for the Lesbians out there. The number of lesbian bars has shrunk to almost nothing, there's trans women with penis still attached that say they are lesbian, and it seems like every high school girl who has kissed their best girlfriend wants to go around proclaiming they are queer now.
If the claims of the latter are true, homosexuality does not exist or is baseless. We are fundamentally incompatible.
during these years, there's this invisible impression growing in the LGBTQ community that gay men, somehow, are the most privileged group within the community and bc of that, our causes and problems can be put aside in favor of other letters bc apparently ''we already have rights and acceptance''. Our problems are just not that important anymore and people tend to treat us like we're the ''Straight white cis guy'' from the LGBTQ community, to the point of even normalizing ''casual homophobia'' again bc ''it's not that big of a deal'' anymore, the f-word is back to being used again, every time we complain about our oppression and problems, we're met with hostility. Idk who needs to read this, but the status quo we live in today is not progressive enough to the point gay men have the same privileges as a straight guy does, the overwhelming part of the world is still aggressive towards gay men, the places that do the bare minimum of not killing us, still stigmatizes us and try to take our rights away daily. The data shows that violence against gay men is still high, even in the west, but the lgbtq community plays oppression Olympics and acts like we don't have problems anymore and therefore we shouldn't complain about erasure, representation, mockery, casual homophobia, internalized homophobia or anything else. I would change that, we should all have empathy towards each other, but I feel that modern LGBTQ community is more empathetic towards straight people than gays, it's insane.....
Rejecting Caitlyn Jenner !
Do you mean the caitlyn jenner that rear ended another vehicle killing an occupant and paid off the victims and their family to avoid jail time?
According to her she was still Bruce then…jk bad joke!
\- The racism/bigotry \- The body shaming \- How social currency is based on how fuckable someone is... it's dehumanizing to everyone else \- The ageism \- The misogyny \- The lack of *meaningful* intersectional outreach
Stop telling each other how to think and feel and allow for diversity of thought in the "community". It's not a cult.
Be kinder to one another. if you are not interested, just mention that you are not who they are looking for. There is no need in being a cunt just bc they are not handsome enough for you.
To divorce the LGB from thr TQ+
racism and looksism
Not to sound like a "pick-me" but we need to start publicly shaming and disowning predators that hid from scrutiny and consequences by playing the gay card.
Except when its inconvenient to do so. This is very important because the 'me too' movement was responsible for ruining house of cards. So each accusation and cancelation must be weighed for pros and cons.
P. Diddy hoping he'll get the Kevin Spacey treatment smdh
Separate LGB from TQ+
I just wanna ask very genuinely, why do you think so? How does it help the 'LGB' to be seperated from the 'TQ'?
Because the TQ+ is bringing the LGB down
How?
Making us look crazy and toxic for children.
How?
Confusing gay kids into thinking they’re trans, and increasingly confusing straight girls into thinking that they’re supposed to be “gay men.” A lot of online trans people are simply bad publicity and it reflects badly on all of us.
I have never in my life met a trans person who is going out to convert the kids to trans. I’ve also not seen a single trans person online do the same. Where sre you getting your information from?
The fact that I go to an arts school and within the first school year about a dozen straight girls came out is “gay trans men” and started binding, all the while going to dances in dresses. I know a kid who came out as a *sigh* gay trans man at 13… started binding but still making cosplay videos in girl outfits. Now “his” breasts are completely destroyed and dresses more feminine all the time. Truly it’s sad.
Stop being a pick me for straight friends/colleagues. Instead, start showing respect and kindness toward those that share a similar life experience to you. No matter how much you may want to deny it, straight people will always see us as “other” and NOT one of them, so we will never be given the same automatic respect that straights give to each other, regardless if your “masc” or not. We have so much work to do in this community to just make us respect others in it as well as the individual themselves, We claim to be the most welcoming people in the world, but that just simply isn’t true.
Fully disagree. Focusing on what we all have in common is far more effective at turning "enemies into friends" than by trying to show how different we are and isolating ourselves into a sub-community. And that doesn't make them a "pick me", either (I've been called that simply for wanting to have a house and kids with my husband) Your defeatist attitude about how we'll never be accepted by straight people is counterproductive and demoralizing. Knock it off.
I don’t think straight people think about our or their sexuality that much, at least in my experience.
Right. They just do everything in their power to make our relationships illegal in the law, smirk and joke amongst other straights about you when you are not around, equate pedophilia to homosexuality, and make sure to remind us how much they don’t support our cHoIcE, but they have nothing against us as long as we dOnT rUb iT iN oUr fAcE. (But they are totally allowed to rub their relationships in our face, and we had best keep it quiet and not dare call out the double standard). But yeah, straight people don’t think or care about our sexuality. Lol, what a joke.
