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Queer doesnt exist, its just a made up word with no meaning or utility.
Trans isnt a sexual orientation so it doesnt belong along side other orientations.
Therefore from now on I think im going to just refer to it as "LGB" which ill use for discussions about orientation. It might make sense to do "LGBP" to include pansexuals/poly people, as that too describes orientation.
Then maybe "TICN" for gender expression (Trans, Intersex, Crossdresser, and Nonbinary).
I think ill just start dropping these in conversations and use each distinctly different. The LGBTQ+ designation never really made much sense.
Then again maybe jsut "non-cis" and "non-straight" might just be more straight forward. But less likely to engage in useful conversation.
> Ooof, you should be careful with that, LGB is mostly used by transphobes who want to divide the movement.
I think you know by now I judge an idea by its own merit, not its association with any one group or not.
> non-insignificant way a descriptor of a political movement/group that has shared political interests,
I have no problem combining the acronyms when the context makes sense to do so . If I am speaking of something that actually has combined relevance to both I can always say LGBP+TICN and then otherwise leave them seperate when i am talking specifically about orientation vs gender.
> Other than the political connection there is also the fact that gender and sexual attraction are pretty strongly connected for most people, so it even makes sense to lump them together from a purely categorization perspective.
Sure, plenty of times the two groups make sense to talk about collectively, just as often it makes sense to talk about one or the other. Ultimately which of the two, or both, that might be used will depend on context. As it should.
> If you dislike the acronym then “gender and sexual minorities” is a pretty neutral way of referring to the group,
Its not that I dislike the acronym per se. Itis that it 1) includes terms which have no useful meaning (queer) and really have no relevance in most context and 2) it is so generalized as to be less useful than being able to have the means properly categorized in a semantic way.
So the quote you offer simply doesnt address number 2 and defeats the purpose.
> Oh, and being intersex isn’t in any way about gender expression
Absolutely is for **much** of intersexed conditions, though you are right sometimes it is sex and not gender.
For example Androgen Insensitivity Syndrom is an intersex condition that directly effects your bodies expression of gender. By contrast Klinefelter syndrom effects both how your gender is expressed (effects yoru genitals, body, body hair, height, etc) and yoru sex (dna).
The only real difference is that intersex is clearly not a choice WRT to gender expression whereas the other ones are choices in gender expersssion.
> and being trans and being a crossdresser are about gender expression in quite different ways.
Very different for sure, but still gender expression all the same. Obviously again we go back to context, if we are talking about gender in such a way that the distinction between these groups is needed, then that can be expressed on a case by case basis, as it should be.
@freemo I think I’ve spotted the confusion here. All the terms under the LGBTQ+ umbrella are mostly about personal identity, so what people call themselves and want to be called. This is the context in which “queer” very much makes sense, either for people who haven’t yet figured out the details, but know they don’t fit the cisheteronormative default, or for those who did not end up fitting into any of the other boxes fully (plus some political meaning, but that’s kinda separate).
If you want to be specific and precise when referring to a group then there are almost always better terms – at least in medical, law, and social contexts, I cannot think of any other relevant ones. The specific division you advocate for here is extremely rarely appropriate anyway – you almost always want to refer to a strict subgroup of one of the groups you described, or to a group that encompasses people from both groups.
Having said that, while I can argue that the division you propose is bad on purely practical grounds, I have to also point out that categorizing humans has an extremely fraught history to say it lightly, so ignoring the political implications of any proposed categorization is, in my opinion, extremely unwise.
You seem to be somewhat confused about the gender/sex distinction. In this context “sex” does not refer to just genes, but general biology, including hormones and the phenotype, while gender expression (I have to specify the second part here, since “gender” can, confusingly, refer to at least two other concepts that are very relevant to the discussion, but fortunately not to the distinction here) refers to social indications of gender (behaviour, dress, etc). Thus being intersex is purely about sex, regardless of the specific syndrome. Some people have argued this is a reason why they shouldn’t be included under the LGBTQ+ term at all, but it turns out that their interests politically align with the group often enough that they usually are.
> I think I’ve spotted the confusion here. All the terms under the LGBTQ+ umbrella are mostly about personal identity, so what people call themselves and want to be called. This is the context in which “queer” very much makes sense, either for people who haven’t yet figured out the details, but know they don’t fit the cisheteronormative default, or for those who did not end up fitting into any of the other boxes fully (plus some political meaning, but that’s kinda separate).
