#or lesbians being labeled as terfs until proven otherwise

[mokeonn]

Gonna be 100% honest here it is REALLY bugging me that it is (rightfully) considered wrong to ask Palestinians if they condone Hamas any time they talk about Palastine, but I often see people question pretty much every Jewish person on this website if they condone Isreal or if they don't post about Palastine on their blog enough or "correctly" they're automatically considered a zionist? How is that okay?

Before the "piss on the poor" website gets to this, I'm gonna make it explicitly clear: this website has an antisemitism problem and it is blatantly clear that a concerning amount of you hate a perceived idea of zionism, that happens just so to include every and all Jewish people, more than you care about helping Palestinians. I'm not Jewish myself, but I shouldn't have to be to call out the antisemitism absolutely swarming in leftist spaces.

If vocal proud antisemites and actual nazis use the Free Palastine movement as an outlet to be antisemitic, maybe we should take some time to address that? Make the movement safe for Jewish people?? Think about why they are using a left leaning cause to be hostile to Jewish people?

[yuribeam]

like as a nonbinary person I don't have beef with nonbinary people of any flavor being/dating lesbians even if they partially identify with or use man/guy/dude/etc I do not care. I'm the same way with woman/girl/etc. and there are some situations where a lesbian will date a binary trans guy and still identify as a lesbian, and they're gonna do whatever they're gonna do. I don't give too many shits about what your relationship looks like individually and how you define it for yourself

what I have an issue with is people insisting that cis and binary trans men are included in lesbianism, and harassing lesbians for saying that as a rule, lesbians are not attracted to men. that's kinda a big part of our whole thing.

assuming we are including trans women in men is shitty, the vast majority of us are not, and there's a specific scrutiny put on lesbians for talking about gender without explicitly mentioning trans inclusion every time that other groups don't get. it's often by cis people, too. if you are jumping to the conclusion that every lesbian is transphobic until proven otherwise, that is lesbophobic.

and accusing lesbians of being trans exclusionary radical feminists for this when, HELLO, terfs have been regarding trans men forever as "lost lesbian sisters." (gross and transphobic) while what lesbians are saying rn is that they would not date and are not attracted to trans men! the same as they would not date and are not attracted to cis men, and it causes real issues, including offline, to pressure lesbians to "open the label."

honestly would not be surprised if most of this shit is actual TERFs trying to pit lesbians against trans men and people who are against TERFs, in some freaky roundabout way to get lesbians back on their side or something.

there's definitely overlap between trans guys and the lesbian community! we have been allies and share many experiences and it's okay for dudes to feel a kinship with lesbians and their lesbian experience after transitioning. I think there's a time and a place for specifically lesbian-only spaces, but like, you can sit with me. we're bros. same with bisexual folks. and we need to keep affirming it is okay, and common, to be bisexual with preferences, or straight and trans, and experiencing/wording your sexuality differently than other people without imposing your personal experience onto everyone else and a commonly understood interpretation of the only sexuality that does not include attraction to men

[snarktheater]

Could you not say qu**r so often, please? Or at least tag it? Alternatives could be SGA or trans (depending on which part you're referring to) or LGBT? It's uncomfortable to quite a lot of people if it's used as an umbrella term too. Thank you

While I’m not interested in delving into that discourse on this blog…well, I guess it was gonna happen sooner or later. 

So just to be clear, before I say anything else, let me preface this post by saying that I’m going to state my position on this, but I will not admit any further discussion on the subject on this blog. You’re free to talk to me @talysalankil​ if you feel like having further discussion, but this blog isn’t the right place to do so. Also I’m going to use links from my personal blog because it’s just easier. But frankly if you want better sources on the subject, they’re out there.

Warning for massive wall of text. I tried to structure it, but there you go.

“Queer” has been reclaimed for decades. Many people who are much more knowledgeable than myself have pointed out that it’s been used at least as long as LGBT as an umbrella term (and that it was reclaimed before SGA was even invented), and it has the benefit of being inclusionary. The fact that is a historical slur cannot and should not be ignored, but the thing is, there is literally not a single word in use to refer to people who aren’t cis and straight that hasn’t been used as a slur at one point or another. Fuck’s sake, people still use “gay” today as a derogatory term, even when discussing things that have nothing to do with sexuality.

Meanwhile, SGA is an acronym that takes its root from conversion therapy (yes, really; SGA discoursers have claimed otherwise but survivors of conversion therapy attest to it), so I’m pretty sure it is equally trigger or even more triggering that queer to people.

SGL (same-gender loving) is a less historically charged acronym that I feel less strongly about for that reason, but it also comes from AAVE and I feel like there’s an element of cultural appropriation for me to use it as a white person, just like I wouldn’t use two-spirits because it’s a native american term. 

But that’s not my only issue with either acronym. See, the issue I have with SGA/SGL are multiple, and I’m going to put a cut here because this is getting out of hand:

It is an inherently binarist concept. Meaning, it either excludes nonbinary people entirely, since for many of them, the concept of “same gender” is compeltely irrelevant; or it partially erases nonbinary identities by grouping them together as “male-aligned” or “female-aligned”, i.e. implying they’re “basically a man” or “basically a woman”. Which, even if that is something some nonbinary people do identify with, is not something anyone should be entitled to force on people. Plus, you know, I guess people who aren’t on the male/female spectrum or agender people don’t exist at all and/or don’t belong in the community according to those people?