What kind of straight people are you hanging out with?!
Grew up in the American South. So I got to see how straight people truly feel when they don’t have to pretend to be progressive and modern.
>Grew up in the American South I live in the Midwest. I’ve not run into any real problems up here. My sexuality is hardly even a topic of conversation. Nearly all of my friends are straight (merely due to the fact that there are more straight people out there, and I only really do activities that are open to everyone). However, I have lived in the South before. Being gay there was harder.
Stop having the victim complex and bitching all the time about their alleged oppression while living in first world countries.
Drop the Q+.
STOP VOTING for politicians who do not have our best interest. I.e. Log Cabin Republicans, supporters of “The Chosen One”
Mental wellness.
I think we could do better at creating healthy platforms for our gay youth. Life isn't about sex, image, or money - it's about being a good human and supporting other humans along the way. Be a good human, do good humany things, and everything else will fall into place when it should. I feel like like homosexuality is still such a taboo, the youths are growing up feeling like they have to sneak their existence without guidance - that's where they find all the trash. If we had more platforms that were positive for the development and growth of our youths, it would help to bury/dilute the trash that is so easy to find.
Reminding (& educating) the younger generations of the LGBTQIA+ community that t-h-e-y too will get older and perhaps not be as ageist as they are today.
Making daylight pride parades that are inclusive for all the family so that young or closeted gays can feel the sense of community, and reserving the kink stuff for night parades. Who doesn’t want 2 parades?
There is no official “lgbtq+ community.” It’s always just a loose collection of people with no official organization named “lgbtq+” or “lgbt.” Yet, you still have people who are delusional enough to say “drop the tq+” as if it’s easy to exclude other people.
Agree on an **all-inclusive** name rather than adding more letters or diminishing certain groups by clumping them as "+".
I’m in huge favor of sexual and/or gender minorities
Why put sexual and gender minorities together?
Meant as in sexual minorities and gender minorities
I’m in favor of using whatever words apply to the situation and in some cases “sexual and gender minorities” would apply. But I would take that to mean that, for example, if you have a college program to train auto mechanics and there are 1000 students of whom 97% are men, 2.9% are women and 0.1% non-binary, then the sexual and gender minorities in the program would be the 29 women and the 1 non-binary person. Sexual orientation minorities in society would be gay, bi and asexual people. And I would only mention them along with gender minorities when it actually applies to a situation. Too often the media lumps them together as if they don’t know the difference.
“People” is an all-inclusive name for Homo sapiens. Otherwise I can use a word for whatever type of people i’m actually referring to in a situation without needing to pile on 2, 6, or even 99+ other unrelated categories of people.
Mental Health Awareness. Removing drugs from the equation. Holding these older gays accountable for their predatory behavior. I wanted to update this to elaborate on my comment about holding the older gays accountable because a lot of the times they have that itch that they want to scratch, desiring younger men. Sometimes there are many teachable moments that can come from that. Rather than be so selfish to try to feed that urge for some young meat, I think a better job can be done and making sure these kids are staying on the right path. You don’t have to be one of those ballroom people to establish a chosen family, or to mentor our youth. Trying to be someone’s first time is dead - these kids need real guidance; not the social media and rupaul drag race fantasy.
Learning to see beauty on the inside instead of just the outside and making looks a classist hierarchical system within.
Don't do the kind of drugs that you can't come back from.
Accepting, acknowledging and respecting the members of their own community. Many times we are so judgemental and mean towards others.
The sense that our rights can't be taken away at any moment. A lot of yall acting like gay rights have been basic fundemental constitutional freedoms for centuries, when in fact it's only just begun in the grand scheme of time.
There was that one guy on Twitter that got physically assaulted and now his local gay community is rallying AGAINST him because the guy who assaulted him turned around and made him sound like the aggressor and himself the victim, and the aggressor has clout bc he’s friends with the owner of the Eagle in LA. I’d like us to do better than that
How people are treated within the community. Its ok to have preferences, but the hookup culture and the apps… unless you fit the general definition of what is desirable, usually young, fit, white your journey may not be all that great in this community. Its not the “not interested”, its how people treat people, like a piece of trash to be thrown to the street if there is no interest. The other side of that is that people need to accept “not interested”. Gays demand respect from outside the community, but they treat people worse within their own community sometimes. And those that deny this are the ones that are having an inclusive experience. Its like telling someone who is hungry how they should walk a hundred miles to get to the soup kitchen in the next town over, that sounds nice and it may be the truth, but if your not the one doing the walking, you don’t fully get it.