As I said earlier I really dont care what language someone else wants to use. I see no use in my lexicon to have a term that encompases all forms of identity across wildly different categories of gender, sex, sexual orientation, and sexual cardinality. If someone has use for such a word salad of terms and finds it useful they are welcomet o use it.
I on the other hand do have a use for terms with utility for me. Having a term fo sexual orientations that are inclusive, and another for gender expressions has use in conversation, so i will make that distinction, i dont need or expect anyone to emulate me.
> If you want to be specific and precise when referring to a group then there are almost always better terms – at least in medical, law, and social contexts, I cannot think of any other relevant ones. The specific division you advocate for here is extremely rarely appropriate anyway – you almost always want to refer to a strict subgroup of one of the groups you described, or to a group that encompasses people from both groups.
If you know a better word that coverts LGBP (all sexual orientations), or one that covers TINC then by all means let me know.
Yes there are more specific terms but all medical and technical terms I can think of are highly specific and do not cover the umbrella my own terms intend to, again happy to hear alternatives.
> The specific division you advocate for here is extremely rarely appropriate anyway
I literally cant think of **any** situation where it is inappropriate, at least not one where the use of the term itself is what is inappropriate (obviously someone can say an inappropriate thing that has that in it)
> you almost always want to refer to a strict subgroup of one of the groups you described
Obviously we do have specific terms for when we are talking about a specific subgroup... but it seems quite bizare to me that you would think talking about all sexual orientations collectively is somehow inappropriate, that makes no sense but maybe im missing something here.
> or to a group that encompasses people from both groups.
As described earlier combining the groups is to be expected when appropriate.
> You seem to be somewhat confused about the gender/sex distinction. In this context “sex” does not refer to just genes
No not confused, I know very well how sex is often misused and misunderstood. I am using sex in its appropriate way here and distinct from gender,this is how scientists, medical professions, and anyone trying to be precise will use it. Yes in casual language we tends to use sex to also mean gender (or some aspects of it) but that has lead to many problems and language I specifically try to avoid due to its problematic nature.
Sex strictly refers to genes. then gender is broken down into primary and secondar where we talk about genitals, breaast, facial hair, etc.. then we have gender **expression** which also includes behavioral and physical aspects.
In short, no doubt some people use sex to include gender, though we have clear distinctions and need to use them even in casual conversation as it will resolve most of the conflicts I see and go a long way to helping the LGBP+NICT community.
> Thus being intersex is purely about sex, regardless of the specific syndrome.
You are just making a semantic distinction here. Yes if you use a version of the word sex that is less descript you can of course come to that conslusion. Since I am using more technically accurate terminology then no, it doesnt work out that way.
On second thought you may be right re: gender. I could have swore just a few years back i had this debate and agreed with your definition but then was shown quite clearly the definition of gender I described here. I went to search for it again but cant find it and mostly find definitions that agree with you and my earlier (what i thought was now invalidated) understanding of the definition... So now im nto so sure, probably going to have to refine taht part entirely.
I literally cant think of any situation where it is inappropriate
I didn’t mean “appropriate” in the sense of “not a faux pas“, but rather “fitting the situation”. My point was that when you want to talk about some specific topic you’ll (almost?) never actually be interested purely in one of the groups you described. If you are talking about sexual attraction in general you almost surely don’t want to exclude heterosexual people, if you are talking about some aspect of gender (whether expression, identity or roles) you probably want to include cis people, but mentioning intersex people might not be relevant, crossdressers are relevant for gender expression, but much less for gender identity or arguably even roles etc. If you can think of an example of an actual specific discussion in which you would refer to exactly just one or the other of the groups you defined that might be useful – any examples that come to mind to me either are so specific that they apply to a subgroup, or include part of the other group, or include cis/hetero people as well. In the latter case using “non-cis/hetero” (as you suggested in the OP) within that discussion if you explicitly want to exclude them from a point is much more natural than trying to enumerate all the other options (also see below).
This isn’t very surprizing, because LGBTQ+ emerged as a political grouping, not a taxonomy. Even grouping e.g. gays and lesbians together mostly makes sense in the context of politics or sociology, as far as sexual behaviour goes they are literally separate. So trying to use it as a starting point for making a taxonomy gets you weird results.
