“We queer people…resist by existing. That quiet history of existence is monumental, even alongside historic victories like the passage of marriage equality and the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. While I certainly owe my decision to come out, and to do it publically, to having lived through those moments of progress, not all of us ask for that responsibility, nor should we feel required to. Each of us already contributes through our individual pursuits of happiness—by continuing to live in and through sets of respectively unequal systems among many who would be glad to see us gone. By existing. The chief responsibility for us all is to regard all LGBTQIA+ lives as sacred. May the rest follow.”Out actor Charlie Carver, in a Pride essay published in Playboy.
Mandrake
What’s with all those letters??? If they’re supposed to represent how inclusive we all are, it’s not a success. It’s divisive labeling every faction of our community as separate components. Not good.
WeHoGuy69
Here we go again. The acronym police.
scotshot
Think of a map of the United States. There are fifty states and couple of territories. Each state has a name and they all have joined together as one.
One size does not fit all.
Danny595
Thank you. These ever-expanding letter combos are not about inclusivity. They are about colonizing, co-opting, controlling and exploiting LGB people. They want our money, our organizations and our labor to be at their disposal, and the best way for them to achieve that is to con us into thinking that gay people are “one people” with heterosexual transsexuals, hermaphrodites, crossdressers, fetishists, and now a completely open-ended list of other groups encapsulated by “+”
“LGBTQIA+” should be read as a kind of enslavement of LGB people. It is not to be accepted or celebrated. If you are LGB and you have an ounce of self-respect, you will resist all initialisms beyond the “B.”
mhoffman953
@Danny595
Some people are too blind to see it. The LGB people actually have something on common and that’s sexual orientation.
The ‘T’ deals with identity, and in my opinion based on research the ‘T’ people are mentally ill but that’s another discussion. The ‘Q’ doesn’t deal with sexual orientation, same with the ‘I’ and ‘A’. The ‘I’ stands for people who don’t identify as male or female. How is that possible? The fact that we have bisexuals implies that there are only 2 genders hence the word bi, meaning two. We don’t have such a thing as polysexuals meaning someone attracted to all sexes because there are only two.
If we’re going to allow those groups into the mix, why not allow straight people too? The people making the argument that it’s about inclusion of EVERYONE would definitely be against adding an ‘S’ to represent straight people.
The insanity of gender identity is making the LGB crowd a joke to the mainstream. They’re exploiting the community for money. Now they’re ditching the traditional rainbow flag to add a black and brown stripe at the top because supposedly black people are oppressed. Why not add a white or a beige stripe?
This political correctness, extreme left, liberal, gender identity nonsense is all literal madness
Danny595
Very well said, Mr. Hoffman. We are being exploited and our so-called “leaders” have allowed it to happen. But it can end when we LGB people decide that we won’t support it any longer. They altered the language that we use to describe ourselves as a conscious strategy to channel our thinking and to normalize the idea that LGB people are inherently linked to transgenderism. So let’s not let it be normalized. Don’t go along to get along. Don’t use “LGBT.” Say “LGB.” Point out the inherent incoherence and lack of logic in “LGBT.” And to the extent possible, direct your dollars and your labor towards causes that are LGB, not LGBT. Eventually, it will take structural change to end “LGBT” but the process starts with individual resistance.
Richard 55
More divisive labels from the liberal GLBTQIRS crowd. No wonder Trump isinning.
Trump unites, liberals divide.
As for Playboy, and Pride, lol. Playboy pays lip service to male homosexual rights. Its depictions of sexuality are NOT homosexual or bisexual male-friendly. It pays women to act bisexual for men.
Kind of makes you want to re-consider your respect for women, doesn’t it? How low can women go?
scotshot
How many screen names do you use Brian? Do you believe that by donning a new name you’ve disguised the pedantic person you are?
jckfmsincty
I agree. Trump is sinning by being the most grossly incompetent President in our country’s history.
Richard 55
Please don’t reference articles from the sexist and male bi-phobic Playboy.
Richard 55
Is Charlie Carver writing for the sexist and sleazy organization called Playboy? You know, that institution with a bisexual double standard ?
Shame on you, Charlie.
Richard 55
Maybe Charlie Carver’s dad was bisexual. Bi-denial by gay men and straight women is common. This is especially the attitude to bisexual men.
Charlie should embrace his father’s bisexuality instead of referring to him as gay.
davincibarnette
Maybe Charlie knows through his family what his father’s orientation was and does not need A Reader to tell him how to express himself in regard to HIS father.
