Paganistan: Notes from the Secret Commonwealth
In Which One Midwest Man-in-Black Confers, Converses & Otherwise Hob-Nobs with his Fellow Hob-Men (& -Women) Concerning the Sundry Ways of the Famed but Ill-Starred Tribe of Witches.
How 'LGBTQIA+' 'Disappears' Gay Men
Convenience is no excuse.
Goodbye, LGBTQIA+.
I divorce you. I divorce you. I divorce you.
The ugly, unpronounceable, ever-expanding, increasingly-meaningless-in-its-generality ("Allies"? Seriously?) alphabet monster deserves to die with a stake through its heart.
I hate that it 'disappears' gay men, reducing us to one letter in an impenetrable line-up.
I hate that it makes it easy to generalize about a population of sexual and gender minorities who—quite frankly—often have very little in common with one another except for the fact that other people hate us.
I hate that it gives everyone else credit for the triumphs, tragedies, and accomplishments of gay men.
Back at the beginning of covid, a screamer walked onto a subway car in New York, and started, at the top of his lungs, blaming—as the radio interviewer euphemistically put it—'the LGBTQ community' for the pandemic.
But we all know that that wasn't what the screamer really said, of course. We also know that he wasn't blaming lesbians, or transsexuals, or the intersex, for covid.
He was blaming fags.
As gay men, we bear a outsized burden of cultural hatred. Reducing us to one letter among many negates our story.
I'm all for solidarity, but not at the expense of identity.
I'm a gay man. I'm also a poet, and language matters to me.
I'd recommend 'sexual minorities' instead. I'd recommend 'gender minorities.' I'd recommend 'sexual and gender minorities.' While not beautiful, these phrases at least have the benefit of transparency.
And they're short.
As for the hideous hydra which we cannot even dignify with the name of acronym, I banish it.
Begone, foul Beast. You have no power here.
To the press and the media, I say: Stop 'disappearing' gay men.
To friends and allies of sexual and gender minorities, I say: Strike the term from your vocabulary. It's both offensive, and unjust.
To sexual and gender minorities themselves, I say: Throw it away. It's just not good enough, and never, ever, was.
Surely, surely, we deserve better.
Comments
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Thursday, 27 May 2021
Five?!
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Thursday, 27 May 2021Mr. Posch,
Yeah, I was aiming for hyperbole. It popped into my head that in the Epic of Gilgamesh, five different Sumerian deities joined forces to cause The Great Flood and put the smackdown on humanity.
So that was the inspiration for my comment. -
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Mr. Posch,
Thanks for your insight. My personal favorite Scrabble combination for those letters is, "QUILTBAG". I 100% support the concept of equality for sexual and gender minorities, but have zero interest in earning an, "Ally" designation if it means I have to forfeit the right to criticize a particular item on somebody's political manifesto. I'm far more of a sympathizer than an, "Ally", in that context.
Honestly, as a cis-gender heterosexual longtime married man, I don't doubt the antagonism you sense against gay men. I'm sure that lesbians get plenty of homophobic hate directed at them. However, since attractive lesbians are the stuff of straight male fantasies, said straight males usually give them way less of a hard time...especially if there is a glimmer of possibility that they might be bisexual.
Not only that, sexual harassment allegations made by a woman can destroy a man's career prospects. Misogynistic homophobes who are smart, keep their bigotry to themselves...unless they have a Harvey Weinstein/Jeffrey Epstein level of financial resources and network of enablers.
I'm sorry to say, my friend, that those things make it open season on you and others in your community.
For what it's worth, though, it would take five Gods to erase Steven Posch.