LGBP (all sexual orientations)
I have to object here, you are definitely missing at least a couple, even if you wanted to just refer to marginalized sexual orientations (otherwise “straight” is a pretty glaring omission 
). The obvious missing one is asexual, but there are a couple more, perhaps the next most popular being demisexual. Also, pansexual is only arguably different from bisexual – there’s Discourse™ about this, but it’s hard to find a specific set of definitions about the difference that people would actually agree about. There is a similar problem with your gender grouping, although what exactly is missing there depends on whether this grouping is trying to be about gender expression exclusively, or also about gender identity, it isn’t quite clear to me what you intended.
LGBP is a more complete version so I think ill go with that anyway.
@freemo The whole point of the Q is to cover sexual orientations other than the main three (like the pansexuals and the literal tree huggers).
It has utility as an inclusive modifier.
@LouisIngenthron There are no orientations other than the ones I listed... LGB covers men, women, and both monogomously, and the P covers multiple partners of the same (since it covers both forms of P)... there is no other possible orientation.
@freemo Sure there are. There are people who are attracted to automobiles, and there are furries and there are folks who don't care about gender but only get off from domination fantasies. It's a wide weird world out there, and you can't fit everyone neatly into a box.
@LouisIngenthron Automobiles isnt a sex, neither is furry, therefore it isnt an orientation.
A sexual orientation is not "a think you are attracted to".. liking big boobs isnt a sexual orientation. In fact im hesitatant to even put P in there, as its borderline. Butit at least describes the scenario of needing a man and woman at the same time, so it is somewhat relevant.
Since only 2 sexes and exist and there is nothing between poly and and mono, then yea you can fit people into nice boxes as there is a fairly finite number of combinations.
@freemo You might want to google the term "pansexual" because it explicitly rejects that binary that you're trying to enforce.
What do you call people who are only attracted to androgynous agender folks who aren't part of the gender binary?
Pansexual means someone is attracted to a person of any sex or any gender. It does not require a beleive in "automobiles are a sex" or attraction to automobiles.
While of course many pansexuals may believe in neosexes/genders it is not a defining quality of pansexuality. Pan sexuality is basically just bi-sexuality but with explicit inclusion of trans people and others who are more than just simply "male or female" in that they have other descriptors that are needed to fully describe their gender expression.
@LouisIngenthron I think there could be a fair case there that the P should be limited to polyamory and not pansexual and pansexual is largely redundant with bisexual
@freemo It's not, though. They mean different things. Bisexual is attraction to the two ends of the gender spectrum. Pansexual is attraction to the entire spectrum.
@LouisIngenthron Thats debatable, I would say that pansexuality **explicitly** applyes to the whole spectrum. Bisexuality **implcitily** applies to the whole spectrum. It is implied that if i find both males and females attractive that I would likely find a person with qualities of both attractive as well.
@freemo Right, I wasn't saying attraction to automobiles was included in pansexuality; just attraction to more than "two sexes".
Attraction to automobiles is called "mechanophilia".
@LouisIngenthron i wouldnt say pansexuality requires "more than two sexes", but it does strongly imply, at a minimum, that sexes are on a spectrum (which it is)... It tends to include neo=genders if you ask people who are pan, but the definition doesnt require it.
@freemo The point is, there are enough variations that people can't be put neatly into categories. That's why, as a community, we decided to include them under the umbrella term "queer" to include them.
@LouisIngenthron Well for starters queer isnt an umbrella term.. if it were there wouldnt be 20 additional letters that follow (or the + as tends to be the case)... So im not sure we agree with even that much. Queer is distinctly not defined in any good way, not even as a general term.
> Queer
It's a reclaimed slur if i remember it correctly, was similar to "fag"
> Therefore from now on I think im going to just refer to it as "LGB" which ill use for discussions about orientation.
It's widely used by transphobes, and i predict that people will at minimum feel uncomfortable with it, at most block you.
Of course, you can use whatever words you want, and it's okay to question why we use the words we do, but it's best to be careful with it if you want to be properly understood 😀
> It's a reclaimed slur if i remember it correctly, was similar to "fag"
Mostly yea. I also have no issue with people using it for themselves. But being a non-descript term with no real definition or meaning of use just dont expect me to use it since I dont find it useful.
> It's widely used by transphobes, and i predict that people will at minimum feel uncomfortable with it, at most block you.
If that is the case youa re probably right. I dont mind being blocked though and not being a transphobe (And in fact an ally) I really wouldnt loose sleep over that. That said im leanign towards "LGBP" anyway.
with no real definition or meaning
It actually has a real definition, and when you say it, people understand what you meant: it simply means "any non-straight and/or non-cis folks". Did you meant "it have no dictionary definition"?
