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LGBT News Viewpoint: Should gay men and lesbians be bracketed together?

Discussion in 'Current Events, World News, & LGBT News' started by Molly1977, Jul 3, 2014.

  1. Molly1977

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  2. Wuggums47

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    Personally I think we are in this together, all LGBTQ people face the same type of discrimination.
     
  3. Nychthemeron

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    In my opinion, I'd just use LGBT+.

    Is the plus enough? Debatable. But it can cause people to inquire what it's for. Then, you can simply explain who else is included in... well, LGBT+.

    As for the gay v. lesbian thing, I think it should be left to the lesbians/gay women, because, as I just mentioned, lesbians are gay. They're just gay women. When you say, "I know someone who's gay," most likely people will jump to the conclusion that this person is male, not female. Some of us don't do that, but others do.
     
  4. stocking

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    I agree that we need to work together and that we experience discrimination in different ways us gays and lesbians and not only us everyone in the lgbt community but homophobes often lump us together . When I told a straight woman that if she discriminated against a bisexual man it's biphobia and not homophobia she was confused and I had to explain gay and bisexual is not the same thing . we just live in the same community .
    And as a lesbian I have face both sexism and homophobia .
     
  5. Nychthemeron

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    In my opinion, it depends.

    If a bisexual man was discriminated against because he likes men, that's homophobia. If he's discriminated against because he likes both men and women, then that's biphobia.

    EDIT: In a way, the homophobia bisexual people can experience can tie into biphobia, because most of the time, these people refuse to acknowledge that the bisexual person is not only attracted to their same sex. That's just as bad.
     
  6. stocking

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    I agree with you but what she was doing was discriminating him because he liked both and that's why I told her it's bi phobia and not homophobia and that he is different from a gay man because he likes both sexes and she's discriminating him for that where as for a gay man it would only be homophobia so I agree with you .
    Yes and what got me upset is that she was calling a bi man gay and refusing to acknowledge the fact that he's bi and I hate when some women do that .
     
  7. Nychthemeron

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    Ah, I see. Sorry for misunderstanding.

    And yeah, I agree with you completely. I hate it when people don't acknowledge things like that. There's nothing wrong with being gay, yeah, but there's nothing wrong with being bi either, and the fact that some people just tell bisexual people that they don't exist is just plain hurtful and ignorant.
     
  8. wolf of fire

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    I think when homophobia is gone we will no longer be bracketed together maybe even further apart.
     
  9. stocking

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    It's ok don't worry about it
    I hate that too when I see it I always try to correct people on it .
     
  10. Gen

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    The article raises some interesting questions, but the bias is extremely overwhelming. It establishes the reality that gay men and women experience different types of homophobia; however, it frequently brushes over the struggles commonly pertaining to gay men and emphasizes those pertaining to gay women. For instance:
    Despite the fact that one of the most basic necessities of presenting an argument is to share the thoughts of both sides, which is completely ignored in the first paragraph of this section, the second second statement is literally a shot in the dark. This journalist didn't even make an effort to explain this closing statement. There is not even an attempt at evidence, or statistics, even a quote; absolutely nothing.
    Lets break this down. Here, we are working towards a well-thought out statement:
    "Lesbians suffer the double whammy of sexism and homophobia..."

    Here, we are losing it:
    "because we are punished for transgressing traditional gender behaviours and expectations."

    Lesbians clearly deal with their own sense of sexism and the ideal of being lost without being under the controlling hand of men. This is how instances of corrective rape and harassment are born in society; however, to insinuate that men aren't punished for transgressing gender archetypes in a way comparable to women, when males who diverge from gender archetypes ignite more violence and brutality worldwide than any other, is almost astounding. When we have records of little boys being sent to these correction camps and being beaten into comas because the parents thought they weren't masculine enough and "didn't want to take the chance".

    Homophobia was built on the basis of very sexism. Without the dominance of these gender archetypes, none of this hate would have ever come about. The ideal that homosexual men aren't faced with sexism on a regular basis, simply because they also happen to be men, is a special kind of bullshit and it needs to die.
     