Bisexuality and polysexuality does not necessarily include “SGA”, even for cis male/female people. Implying that a bi person is straight if they experience attraction for the opposite binary gender and for nonbinary people is, once again, erasing those nonbinary people’s identities.

Because of these two points, the concept of SGA is inherently transphobic, since you cannot use it without assuming people’s gender.

This also adds a shade of exclusion of intersex people, whose status with regards to the community has always been complicated. Some intersex people don’t want to be included, some do. But “SGA and trans” doesn’t leave room for those who do, but don’t identify as trans (and those people exist), to join the community, even though they deserve a place.

Bisexual and polysexual people are constantly erased, and reducing their right to belong to the community as their attraction to their own gender is harmful rhetoric even for those who do experience that attraction (such as myself). It is the kind of thinking that leads to saying they’re “basically gay and using bisexual to ease into it” or that they’re “basically straight and just experimenting/lying” (the latter is particularly directed at women, especially if they are in a committed relationship with men, while the former is particularly directed at men, including myself). I am not “basically gay” and I don’t want to use an umbrella term for my community that reduces me to that in all but name.

More biphobia: it assumes that there’s such a thing as “straight passing privilege” and that anyone who’s not presently dating someone from their own gender is benefitting from that. That line of thought literally started off as biphobic rhetoric. Oh, and, you know, “straight passing privilege” is just being in the closet. Kind of like how TERFS say that trans women experience male privilege instead of being trans women in the closet. Apparently the closet only applies to you if you’re gay.

The unifying experience of the community is not homophobia. I mean, the fact that you have to use “SGA and/or trans” should be proof enough that you’re already adding trans people as an afterthought. But beyond that, biphobia is a different beast from homophobia, as is transphobia, as is aphobia. They stem from a similar form of societal bigotry, and there is intersection (a bi person dating someone of the same gender will probably experience similar issues as a gay couple, corrective rape which lesbians and ace people are both targeted by), but there are also differences of specificities (I already mentioned bi erasure; ace/aro people are targeted for being “mentally ill”; and I don’t think I have to explain the specificities of transphobia in a world where “bathroom bills” is a phrase that exists)

As others have pointed out, the phrasing makes it sound like the community started with “SGA people” and then was gracious enough to include trans people, which is historical revisionism.

The queer label offers grey areas for people who need time to figure out their own identity or just cannot place their identity on the existing, mainstream labels. SGA does the exact opposite of that by forcing people to place themselves on one side or another of a pretty ill-defined line.

Even if it weren’t for any of these points, the term has now been claimed as the rallying cry for exclusionary LGBT+ people, particularly to target ace and aro people. And by that I mean it started of as that, but let’s pretend it was already around and was claimed by those people.  Well, I will not stand for that, just like I’m not standing by TERF rhetorics. Interestingly enough, “queer is a slur” only emerged as discourse at the same time (and usually from the same people) who tried to enforce that exclusion.

LGBT+ aphobes have time and again shown that they were recycling biphobic and transphobic rhetorics (as I’ve shown myself earlier in this list), and in many cases, have proven to be the same people who used biphobic and transphobic rhetorics a few years ago, and that they haven’t given up on those views, merely grown more careful about where and how they advertise them.

If you want more I suggest you run a search for “SGA” on my main blog. It’ll be a lot of the same idea as what I just summarized here, just with more details.

So…yeah. If anything, I do not want to be included under the SGA umbrella, even though I am a bisexual man who so far has only ever dated other men. Well, one other man, but my dating history is kind of irrelevant anyway. Point is, I’m not using that umbrella. And I have every right to reclaim queer since…well, I just said I’m a bi man, which I’m pretty sure that should be enough.

I don’t have as many issues with LGBT, but at the same time, the acronym has also been pushed as “it’s LGBT and only LGBT therefore anyone who’s not lesbian, gay, bi or trans doesn’t belong” by the same people, enough that it feels sour in my mouth. I still use it liberally, although I try to use LGBT+ or other variations, such as LGBTQ, LGBTQIA, LGBTQIA+, LGBTQIAP+, etc, but ultimately, queer is just easier and has the benefit of being more inclusive than any of the above.

I understand that it’ll make some people uncomfortable, but until someone comes up with a word that makes no one uncomfortable (which, again, does not exist yet—the closest we got was MOGAI, but that one was targeted by a smear campaign from, you guessed it, exclusionists who didn’t like that it included ace/aro or trans people and now people can’t use it without starting a similar debate as this), I’m gonna have to settle for one, and I’ll pick the one that makes me the most comfortable, because I am a member of this community too and I have the right to do that. Just like you have the right to use SGA and it’ll make me uncomfortable, but I won’t come to your blog sending you an anon message asking you to stop, because I understand that no umbrella exists that satisfies everyone at the moment, and I have more pressing issues to deal with.

If that’s an issue, feel free to unfollow or whatever else it is you feel like doing. But I will not budge on this.