9 ms·

I look at all this self segmentation and categorization as a net harm to all queer people as a community, I've actually come around to the idea of GSM (Gender a

by Aloha 5y ago

I look at all this self segmentation and categorization as a net harm to all queer people as a community, I've actually come around to the idea of GSM (Gender and Sexual Minorities) as a preferred term, because it makes it harder for us to self segregate internally, and no longer view the fight for one groups equality as the fight for all of us. I'm gay, and for me equality was people no longer caring which gender I was attracted to. I wanted that level of normality - where my orientation just no longer mattered - where I no longer needed a separate support community just to exist, where I no longer needed to fear someone finding out I was different than others, that was supposed to be the goal, wasn't it? I look at trans folks the same way, if someone is trans, as soon as they tell me they're now a woman, or a man, they're a woman, or a man, they're not a transwoman or a transman, they don't get an othering here - that's counter to the goals of as taught to equality me - so we wouldn't need to fear anymore. My goal, is still that in the workplace none of this should matter any more than what color hair you have (or if you have hair at all, in the same way that bald is a hair color) - that was what the end goal of all of this was supposed to be - and yes, its natural to want to seek out affinity groups - people who have had shared experiences - but that should be something that helps the minority add something to the whole, not take something away from the whole. While there is still discrimination, particularly for trans folks, we've come so very very far from where the world was when I was a scared 15 year old who came out in 1998, and yes, there is still road yet to travel, the circle-the-wagons mentality I see among other queer folks, and what I perceive as the desire to try to turn the LGBT rights movement into a generic left wing movement is harmful to our end goal of equality for queer people everywhere - The end goal should be to make LGBT rights and acceptance an uncontroversial issue across the entire political spectrum.