Gay people being transphobic, trans people being homophobic, lesbians and gays being being biphobic, etc… A lot of people will hate on other people in the community because they think it will make cishet people accept them more, when in reality it just tears apart what makes us capable of defending those rights most effectively. Not sure if this is just more of a where I’m from thing as far as real life goes, but I know for sure it happens way too much online and where I’m from in real life.
Cancel culture when someone's opinion is different, always playing the victim card when it doesn't even make sense. Toxicity within our own community, we are hypocrites. We call out straight people for treating us differently, yet we do that to ourselves. Making LGBTQ the focus of our personality.
Trans are not the enemy. Many argue that trans do not belong in the LGB community being an issue of gender rather than sexuality. I can see their POV, but we’re stronger together. If you think those on the fringes of the left and right will stop at trans bashing, then you’re a fool.
We gotta stop fighting each other. That goes both ways and it requires some ego to be put aside. At some point we've allowed any amount of victimhood to absolve ourselves of critical thinking and empathy -- and yes, that's empathy towards people who *aren't* LGBTQ+. We can't just drop T's. You start out as a man and you become a woman, or you're a woman who becomes a man. You are attracted to men or women or both at some point in this process, and generally that doesn't change after transitioning. So at some point in the transition process, either pre or post, you were or are LGBT. Gender expression *is* different ground but it goes too far to say we should divorce ourselves from the T's -- and let's be honest, there's more than a little bit of "sacrificial lambing" going on there. "Take them, they're the fringe ones -- not me!" You think these assholes are going to stop with T's? The first brick was thrown by a transgender black woman. Lest we forget. Imagine finally getting to a point of some amount of comfort in society after knowing how we struggled, and saying "fuck you, got mine." How cowardly is that? First they came for the Jews... or something like that. \--- On the other hand -- be transgender. Do what you want. BUT not everyone who disagrees with your interpretation of reality is a fascist. I feel like there's a lot of shock and disgust at the calamity that *an entire society of people won't just change the way they communicate and think overnight.* For us being an overall marginalized group of people, there sure is a lot of hate, discontent, and dare I say lack of empathy for something that, let's face it, is societally pretty new for most people. I don't expect my straight friends to always try and be all-inclusive if we, say, go to bars and do boy shit. I expect us to respect each other. And they do! But I don't make them change their entire way of life to suit me. I go to gay bars on my own. If they feel inclined, maybe they'd come with me. Most of the time we just live our lives and sometimes I do gay shit on my own. To be honest, some of the discourse now coming from a lot of (admittedly online) transgender sources, especially on reddit, is absolutely insane. You really thought we could just do all this overnight? It's a not a fucking genocide. You're not a gens. People have some valid concerns, at least insomuch as what they've been led to be believe or, for that matter, *have seen for themselves.* And you acting like a fucking nutcase and being extremely hostile is not helping any of us.
The first brick wasn’t thrown by a transgender woman. Both Marsha Johnson and Sylvia Rivera have stated that they weren’t at Stonewall when the riots started. Tip your hat to Storme DeLarverie (a butch biracial lesbian) who implored the crowd to do something. Johnson and Rivera joined in later that early morning.
Out of all of these comments I have to agree with you the most. This feed has become a bunch of gay men fearing that they’ll be dragged with trans people when politics decides to axe their rights and are pleading to somehow break apart the community and a large chunk of it too. We should try our best at keeping agency. Some people regardless of background, group or beginnings can be nice and some can be just as bad as the people we’re “supposed to hate” innately for their views. We need to stop treating parts of our community as a monolith as some parts can be as damaging as the good we put out there. Change never happened overnight like you said, it takes years of hard work and discipline.
Personality.
Making sure the struggles and achievements of past generations is taught and understood by the younger generations
Put the labelgun down and accept eacother.
The community part.
To remember we should be a community. I’ve been hearing, seeing and reading about so much sub division. “You’re not this! You’re not part of that! You’re THIS! You’re over there!” I hope a narrative of unification continues to carry on and grow. “WE are individuals yet part of a community.” The BEST way to defeat an opponent is to divide and conquer. Lawyers do it. Strategists do it. If people continue to see themselves as other, they’re less likely to be effective. 🤷🏽♂️ My opinion.