I really wouldnt loose sleep over that.
It's not much about will you loose sleep or not, it's about a value of conversation and being able to get your point across correctly. If you don't care about it then you might as well reply with markov chain output or have no conversations at all 🤷♀️
That said im leanign towards “LGBP” anyway.
Well, you can definitely try it, i even wonder if people will accept and understand such logic 
You could then publish a mini-report 😀
> with no real definition or meaning
>
> It actually has a real definition, and when you say it, people understand what you meant: it simply means "any non-straight and/or non-cis folks". Did you meant "it have no dictionary definition"?
No I mean that advocacy groups for Queer themselves sstate in no uncertain terms that ther eis no universal definition and that people who use it define it differently and use it to mean wildly different things. What i myself am also saying is that it provides no functionally new information compared to the other definitions even if we were to try to define it. The other letters in the acronym already cover every possible orientations.
Anyway for reference here is the definition from a Queer advocacy group:
> This can include, but is not limited to, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, intersex and asexual people. **This term has different meanings to different people**. Some still find it offensive, while others reclaim it to encompass the broader sense of history of the gay rights movement. Can also be used as an umbrella term like LGBT, as in "the queer community."
So as is clearly seen from above while some use it as an umbrella term like you describe others people use it in completely different ways with different meanings. Regardless as i stated it has no place in the acronym as far as I can tell as it isnt providing anything useful or descriptive.
> It's not much about will you loose sleep or not, it's about a value of conversation and being able to get your point across correctly. If you don't care about it then you might as well reply with markov chain output or have no conversations at all 🤷♀️
As long as it gets across im talking about throse three groups specifically, then im happy. Now if someone is going to assume im transphobe with no basis and not bother to ask, then they are probably someone i dont want to engage with and care very little about the quality of the conversationa s it is a lost cause fromt he get go. In my mind its a feature not a bug as it ensures people who dont try to understand what is being said, but rather assume and inject toxicity, wont actually interact with me (as I prefer it).
> Well, you can definitely try it, i even wonder if people will accept and understand such logic :thonk: You could then publish a mini-report 😀
As per the above i care very little of how they react or accept it. As long as they understand what I mean or ask if they dont then thats all I need. If they are offended by it then im happy to have them filtered out of the convo.
> This term has different meanings to different people
Okay, then it does make sense.
...
I'm to some extent understand you since i sometimes call people niggers faggots and retards without really being racist, homophobic or abelist, and it's relatively easy to see it by my general behavior.
But if i would use these words in conversation with normies it will filter out hell damn a lot of people, and i'll likely would be banned.
(No i'm not trying to make a point that call people niggers and call people LGBP are the same thing, but mechanics is similar)
@freemo I thought that “queer” just meant either “not straight”, “straight ally”, or “I’m straight but I’m not one of THOSE straights, I’m one of the good ones”
@realcaseyrollins Queer doesnt mean anything objectively. Everyone who uses the term comes up with whatever definition they want and roles with it... the definition you describe im sure is one many would use, but its far from universal.
@freemo I disagree that "Queer" has no utility. In your own words:
"Then again maybe jsut "non-cis" and "non-straight" might just be more straight forward."
That's literally the definition of queer, that you do not fit under the rules of heteronormativity. There's your utility right there
@Vincarsi If that was a universal definition I would agree. As I shared earlier the definitions from advocacy groups have clearly stated Queer does not have a shared definition and that members of the community define it in contradictory ways at times.
Ergo it has no utility as it doesnt have a consistent and useful definition.
For example many of the community feel Queer is an offensive term, others do not. That discrepancy alone is a good enough reason to seek a more neutral and descriptive term.
@freemo Ooof, you should be careful with that, LGB is mostly used by transphobes who want to divide the movement. LGBTQ+ (or any of the other commonly used acronyms) are in a non-insignificant way a descriptor of a political movement/group that has shared political interests, it’s not a coincidence that a lot of the activism was done by all these people together, that they have common symbols etc. Other than the political connection there is also the fact that gender and sexual attraction are pretty strongly connected for most people, so it even makes sense to lump them together from a purely categorization perspective.
If you dislike the acronym then “gender and sexual minorities” is a pretty neutral way of referring to the group, although if you try to split them it gets blurry. I personally like “queer” as a descriptor, but it cannot be used for the whole group, since some members find it offensive.
Oh, and being intersex isn’t in any way about gender expression, and being trans and being a crossdresser are about gender expression in quite different ways.