Richard 55
GLBT erases male homosexual desire. Just look at the Pride parades – they’ve been taken over by women, drag queens and transgenders.
And why does the gay media put the L before the G? Lesbians were rarely targeted by the anti-homosexual laws. It was male-male they mainly prosecuted.
Women need to butt out, including lesbians, fake lesbians, bisexual and fake- bisexual women.
DCguy
Do you all notice the desperation in the two anti-lgbt Log Cabin Screenames?
Carver stated clearly we win and we push back by existing. They are DESPERATE to try to avoid the topic and reroute this posting onto a different subject because that simple fact is what they fight against.
They are pro-closet, Pro-Republican, and are only on here as trolls to change the subject when something like this happens.
He made a nice statement about coming out and almost immediately you had SIX postings by two of the Troll screenames attacking him for it.
That more than anything says how desperate they are to keep lgbt people in the closet.
davincibarnette
The desperation is real with them! LOL
Kieran
We need more letters. Where’s the ‘H’ for the hermaphrodite community?
Tobi
I think that’s the “I” for intersex… or something… who knows?!
amigay
Yes, hermaphrodite is the old school term. Now, it’s intersex. Either way LGBTQIEJLSDKFNMLSJFLSDMCDLSVCI is ridiculous.
Desert Eagle
Hermaphrodite is no longer considered Politically Correct. Interesexed is the latest PC discriptive term.
Danny595
Hilarious how an adult can be so clueless about the failure of logic in his own writing. He uses “queer people” and “LGBTQIA+ people” interchangeably. But the the “Q” in “LGBTQIA+ people” stands for queer. If Q = LGBTQIA+, then L,G,B,T,I,A, and + are superfluous.
All of this is stupidity born of ideology and it harms gay people, especially gay youth. So let’s tell Charlie Carver a few truths. First, gay (or LGB) people are not “queer.” Some gay (and straight) individuals may want to identify that way for their own political reasons, but it is wrong to refer to gay people as a group as “queer.” Second, there is no such thing as “LGBT” or “LGBTQ” or “LGBTQIA+.” LGB is real because it refers to a group of people who all share a common, innate trait – same sex orientation. The invention in the 1990s of “LGBT” and the other variants was an attack on LGB people, our identity, and our right of self-determination.
DCguy
::::::Translation:::::
He stated coming out of the closet is good. You need to avoid that topic and so are desperately doing whatever you can to change the subject.
Danny595
DCGuy – Coming out of the closet as what? How can we evaluate the claim if we don’t even know what he is talking about? Is it a good thing to “come out of the closet” as a + person? How can anyone know if nobody knows what a + person is?
Once upon a time, LGB people had one day out of the year to celebrate ourselves, our identity and our struggle. Maybe we need to get back to that.
ErikO
I agree with you about the ackronym, and I’ve heard how the Q stands for questioning and some people use it as the silly term ‘queer’ which a lot of heterosexual people who are not Trans have now co-opted to use this term, also if you ask people what queer means you will get 1,000 different answers.
Asexual people or the A should not be grouped in with LGB people, and neither should I or intersex/hermaphrodites.
Desert Eagle
Quite true ErikO, “A” “asexual” should not placed anywhre near the G since Asexuals have no interest in sex with anyone and Gays can think of nothing but sex with anyone, anywhere, anytime!
Josh447
@Charlie Carver
Very eloquently put and quite inspiring. Keep writing more, you’re good at it.
Chris
What a nice kid. Inspiring. Makes me feel that my generations were not in vain. — And I understand he has an identical twin who is hetero.
Orgoglio Masch
I agree with some of the above comments that too many letters starts to separate more than it does to unite. Everyone stays in their letter’s vacuum. The original four were enough to generally describe the community. Or maybe just change the whole initialism to a single + and just go by a symbol like Prince.
BriBri
I just liike to suck dick.
Neonegro
lol..lol..lol well said
Hermes
Sorry – I do not believe most of this conversation is real. There are not gay people arguing over letters or not-letters or whatever. I don’t know how many of you are “thinkfluencers” but I am sure some are. Be united, refuse to be in any way divided by anyone. Defy those who would influence us.
Hermes
Desert Eagle
LGBTQIA+ ????
Will every letter of the alphabet someday be included? As the acronym continues to grow, I can only say yasssss!