Anonymous #1 2w

LGB is a sexual attraction, grounded in a binary biological attraction. TQIA+ is a gender that is an entirely separate category. Sexual attraction does not intersect with gendered identity.

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Anonymous OP 2w

queer identities have always included gender identity along with attraction

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Anonymous #1 2w

Stop, that’s revisionist history. Gay and lesbian movements defined themselves on sexual attraction, not gender identity. The queer umbrella is a recent political project, not an eternal truth.

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Anonymous OP 2w

It’s been this way literally since before Stonewall

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Anonymous OP 2w

You can’t just make up shit and pretend real history didn’t happen The “queer umbrella” as you put it has existed for ages, genuinely what are you talking about

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Anonymous #1 2w

The Mattachine Society and Daughters of Bilitis organized explicitly around homosexuality, not gender identity. That’s the record. The queer umbrella is a post-80s political coalition, not something that “always” existed.

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Anonymous #1 2w

The very gay and lesbian orgs around Stonewall were assimilationist and often hostile to drag or trans identity. If you’re claiming they were all one umbrella, you’re erasing the actual fractures in the movement.

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Anonymous OP 2w

Of course it was fractured to some extent, but they fought together during stonewall. And they should still be doing so

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Anonymous #1 2w

Fighting the same police raid isn’t proof of a shared category. That’s coalition under duress, not conceptual unity. To pretend it was one umbrella all along is myth-making, not history.

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Anonymous OP 2w

the A in most common referrals stands for asexual (a sexual identity) and I is intersex which is a biological reality, not a “gender”. “tqia+” is not “a gender” and by focusing explicitly on political organization as the only indicator of community, you leave out the history of gendered presentation diversity found in many gay and lesbian (especially) communities. additionally, you only cite american history and organizations

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Anonymous #2 2w

if all lesbians and gays were perfect gender-conforming assimilationists, you may be able to argue that gender and sexual identity are completely separate, but that is not the case. both gender nonconformity and homosexual attraction are affronts to the binary system of gender and heterosexuality (built off sexism and misogyny) that society has. slurs for gay people exclude them from their assigned gender categories and deride them for crossing the lines, despite their presentation

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Anonymous #2 2w

the act of homosexuality itself is gender non-conformity. though if you believe something like the allying of the lesbian and gay movement with transgender rights coalitions is simply some kind of trick by the trans people that the vast majority of the gay community “fell for” including many historical organizations, i doubt anything i say will change that

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Anonymous #2 2w

You're blurring categories into politics. Sexual attraction is about who you're drawn to. Gender identity is about what you call yourself. Presentation is about how you signal it. They overlap socially, but they are not the same category. Fighting the same oppressive system doesn't erase that distinction, it just explains why coalitions formed. And adding more letters (A, 1, Q) only proves the umbrella is political. Thus categories don't gain coherence by sprawl.

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Anonymous #2 2w

Sorry for the delay. This post got me suspended for 48 hours.

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Anonymous OP 2w

they may not be the same category, but as i said there is high overlap between members of the community. political coalitions form often amongst people who are subjugated by society, its not particularly surprising that this one formed, nor does it mean the ties between those communities are purely political. we also still have the distinction in the form of the individual identities, and even LGB has been rearranged before. would that be a political project?

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Anonymous #2 2w

i don’t quite understand what you’re arguing. you want LGB people to stop advocating politically with trans, intersex, asexual, and other people who do not fall strictly under LGB? or just that since gay and lesbian rights started more isolated, it’s revisionist to connect them to trans groups, and they only joined “under duress” which weakens the strength of the bond?

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Anonymous #2 2w

Thank you for conceding they’re not the same category. That’s all I’ve said. Coalition under shared duress is politics, not ontology. LGB can advocate with TQIA+ all day, but that doesn’t erase the categorical distinction between sexual attraction, gender identity, and presentation. Pretending it’s one thing is revisionism; admitting it’s a coalition is history.

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Anonymous OP 2w

I don’t believe anyone thinks they’re “the same thing”. that’s not why they’re together. people saying “these identities often intersect” which is true is not the same as “these are literally the same thing”. the person before me on this post was arguing the same thing, not that those identities are the same, but that since there can be strong overlap, it makes sense for those to be simultaneous fights

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Anonymous #2 2w

i think the lesbian and gay coalition is also “coalition under duress” frankly. female and male homosexuality have often been treated very differently and there would be not many reasons for them to ally except for political power.

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Anonymous #2 2w

if you had it your way, would LGB be a separate movement still?

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Anonymous #2 2w

It doesn’t matter how you personally feel about it when categorized. LGB is not a vibe, it’s not a coalition, it’s not a feeling of overlap, it’s a category defined by same-sex attraction. That’s what it is. You can build coalitions around it if you want, but you don’t get to rewrite the category itself, and is morally egregious to do so for political gain.

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Anonymous OP 2w

i’m still not sure what you want: are people “rewriting” the category by adding TIQA+?

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Anonymous #2 2w

like what exactly is the behaviour here that is egregious? what actions are people taking here? is it saying that LGB spaces have been intertwined with gender identity?

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Anonymous #2 2w

This is the same trick that wiped out the Cathar Christians. They were a distinct sect, but the Church collapsed the category for political gain and branded them heretics. Once the definition was rewritten, the people themselves were erased. That’s why rewriting LGB, from a category of same-sex attraction into a political umbrella, is categorical erasure under identity politics.

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Anonymous OP 2w

listen i agree modern gender politics are stupid as shit but the way you’re describing it is “evil Outside Force comes in and gets all the poor gay people” is deranged. put your goddamn foot down in your personal life but you have to accept that the vast majority of people are okay with this merge and don’t feel like they’re being erased. describing trans people as an Inquisition is stupid

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Anonymous #2 2w

You’ve already conceded the point by admitting gender politics are incoherent. Whether a majority “accepts” the merge doesn’t make it coherent, again, popularity doesn’t rewrite ontology. Categories have objective boundaries. History shows what happens when political majorities collapse definitions and that's what was being done with my invocation of the Cathars. They were fine with their own category, until it was erased. Feeling okay with erasure doesn’t make it less erasure.

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Anonymous OP 2w

i’m not erased, i know exactly who i am. the people i love aren’t erased. trans people are not my enemy and they are not hosting an insidious takeover of homosexuality. the political landscape will always change. gay liberation in america used to be focused on assimilation, now it is less so. again, i agree with you that there are points of gender politics that are sexist and reductive, but trans people have nowhere near the political power of the church.

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Anonymous #2 2w

nor do the majority of them care about making you conform. i am sure i have seen the same things as you that led you to draw these conclusions, and i am intimately aware of how bad it feels. i am not happy about the way that some people talk about lesbians. however, frankly i hear it more from non-trans people than trans ones.

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Anonymous #2 2w

it is our job to protect what we care about and the communities we love and who we are. that doesn’t work if we reject trans people— they are not going away. they are not an outside force. most of them just want to live, like most of us just want to live.

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Anonymous #2 1w

The Cathars didn’t think they were being erased either. They knew exactly who they were, until the Church collapsed their category, branded them heretics, and erased them in practice. That’s the point, it never feels like erasure while you’re still alive inside the category. The collapse comes first, the destruction follows. Feeling secure doesn’t make the structure any less fragile.

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