Each of the communities mentioned above have a common thread – we all do something different than what heteronormative society expects of us, something that often sets others at unease. However, what we do differently isn’t common to all of us at all. In fact, each community is so diverse, it can be difficult to bind our groups together in the first place. Some focus on sexual attraction (lesbian and pansexual), some on sexual behaviors (kink), some on relationship structure (poly) and some on gender identity (trans).

The history of the Queer community hasn’t always been so inclusive. Early in queer activism, it was limited to what today we would term the gay and lesbian communities. Associated with the gay community was drag culture. Because of the frequent confusion between the drag and transgender communities, the trans community has been awkwardly associated with the queer community since the beginnings. But some trans people assert that we are a distinct community with our own distinct issues. That much is certainly true, as sexual orientation is completely separate from gender identity. A trans person may be gay, straight, or anything in between.

Another example of this phenomenon started with third-wave feminism. Because of the growing need for feminist communities to dissassociate themselves from men (as evidenced by the introduction of the spelling ‘womyn’) a lesbian separatist movement grew, consequently advocating the idea of the gay male community being wholly separate from the lesbian community. This idea never really became mainstream for two reasons: 1) both groups had essentially the same goals in mind, and 2) in the 80’s many gay men needed lesbian allies to help continue the fight for their rights after the AID outbreak. Yet still the idea remains to this day, ane every once in a while, someone speaks up to try to dissassociate lesbians and gay men from each other.

The familiar acronym we hear today first showed up in the 1990’s. It was around this time that it became recognized that being queer meant more than just your sexual orientation. Academics looked toward the idea that mainstream opposition to alternate sexual orientation came about because they contradict expected gender roles. A man is “supposed” to be attracted to women, just like a man is expected to not wear women’s clothes. At the same time, bisexual visibility was on the rise, and so in an effort to become more inclusive, the acronyms “GLBT” and “LGBT” became increasingly used around this time. Since the new millenium, in an effort to become more inclusive of various gender variant communities, these acronyms have continually expanded, now sometimes encopassing up to 10 letters. The now unwieldly nature of the acronym has now seen the rise of the term “alphabet soup” to describe its nature.

The LGBT acronym has been used to indicate that each group is considered equal to each other. However, in reality, each group has not always been treated as such. The very nature of putting the ‘L’ in the front was done basically in an effort to compensate for a lack of lesbian visibility. Likewise, some trans activists complain that “it’s as if the ‘T’ was just stuck on the end without any real consideration”. A recent incident supporting this claim is the 2007 attempt at passing ENDA in the States, where the term ‘gender identity’ was dropped from the bill in order to ensure it’s passage. This has led to much bitterness from the trans community directed towards some GLB groups that advocated taking the bill in such a direction. Some trans people have lamented that gay and lesbian people only support trans rights where it’s convenient for them, and forget about us the rest of the time.

Question: How much do the GLB communities have in common today with the T community?