Can't we all belong to the gay community?
Once upon a time, in a land far far away – if you were gay – you were called a faggot. Now mind you, this wasn’t a very nice term to be called and there were no “faggot” social groups in existence. So if you wanted to get together, you came up with an inconspicious group name, got together and formed your queer community. You couldn’t call it a “gay” group (that didn’t sound very original), you couldn’t call it a “lesbian” group (that didn’t sound very fun) – so you were queer. Everyone who was gay or lesbian wrap themselves up (whether they liked it or not) under the umbrella of “queer.” Forget names like the Mattachine Society or the Daugthers of Bilitis (circa 1950s) – those names weren’t PC enough – they didn’t include the whole spectrum of gay – so queer it was.
Fast forward a couple of decades and someone came to the conclusion they didn’t want to be called queer. It was too negative, too stereotypical or simply implied you were flambuyoant. So they would rather be called gay. The ladies in turn became upset and said – what a minute – what about us – were not “gay” we are “lesbians” (circa 1980s). So what are a bunch of queer faggots to do at this point? Enter the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. Okay, so this is not a social group but you get the idea – in an attempt to include everyone in the same social sphere , gay organizations had to come up with a name that tackled both men and women (circa 1990s).
But just wait one queer faggot gay lesbian minute! What if you liked the best of both worlds – a girl one day and a guy the next. You wanted to be included in the social sphere? So what do we do now? So in the mid 1990′s, we found ourselves once again pushing to come up with terminology specifically pointing out the inclusion of a new group of people – bisexuals and transgendered folks. After all, we were ending another era that said only gay and lesbian people should be apart of this “special” community and there are others who also needed to be represented.
So somewhere in a hidden dark dank room, a group of people said, let’s come up with some letters. Will use “L” for lesbian, “G” for gay, “B” for bisexual and “T” for transgendered. Not a bad idea – but what order do we put them in? I know – GLBT – gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered community. Fair enough you say….Nope!! Another debate in sued (which for the life of me) has still not been answered today. Is it LGBT or GLBT (the ladies wanted “L” first because this represented the recognition that men would no longer hold dominance over women)? So for many many years (okay well may be only 10 or 15) – we “gay, faggot, queer, lesbian folks” were okay with the term LGBT or GLBT to describe our community and inclusion it represented.
End of the story? As nice as it would be to say yes, the “PC” debate never ends quietly. No “PC” history would be complete without someone out there feeling like they were being left out. The “(Q)ueer” people wanted back in, the “(Q)uestioning” people want to be considered, not to mention the “(I)ntersex,” the “(P)olygamous,” the “(O)mnisexual,” the “(P)ansexual,” and the ever growning “(T)wo-(S)pirit” people.
Confused? Finding yourself racing to Google to see what exactly is a “Pansexual” – don’t feel alone. I think most of our community has no clue. But these groups of people felt that they deserve to have an inclusive part of our community. Thus, ladies and gentlemen – the LGBTQQIA has been formed. I mean, REALLY – LGBTTQQIA seems to run contrary to the purpose of acronyms and this is not just inclusive — it’s freakin exhaustive! I don’t really know what “two-spirited” means (I recall it has something to do with the first nations’ beliefs on gender), I’m not sure what the difference between “transgendered” and “intersexed” is, and I can’t even explain why “queer” doesn’t manage to cover all the other letters.
So my question is when does PC become way too PC? When have we gone too far in our effort to be inclusive and politically correct? Do we really need all of this to belong? If you are not in the alphabet soup, will you feel you have no place? What are your thoughts on this? I would be interested to know. Hit us up below with your comments and thoughts!!
Thomas (writing for Click Click Expose – Gay Entertainment Media).
