I believe there has to be a better way to refer to our community than an initialism list approach, which is structurally exclusive: that’s why we’ve seen various groups rightfully seek increased recognition and try to change the most popular term - LGBT, LGBTQ, LGBTQIA+ and literally dozens of other variants. That indicates that an initialism is an exclusive, rather than inclusive, route which will always fail to represent everyone as our understanding of sex, sexuality and gender change over time, and it possibly encourages accidental erasure.

Are there any recognized alternatives which capture the full breadth of this community?

  • Explicit terms are particularly tough because the community isn’t simply defined by a single concept like sexuality (gay, lesbian, bi, asexual, etc.) gender (trans, non-binary, etc.) or sex (intersex, etc.). Some academic institutions have used terms like “sexual and gender minorities” (GSM), which I think is a huge improvement, although even then we see that term evolve as more factors come to light (“gender, sexual and romantic minorities”, GSRM). Are there any criticisms of those terms we should be aware of?

  • I’ve heard using “queer” as an umbrella term remains controversial for its historical use as a slur, so using it in wider contexts might be inappropriate?

  • I’ve heard “rainbow community” once or twice, which seems is clear enough that it doesn’t need an introduction, with the great symbolism of a rainbow covering all the colors. But I wonder if rainbow symbolism is considered inclusive, or considered specific to certain subgroups. Especially how the “progress flag” contrasts against the rainbow flag.

  • Any others you like?

…

I ask this question out of ignorance: while I am part of my local community, we generally aren’t very familiar with the broader community in other countries and their diverse perspectives yet. So I hope I haven’t accidentally said anything careless!

Also sorry if this is comm is specifically for trans questions. Let me know if I should ask this somewhere else instead, I just didn’t want to put it on a general instance and have too many over-confident outsiders and trolls answering.

  • captainlezbian@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    2 days ago

    I used to be awkward about queer’s history, but the fact is that it’s the word we use as a community. It’s so adopted that using it as a slur is of similar difficulty to using gay as a slur. And that’s really it, when I hear queer being said by a straight cis person I don’t think that they’re unaware of the word’s history or that they’re bigoted, or that they’re too comfortable, in fact bigots don’t really say queer anymore because it’s sufficiently reclaimed.

    LGBT and it’s derivatives are great as more formal terms, but the ever expansion and slow to say aspects hinder casual use.