Sexuality - or a sandwich.

[davywavy]

During the bickering which followed one of my recent intemperate rants on these pages, someone used the acronym 'LGBT'. I was fairly confused by this. My immediate reaction was 'What the Hell has a Sandwich got to do with this?" and it took me about 24 hours before I finally figured out, from the context, that 'LGBT' actually stood for 'Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Trans(Gendered? Vestite? I haven't figured the T out yet)' and that it was the latest linguistic ghettoification of a fair swathe of the human race.
There are two sorts of Political Correctness. There's 'not being rude', which is a laudable aim, and there's 'creating tortuous acroynms and euphamisms which, by dint of trying to be all things to all people, simply succeed in belittling the very people they seek to avoid offending'. LGBT is, in my opinion, a fine example of the latter.
You see, when it comes to language and causing offense and hurt with it, it's very often not the words that are used, but the context and intent with which they are used. A good example of this is the Spastics Society, which underwent a lengthy and costly rebranding exercise to 'Scope' (because 'Spastic' is used as an insult), only for kids in playgrounds to be calling each other 'Scopers' within a matter of months.
What really made me think about 'LGBT' was the fact that it's a phrase I've never heard any one of my variously-sexualitied friends use to describe themselves. In short, it's a phrase created by people who don't fit the term to describe a large number of people who they think do. But what do I know? I've never gazed lustfully at another bloke, so I'm not really qualified to comment. However, something I realised when I first really started hanging out with people who wouldn't be classified as a '1' on the Kinsey scale some years ago is that it's only fair and polite to let the people described define the terms used to describe them - within reason, anyway - and I really don't think that 'LGBT' does this.

But like I say. What do I know?
So, in the spirit of exploration and investigation I'd like to ask the non-completely straight people out there: What term would you use to describe your sexuality?
[Poll #544964]

Still, I suppose in a few weeks time, kids in playgrounds up and down the land will be calling "Oh, you're so LGBT!" at each other, and so then Students Unions will have to think of yet another non-judgemental catch all phrases to describe humanity which, whilst being created to avoid any possible offense, will also be just as completely meaningless.
God, when I was at University we actually had to use our time for things like work.*

^{* neilhist and godzuki, you stay out of this.}

Comments

[taimatsu]

I have answered your poll.

How, though, *should* we describe an event which is intended for people who are not heterosexual and people who are transgendered or transsexual? 'Queer' is one possible word, but it offends some people and could be seen as excluding trans people.

The reason you have never heard your friends describe themselves as LGBT is that it is not a term which can be applied to an individual. No one person can be described as lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans/gendered/sexual - so your poll is meaningless.

It's a term for describing a community, or a wider group of people, and members of that group do use it and are comfortable with it. You don't have to use it if you don't like it - but good luck coming up with something else.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

But I've never heard any event describe din those terms eitehr - perhaps I don't hang out in student unions any more, but I've never heard anyone say 'I'm off to a LGBT club tonight'. I have heard people say 'I'm off to a gingerbeer event', and 'I'm going to the Gay Village'.

[taimatsu]

'I'm going to LGBsoc.' 'I'm going down to the Glasgow LGBT centre.'

It's used in specific formal circumstances where there is a definite need to avoid excluding anyone. Yes, it's PC, but there are some good reasons for it. It's not used in casual speech where no-one is going to get the wrong idea.

I say to my friend 'I'm going to a gay/queer event in London.' However, if I made an LJ post for others' information, I would make sure I noted that it was, in fact, an LGBT event, so that no-one in those groups reading it got the idea that they were not welcome. If, on the other hand, I specifically said 'This is a lesbian event' people would take from that that only lesbians (no bisexuals, no transpeople, no gay men) were welcome.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Fair enough. Its completely new to me as a phrase though, hence my curiousity/confusion.

[chrisvenus]

How, though, *should* we describe an event which is intended for people who are not heterosexual and people who are transgendered or transsexual?

Discriminatory? :)

What did LGBSoc actually get up to though? I'm trying to work out what the actual point of the society was... RPGSoc roleplays with each other, the rugby society plays rugby, did the LGBSoc just hang around being gay together? I always have it in my mind as a bit of a meat market (not least because of people telling me that it is) because its just a place where you can easily identify those who are gay.

Maybe if I was more gay I'd understand the need for it but I don't really.

[borusa.livejournal.com]

Advocacy and support.

[taimatsu]

Support. It was a way to meet people who were also not-straight. If I had not gone to LGBsoc I would have known about two people who were gay/lesbian/bi, and felt like a complete weirdo. As it was, I met other people like me and could go 'Oh look, there are lots of other people who aren't straight, and they're all getting on with things and being nice and normal and funny and flamboyant; liking girls isn't a problem.' I made some good friends, some of whom I still keep in touch with. I didn't actually meet any long-term partners through LGBsoc, so the meat-market thing wasn't quite that for me (and the one short-term partner I met I would have met anyway through other friends).

It's easy to feel, in a big university full of randy students, that no-one else is gay, and that's really lonely and hard to deal with. LGBsoc makes a big difference to that, whether or not you use it to find a partner.

It also does things like showing gay-interest films (which wouldn't make it on the screen at, let's say, a JCR video night) and running various campaigns when necessary.

The website says the current mission statement is:

The Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Society exists --

• to offer a safe and friendly environment where LGB students and members, and their friends, can socialise freely;
  
• to offer a wide and varying entertainment program for LGB students and members;
  
• to offer support and welfare services for the LGB community, regarding their lives and their sexuality;
  
• to be visible as a net of support for all those unclear about their sexuality within the university;
  
• to offer LGB students and members the opportunity to meet in an arena independent of politics;
  
• to promote and integrate the LGB community within the university and the city of Oxford.
  

To know you are not alone.

[blue-cat.livejournal.com]

Not being anything other than vanilla, I did however know what LGBT meant!

hmm, I am a member of a couple of adoption communities on LJ, as that is something I am. and I would say I joined them for the same reason that I would join a LGBT group if I fell into one of those catagories: support, community, advocacy and 'I know others that are like me, and can understand some of what I think/feel about what/who I am'.

Hell, its why (for a very short time) I was a member of our Uni Womens group. I gave up going as I was in fact bored by a group of women talking about being women - now I would be more interested (and am a member of a women only LJ community) in the general safe space of beign with people who understand.

Even RP's can end up with this need :> In an office where NOBODY eles RP (to my knowledge) and a lot don't even recognise the phrase (or think that it means sex RP and ask if I have a maid's outfit or a whip - which I try answer straigh faced) or only recognise 'Dungeons & Dragons'....

:P Yeah, after a day where that gets discusssed I love talking to RPs who get the joke about the Dread Gazebo! or who read Order of the Stick, or just understand the IC/OOC dilemas and scenes that rock or reek or the joys of Cleric lvl 18 with Mass Heal casting it upon the Undead army..

Sigh.

[reddragdiva]

University queer societies tend to be of one of three types:

1. Social meeting and chatting (just to hang out with other non-straights);
2. Social activism and queeah politics (with the same quality of political activism one finds on any university student);
3. All-in musical beds.

The types don't seem to cross over, oddly enough.