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Alphabet Soup
Wed, 02/29/2012 - 10:57 by Lynne
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The altView Foundation just had the opportunity to provide a Lunch and Learn experience for a local junior high school. An amazing opportunity to reach out to the local youth about the local LGBT community. Our topic: Alphabet Soup – defining Homophobia, catchy wasn’t it?
So we took a look at one of the latest lengthy acronyms used to represent the LGBT community. LGBTTTTIQQAAPC …I think that was all of them, and we had a few more letters to work with but even I got confused at that point. And this provoked a few questions in my own mind… was not the original focus to be considered equal…equal rights, equal freedoms…equal everything; well then why all the labels, are we not all just people. I have been in many a discussion about the fluidity of sexuality and gender expression… so why would we turn around and put ourselves in to these neat, pretty, square little boxes, nicely labeled for the world. Most of my friends defy description, and I would not want them any other way. So what are we trying to prove? Or am I just out in left field…oops is that a binary?
And that’s my 2 cents worth…any questions?
Lynne
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Comments
Joshua Gamson points out in his article "why identity Movements Must Self-Destruct" that we have two opposing goals in the queer community.
1: To unite for the purpose of achieving rights. We use the labels to connect ourselves to a larger community and show strength in numbers. That is why some people are obsessed with stats. 10% this, 8% that. It shows that there are a lot of people affected.
2: We seek to destroy these labels because they are not accurate reflections of who we are. Simple enough. They are also damaging, as these labels then lead to stereotypes, etc.
Many people use Queer instead of alphabet soup to use a general term that neither defines specifically gender or sexual orientation.
I know Lynne knows this, as she has heard it all before (and has read that articles), but for everyone else out there... what do you think?
Little boxes on a hillside and they all look just the same-- I mean what?
I think people can promote the idea of a label-free society until the cows come home* but in the end, as our social structures and google stand, labels make it a lot easier to quickly find people of similar experience to you in at least one specific category, and when we still live in a society where information, support, open discussion, etc. aren't readily available all the time in issues of sexuality and gender, those labels make things easier. And, i mean, being queer is as far as we know a minority position** and therefore it will naturally be more difficult to find people of similar experience. So labels make that easier, even if they're not always suitable. Because no matter how equal we are with non-queers, there are still issues that one wants to discuss with someone who gets it and has lived the same or similar things.
*Nobody send me cows; i will be really alarmed if they show up outside my apartment; stop cackling evilly Bryan
**As society chages this may also change. I really believe that a lot more people would identify as queer if our social structures still didn't make it so othering to do so.