  11. Damien

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    Considering this:

    In view of this problem, is there just one simple term which can cover all of us, that is, those who do not identify as heterosexual? Surely we could come up with a term, agreeable to all, that does not involve tacking on yet more and more letters?

    Of course we are not all the same, nor should we be lumped together as one category. But we do share one thing in common: a still general lack of acceptance in mainstream, straight society. For the purposes of working together in ending this, one simple term that simply distinguishes us as not being hetero, might be useful, just for the purpose of sheer practicality. I just don't know what such a term should be...or maybe one already exists?
     
    #11 Damien, Jul 3, 2014
    Last edited: Jul 3, 2014
  12. wolf of fire

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    In answer to Damien's point how about non-hetro?
     
  13. Damien

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    Hi wolf,
    yes, that would indeed be a precise term; but I was thinking maybe something more affirmative; rather than saying what we are not, saying what we are. Therein lies the challenge, however...one affirmative term to cover all of us. Maybe impossible, but I hope not.

    damien :slight_smile:
     
  14. Nychthemeron

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    There's queer, although there were and still are arguments about the usage of that word.

    Personally, I don't care if I'm called queer, but I wouldn't use it to label myself and I won't use it to label others unless they specifically asked me to.
     
  15. wolf of fire

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    Queer doesn't cover transgender or asexual I think so good for LGB but we may need another word
    Queer can also mean other things such as weird or abnormal which we are not for example "the room had a queer wall colour"
     
    #15 wolf of fire, Jul 3, 2014
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  16. Hexagon

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    Yes it does. That's the thing about queer. It means whatever it needs to mean. It isn't exclusive. And I'm happy being weird. We should embrace it, not fear it.
     
  17. Kat 5

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    Yeah. We are pretty much fighting for the same rights and fighting against the same (mostly) discrimination.

    [​IMG]
     
  18. Derivative

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    I stopped reading after the part "do we all share the same goal?", we do which is acceptance and being able to live in a society where our sexuality doesn't matter.

    This may be unpopular, but sexism seemed to be a major issue in this topic... but it happens both ways, not only men are to blame.

    Personally, I struggle to understand why people are racist, sexist, homophobic etc. but that's just me :slight_smile:
     
    #18 Derivative, Jul 5, 2014
    Last edited by a moderator: Jul 5, 2014
  19. Nychthemeron

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    I have to agree with this one. Sort of.

    Queer is legitimately the only umbrella term I've come across that pretty much is LGBTQQIP2SAA or whatever the hell people use these days, but who wants to type that all out?

    It's not really a question of being lazy, but say it out loud and tell me it doesn't sound like a mouth full. What are you going to do in everyday speech? Say "LGBTdoubleQIP2doubleA"?

    Still a mouth full.

    I just use LGBT+ for the reasons I stated above. The plus is enough for people to know that there's more people in this than just gay, bi, and trans people, and it may cause them to inquire more about it. Then you can just explain the QQIP2SAA part.

    As for queer, many people feel uncomfortable with using it because it has a very bad history or because they were mocked with the word before. I feel that's a fair reason to not use it.

    I don't think anyone should feel offended by another person identifying as queer, but you'll probably have to ask the person beforehand if you want to use the queer label on them.
     
  20. Necromancer

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    Personally, I'm not sure about gays, lesbians, and bisexuals, but I strongly believe that Trans* needs to break off from LGB. We can be close allies, and there is nothing wrong with a person belonging to both movements, but they should be their own separate things.

    The fact of the matter is that, while a lot of Trans* folk are LGB (the rate is astronomically higher than the cis population), Trans* has a very different set of issues than LGB, and is a quite different thing. LGB, meanwhile, has it's own important battles to fight, and they tend to be more visible. So, LGBT+ tends to cover more LGB issues than Trans* issues. The easiest solution is for LGB to go and work on their issues, and Trans* to go and work on theirs, and the two to ally when those issues intermesh. It also would help cool tensions with those members of the LGB community who are uncomfortable with us members of the Trans* spectrum.