gryfft 5y ago
As a straight man, it is not my place to enforce what anyone wants to call themselves-- as an ally the best thing I can do is listen, but it's important to speak up, too, to use the privilege I have for good when I can. I'll note that I didn't mean to come across as the ultimate authority on the taxonomy of minorities to which I do not belong. The commenter to whom I was responding had dismissively referred to LGBTQIA+ as "letter people" who scold you for getting it wrong, and I was pointing out that the letters are really not some impossible to divine thing, it's just an acronym like HDMI or SCSI that describes some ways real people identify themselves. >I perceive as the desire to try to turn the LGBT rights movement into a generic left wing movement is harmful to our end goal of equality for queer people everywhere - The end goal should be to make LGBT rights and acceptance an uncontroversial issue across the entire political spectrum. I find myself confused. You seem to be saying that a subgroup of the greater community of gender and sexual minorities are turning GSM rights into a leftist thing. How exactly does one go about doing that? One side of the political spectrum outright rejects the validity of GSM rights, and the other doesn't, and you're saying the side that doesn't is somehow at fault?
- Aloha 5y ago
  a subset of one side of the political spectrum has rejected GSM rights, but the majority of folks over on the right, honestly, are.. indifferent. They just don't care too much either way anymore. Polling actually shows a plurality of Republicans even support some measure of queer rights - how much, YMMV. Similarly a subset of folks in the GSM community is trying to hitch our wagon to leftist ideology, which will make it harder to get the last full measure of rights, because the spectrum ideologies I see espoused on social media are not what I'd call within the mainstream of american political thought - Thats the concern I have.
- kortilla 5y ago
  Have you considered that your lecture on the taxonomy makes you “one of the letter people” and “the letter people” have nothing to do with the people they purport to describe?
  - gryfft 5y ago
    You got me.
- tekknik 5y ago
  > One side of the political spectrum outright rejects the validity of GSM rights, and the other doesn't This blanket statement is either a purposeful lie, or opinion. In either case, it’s wrong.
globular-toast 5y ago
> I'm gay, and for me equality was people no longer caring which gender I was attracted to. I wanted that level of normality - where my orientation just no longer mattered - where I no longer needed a separate support community just to exist, where I no longer needed to fear someone finding out I was different than others, that was supposed to be the goal, wasn't it? I thought so too. This hits on the crux of problem for me: the continually and arbitrarily moving goal posts. The thing is, people like me never did care. When I was in school it was a thing to call people/things "gay" as a sign of disapproval, but as soon as I became an adult I stopped that and actually met some gay people, some of which became friends. But ultimately I've always felt the same way about all private matters: it's none of my business and I just don't care. Hell, I don't even have the spare brain capacity to care. I just can't do it. One of the arguments that used to be made about being gay is that it's not a choice. I never found this a convincing argument. In my view, I don't care whether it's a choice or not. It's still your choice to make. So I think I was progressive even back then. But now it's changed. It's no longer about not caring but, rather, people like me should care, for some reason. I get that if this was a human rights or civil liberties issue, but it's not. We're past that. So why, then, is "gay pride" a thing, if not to push what should be a private issue into people's faces? Why is it in the workplace? You don't have sex at work so why do I need to know that you're gay? How does that help achieve our goals? Not caring is now demonised. The goal posts just keep moving. If there were concrete issues that haven't been considered then I'm all ears. But I really don't hear them. It's just "you must acknowledge that I'm different!" while I just keep saying "I don't care!" like I always have done. There are serious problems in the world. There is crime, corruption, poverty and illness. There are people living in fear every day. There are people living in pain every day. But the most pressing issue is that some people don't like that our language has gendered pronouns? Life is not fair. Nobody ever said it was. At some point we all have to learn to just deal with it.
- Aloha 5y ago
  > One of the arguments that used to be made about being gay is that it's not a choice. I never found this a convincing argument. In my view, I don't care whether it's a choice or not. It's still your choice to make. So I think I was progressive even back then. People telling me that its a choice - even in an an affirming way still makes me all but violently angry to be very honest - because it presumes that I would chose to be a victim - which runs head long into my own ideological views. Being a victim is something that is generally outside if your control, and not something you'd willingly choose. > But now it's changed. It's no longer about not caring but, rather, people like me should care, for some reason. I get that if this was a human rights or civil liberties issue, but it's not. We're past that. So why, then, is "gay pride" a thing, if not to push what should be a private issue into people's faces? Why is it in the workplace? You don't have sex at work so why do I need to know that you're gay? How does that help achieve our goals? Another thing I'd note - I should have the same right to talk about my personal life as everyone else does - straight folks talk about their wives, girlfriends, husbands and boyfriend - I ought to be able to do the same. I shouldnt need to leave a whole sector of my life out to deal with someone else's sensibilities. > Not caring is now demonised. The goal posts just keep moving. If there were concrete issues that haven't been considered then I'm all ears. But I really don't hear them. It's just "you must acknowledge that I'm different!" while I just keep saying "I don't care!" like I always have done. There is a difference here - I agree with you that the goalpost has moved, but not where the goalpost moved to - it's not just acknowledgement, I'd argue that its moved to celebrate.

by Aloha 5y ago

gryfft 5y ago

As a straight man, it is not my place to enforce what anyone wants to call themselves-- as an ally the best thing I can do is listen, but it's important to speak up, too, to use the privilege I have for good when I can. I'll note that I didn't mean to come across as the ultimate authority on the taxonomy of minorities to which I do not belong. The commenter to whom I was responding had dismissively referred to LGBTQIA+ as "letter people" who scold you for getting it wrong, and I was pointing out that the letters are really not some impossible to divine thing, it's just an acronym like HDMI or SCSI that describes some ways real people identify themselves. >I perceive as the desire to try to turn the LGBT rights movement into a generic left wing movement is harmful to our end goal of equality for queer people everywhere - The end goal should be to make LGBT rights and acceptance an uncontroversial issue across the entire political spectrum. I find myself confused. You seem to be saying that a subgroup of the greater community of gender and sexual minorities are turning GSM rights into a leftist thing. How exactly does one go about doing that? One side of the political spectrum outright rejects the validity of GSM rights, and the other doesn't, and you're saying the side that doesn't is somehow at fault?