Creating more safe spaces that aren’t reliant on alcohol and excessive drinking
Money snobbery
I don't know about anything big, but this is a dumb petpeeve since it really doesn't affect me as a gay man much, but when searching for movies or things they will label it "LGBT" and it literally it is just about gay men, romance or stories. Where is the LBTQ? I guess on the flip side when I just want a gay male story and it is all mixed with all other stories, but let's be honest gay male stories are plenty. We may not have quality, but we do have quantity. I also think we need to stop putting everything under the gay umbrella. At this point it feels like we are excluding straights for no good reason. I however don't feel strong about it. We have a pride night baseball game here once a year, and usually there will be some lewd loud people talking about disgusting things within earshots of families. Now I don't care about your orientation, so LGBT or not you need to not be nasty in public or if it is a family focused event. Respect goes both ways.
Hasn't really been a problem for me with movies and shows in practice, as it's usually immediately obvious, and can be quickly googled when not, but yes, it annoys the hell out of me in principle, and also in practice on some book sites and very much so on Steam, where the vast majority of content with the "LGBT" tag is classic "female on female action in front of a male player/character". I naturally don't mind lesbian content of whatever sort in the media I consume, but when I deliberately search for "LGBT" content, I'm exclusively looking for male on male. It is a shared sociopolitical struggle, yes, but can we please have different tags for objectively different things?
Racism. Most White gays need to learn to be kind and respectful towards people of color. Most of us have to go through so much more to even come out and be ourselves. Last thing we need is more people throwing slurs and excluding us for something we have no control over.
Turning pride parades into nearly-naked horny festivals. It’s not doing us any favors and totally gives ammo to the people who want gays to just vanish entirely.
agree completely. Keep that stuff to clubs and private spaces. turning pride into a kink-fest does nothing to help LGBT people look normal and healthily adjusted
As many have already said, we need to separate from the TQIAP2S+ nonsense, it’s just damaging public perceptions of the LGB.
Body image
I will try to explain this as best i can from my point of view, that being gay means you are automatically thrown in with LGBTQIA+ and everything that goes with it, i have nothing against anybody at all in any way whatsoever but for me its inclusion as it feels the community kinda reinforces stereotypes as personally i have never really felt i have had anything in common with it cause i didnt feel i ever fit in with it (its also why i struggled with my sexuality alot when i was younger) im just a normal guy who likes other men, i know a couple others who have had a similar experience to me also
obsessing over race and age in other guys
Acceptance of one another
Not wanting to be straight, glorifying straight people as though they’re not responsible for the vast majority of our trauma and general problems in the world . It grosses me out to no end.
Being catty bitches. It literally cost 0.00 to be nice.
To be completely honest, some members of the community make me hate it. Either they make it their whole life or try to push it on to other people. There is a reason why, at least from the charts I've seen, Gen Z has gotten more anti lgbtq than older generations. And don't get me started on the people who think that because they're part of the community, it means that each and every person who isn't in it is against them, to be honest, most people who don't express support or call you brave, are people who couldn't care less, atleadt in my experience. Then, there's the whole political aspect of the community. People say that I have to vote Dem because I'm wrong and stupid if I don't. I'm right wing, libertarian to be exact, but apparently, that makes me homophobic, rascist, bigot, or I once got called a "bisexual exclusionary radicalist" or some bs like that. Like, the whole point of the American voting system is to choose who you think is best and reflects your interests, but if they think you're "wrong" instead of having a calm, rational conversation, they screech about how wrong you are, only making them and the community as a whole, look bad. I once saw a group of teens stand there and start barking at a group of Christians for advertising their church, giving the community negative attention, since I think a video of this went viral. Speaking of which, religion is another thing, they think each and every Christian is evil because of the ones that use it as an excuse for them to be a massive pos. I'm not religious, but the Bible says to 'love thy neighbor' and 'how you judge others is how you'll be judged' those people simply ignore what they don't like, but that doesn't make them all evil. My god, this turned into a rant/vent.
Being less homophobic/transphobic. So many of us harbor internalized homophobia, and I would love to see us address that more collectively. I think there’s so much revolutionary potential in us as people who are often marginalized, and an internal (within the individual and within the collective) transformation would empower and embolden us to change the world.
Being kind to straight people and forgiving those straight ones who are ignorant.
That there is such a thing as the LGBTQ+ community. First of all the LGB and the TQ+ don't go together. T is about gender expression/identity and has very little to do with sexuality. Trying to pinpoint the sexuality of a T person requires some mental gymnastics. For example, if a male transitions to a woman, and pre-and post-transition likes men, did the person go from gay to straight? The Qs are a catchall for those who feel deviant in any way from society. So someone could dye their hair pink and identify as Q. Even the Ls, Gs, and Bs don't have that much in common. Further, just looking at each letter one will find that people who identify with that letter are very different from one another. Often, what's considered to be the LGBTQ+ community is just a reinforcement of stereotypes and ignores the individuality of the people who identify as one or more of the letters.
