Throughout the site, I’ve been forced somewhat to use the unwieldy but accurate term to describe our community which is LGBTQIAPPQA. It covers every orientation and identity of our community, but it fails to be something that is easily sayable, describable or memorable unless you are an lgbtqiappqa rights activist like myself.
I think its important not to shorten the term to LGBT because we are not all represented by groups like the HRC, there are other identities and orientations that need the same respect and support as the easy to define and pin down Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender communities. I’m someone who is interested in queer culture, in questions of where our society might go, thinking deeply about how a post-orientation, post-rigid identity society might look.
There’s lots of talk about trying to find a word to describe the community and communal identity, and while words like “Rainbow” or “United” sound nice, but words have need to have power and meaning. There is a word, that some already use as an umbrella term that I think is very appropriate, very apt, and all inclusive.
Every one of us has been described by this pejorative and offensive word. Its been spat, hurled and spray-painted to make us afraid and ashamed, and its been used in our most memorable chant, “We’re here, we’re ****, get used to it”. During the lavender scare pogroms and before, it was all about hunting those ****s. Before we had the name Gay, Transgender, before we were recognised as more than a pathology we were ****.
So from now on, when I say Queer, it means Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Questioning, Intersex, Ally, Pansexual, Polyamorous, Queer, Asexual and everything between. This isn’t about being accepted as what we are in a hetero-normative world, its about being who we are in a better world that we are helping build.
We’re here we’re queer, and we are united for equal rights and acceptance for all of us.
At a number of places I’ve seen the acronym QUILTBAG used — Queer, Undecided, Inter(sex/gender), Lesbian, Trans(sexual/gender), Bi(sexual/gender), A(sexual/gender), Gay. It leaves out Allies, but if you’re talking about civil rights and the minority group in general, Allies don’t really belong in there — they’re fellow travelers, but not actually members of the minority. It also leaves out Polyamory, and while I am poly myself, I also think that the fight for the recognition of n-gamous parings (where n>2) is separate from the rights of QUILTBAG people. In the former, we’re wanting to create a new right — the right to marriage with multiple individuals. In the latter, we’re simply demanding that the existing rights that apply to one group apply equally to all. New rights take much more time to evolve, if they do at all.
Actually if you looked at queer history, you’d know that the bill that targeted gay and lesbian teachers in California that Harvey Milk fought in the 70s. had a provision in it that anybody who opposed the firing of the lesbian or gay teacher would also be fired. Allies have suffered for being our allies, and they are part of our diverse community.
Polyamory is part of the evolution of society and to cut them off, is to be no better than the HRC with its very narrow LGBT. We are a much larger movement than just people who are nice and pigeonhole-able and Polyamorous people (including myself) are part of the people who don’t fit into the hetero-normative paradigm.