Aloha 5y ago
a subset of one side of the political spectrum has rejected GSM rights, but the majority of folks over on the right, honestly, are.. indifferent. They just don't care too much either way anymore. Polling actually shows a plurality of Republicans even support some measure of queer rights - how much, YMMV. Similarly a subset of folks in the GSM community is trying to hitch our wagon to leftist ideology, which will make it harder to get the last full measure of rights, because the spectrum ideologies I see espoused on social media are not what I'd call within the mainstream of american political thought - Thats the concern I have.
kortilla 5y ago
Have you considered that your lecture on the taxonomy makes you “one of the letter people” and “the letter people” have nothing to do with the people they purport to describe?
- gryfft 5y ago
  You got me.
tekknik 5y ago
> One side of the political spectrum outright rejects the validity of GSM rights, and the other doesn't This blanket statement is either a purposeful lie, or opinion. In either case, it’s wrong.

globular-toast 5y ago

> I'm gay, and for me equality was people no longer caring which gender I was attracted to. I wanted that level of normality - where my orientation just no longer mattered - where I no longer needed a separate support community just to exist, where I no longer needed to fear someone finding out I was different than others, that was supposed to be the goal, wasn't it? I thought so too. This hits on the crux of problem for me: the continually and arbitrarily moving goal posts. The thing is, people like me never did care. When I was in school it was a thing to call people/things "gay" as a sign of disapproval, but as soon as I became an adult I stopped that and actually met some gay people, some of which became friends. But ultimately I've always felt the same way about all private matters: it's none of my business and I just don't care. Hell, I don't even have the spare brain capacity to care. I just can't do it. One of the arguments that used to be made about being gay is that it's not a choice. I never found this a convincing argument. In my view, I don't care whether it's a choice or not. It's still your choice to make. So I think I was progressive even back then. But now it's changed. It's no longer about not caring but, rather, people like me should care, for some reason. I get that if this was a human rights or civil liberties issue, but it's not. We're past that. So why, then, is "gay pride" a thing, if not to push what should be a private issue into people's faces? Why is it in the workplace? You don't have sex at work so why do I need to know that you're gay? How does that help achieve our goals? Not caring is now demonised. The goal posts just keep moving. If there were concrete issues that haven't been considered then I'm all ears. But I really don't hear them. It's just "you must acknowledge that I'm different!" while I just keep saying "I don't care!" like I always have done. There are serious problems in the world. There is crime, corruption, poverty and illness. There are people living in fear every day. There are people living in pain every day. But the most pressing issue is that some people don't like that our language has gendered pronouns? Life is not fair. Nobody ever said it was. At some point we all have to learn to just deal with it.

Aloha 5y ago
> One of the arguments that used to be made about being gay is that it's not a choice. I never found this a convincing argument. In my view, I don't care whether it's a choice or not. It's still your choice to make. So I think I was progressive even back then. People telling me that its a choice - even in an an affirming way still makes me all but violently angry to be very honest - because it presumes that I would chose to be a victim - which runs head long into my own ideological views. Being a victim is something that is generally outside if your control, and not something you'd willingly choose. > But now it's changed. It's no longer about not caring but, rather, people like me should care, for some reason. I get that if this was a human rights or civil liberties issue, but it's not. We're past that. So why, then, is "gay pride" a thing, if not to push what should be a private issue into people's faces? Why is it in the workplace? You don't have sex at work so why do I need to know that you're gay? How does that help achieve our goals? Another thing I'd note - I should have the same right to talk about my personal life as everyone else does - straight folks talk about their wives, girlfriends, husbands and boyfriend - I ought to be able to do the same. I shouldnt need to leave a whole sector of my life out to deal with someone else's sensibilities. > Not caring is now demonised. The goal posts just keep moving. If there were concrete issues that haven't been considered then I'm all ears. But I really don't hear them. It's just "you must acknowledge that I'm different!" while I just keep saying "I don't care!" like I always have done. There is a difference here - I agree with you that the goalpost has moved, but not where the goalpost moved to - it's not just acknowledgement, I'd argue that its moved to celebrate.