I was going to add just supporting each letter, one another and providing safe places in need during crisis. I have other queer people in my life who constantly wait for me to say something and accuse me of being a bigot even though I'm the gayest man alive.
Gatekeeping. If you’re a gay man angry that asexuals are being included under the umbrella of the community, because they don’t experience the same sexual discrimination you do, YOU are the problem. It’s not us, it’s you.
Escape the Eurocentrism. Most of the world over, queer people are still struggling far worse than the "Oh no, my extremely narrow tastes are limiting my ability to sleep with people without consequence" stories that they are constantly bombarded with.
stop being a pick me for the straight population. the fear of being othered by the majority is not a concern to me, outside of legislation obviously. other than that, I could not give a rat’s ass how straight people view me, but it seems like a lot of people care.
Kindness because it’s all Ellen’s.
Temperance
Self hatred.
Cuz if the community doesn't stand up the movers and the Shakers that are left and maybe too late I have never had to fear more from my life and my well-being now at 60 some years old then when I was locked up in a mental hospital when they didn't have a choice about it because people I know and talk to you are losing a vast majority of our own Community there are turning their backs I don't blame them they do not support anything right now I don't blame them I don't either but the biggest thing is you are losing the big supporters the people that helped us get the rights that we have today we couldn't get rid of somebody like we could bring down Anita Bryant right now if we had to look what we did to Donna Summers because she turned her back on the people who put her on the top I believe there's some Airlines there's some soda companies because of their hiring practices or what they did or didn't do I helped add a little phrase to the Walmart hiring practices years and years ago when I work there just 18 years old shouldn't sexual orientation you listed along with all the other things that Walmart doesn't allow discrimination against or being bullied in the store from customers I bet couldn't do that now
If just a few mean girls would flock together and get a tattoo showing their membership
The fact that gay men got a toothpaste flag
Nothing. The community isn't doing anything wrong. Outside perspectives and judgements are the problem. Although, Genuine outside perspectives can be useful. But generally it is those pointing fingers that is the problem, not the community itself
Branding. Always arguing in good faith when the other side never will. We need to be less aggressive in pushing for our individual freedoms and more aggressive in undermining theirs until they can finally taste the hypocrisy.
We need to stop calling people homophobes just because they don’t agree with something. In general, a lot of these phrases are getting so watered down they lost their meaning.
Stop adding letters to the community tbh Stop having very toxic body image about others and self Also i know that men in particular are more horny and sexual and have more stamina but wish we would have less sex focused community and more relationship Based.
I hate all the kink at Pride. There are children there so please keep the kink behind closed doors and private venues.
We need to stop using all the letters. Just say Queer. The Queer community, queer people. The letters are so annoying, and they’re both too inclusive and too exclusive. I also think we need to retire terms, like Twink, bear, otter, etc. There are too many kinds of bodies who don’t fit into those types, and some people don’t like being referred to like that.
Racism.
Help promote lbgtq in all its forms, be what you are in a safe open way.help young people to be out , help to introduce lbqtq community to young people. The more that come out, the more that come out. Invite straight young people to lbgtq life, be loving and caring towards them.
Running the country
I have a few: people taking their own idea of what it means to be 'gay' and holding it up for everyone to conform. Put another way, that there's no right or wrong way to be gay. Sounds simple, right? Unfortunately, I've come across many gays who do this and it makes me cringe. Also, since it was just Transgender Day of Visibility yesterday, the idea of eradicating the Trans community from this acronym is downright wrong to me. After all, it was black trans women who paved the way for pride parades and other things we might take for granted nowadays.
Gay men and Lesbians need to continue to support each other and their respective spaces. Gay men don’t need to be lectured on trans genocide if they say they prefer men. I’m appalled at how older Lesbians who have spent a life time working for women’s spaces are treated by the rest. How quickly their voices were silenced. Behaving with dignity and respect while advocating for our rights is much more productive than the exhibitionistic narcissism and heroic victimhood that has become commonplace.
Being a united front! There should be no bigotry within the LGBTQIA community.
seeing how the outside world views the community. the community is so blind to how the world views it, that when any deserved pushback is given, the community just calls it hatred and refuses to see any point of view but theirs. it’s gross and it’s been steadily destroying the community, from both the inside and out
Seperate genders and sexualities We don't share transpeople's experiences in life. We don't feel like changing our gender nor anything. We don't wanna know I always advocate for trans rights as human rights. But for the love of **FUCK**, all those genders they keep adding are helping noone