Decided to promote an acronym that gets around so many issues

[R_1]

The acronym that I am proposing right now is GSRSA which stands for gender - sexuality -  romanticism - support - alliance.

 

Right now, the current LGBT+ has certain problems :

 

• It encourages a us v. them mentality (Aces vs lgbt ; lgbt vs heteros)
• You have the issues of some asexuals preferring not to be associated, and individuals that puts asexuals into the community. The same observation can apply to any one that can pass by without being seen as different.

 

The new acronym eliminates those problems, and it doesn't necessarily specify that asexuality is part of the community. There is no us v. them mentality with this acronym. The right to associate with a group or not is preserved while no one would feel boxed in or excluded with this acronym.

 

What are your thoughts?

[LayneR]

Could you possibly break down each of those terms? I know what they all typically mean, but in this context what do they mean and how do they promote unity?

[R_1]

26 minutes ago, LayneR said:

Could you possibly break down each of those terms? I know what they all typically mean, but in this context what do they mean and how do they promote unity?

Gender is basically any people that id as a specific gender could be there. Sexuality and Romanticism are there to support the idea that romanticism and sexuality are not the same. Support basically is the purpose of the group, and the main purpose is always about supporting each other. Alliance adds emphasis on support, and without the acronym being specific about who can be part of them, that means any one that supports the first 3 terms in general are welcomed regardless of who they are. So, even hetero-orientated individuals in the general sense and the more specific sense heterosexual aren't excluded by the group. It supports unity by omission of letters, and having them grouped into one of the three group. With omission of A, asexuals could be more supported here as well. It doesn't specific who is part of the community and who isn't specifically. There's no boxing any one in here as well.

 

Overall, it's probably much better than GSA, MOGAI, and so on. MOGAI has the issue in the letter M, and there's some people that would disagree whether asexuality is marginalized.

[LayneR]

I can get behind that, and it's a really good idea. Here's the question tho: how do you plan to implement this acronym and/or help it gain recognition?

[Flute16]

I like this idea. It's really a beautiful acronym. Would people still call themselves "gay," "straight," "bisexual," "asexual,"etc? Or would we completely ditch the labeling?

[Sweet Potato]

I like the fact that LGBTQIA+ excludes cis het people.  GSA, GSRSA, and such give an in for straights. I have nothing against straight people, but LGBTQIA+ spaces are spaces where sexual and gender minorities don't have to be the minority. Straight people are included pretty much everywhere, keep the queer spaces for us.

[Tarvaa]

I acknowledge that you've put in some thought here, however, I think on a whole the implementation of the concept is somewhat impractical as LGBTQIA+ has had quite a headstart. Even then, this acronym would also become a "them vs us" divide as the only one who'll be applying it to themselves would be people who feel they don't fit in the heteronormative categories of gender and sexuality, or those that align with the included values, so same problem. I personally consider myself to be an activist for social equality embracing the full spectrum of human variety. That's the only way I've found  to avoid any "them vs us" conflict, while still acknowledging there isn't equality yet.

[R_1]

2 hours ago, Sweet Potato said:

I like the fact that LGBTQIA+ excludes cis het people.  GSA, GSRSA, and such give an in for straights. I have nothing against straight people, but LGBTQIA+ spaces are spaces where sexual and gender minorities don't have to be the minority. Straight people are included pretty much everywhere, keep the queer spaces for us.

I argue that it would be much better in practice to support SAGA,  GSA, GSRA,  etc.  offers better political implication and actually has better support for aces that can be considered straight,  and some bis that are straight passing as well. If you want better support for non-heterosexual that has zero practical difference,  these are far better than LGBTQIA+ and A has stood for ally,  and I'd argue ally is more beneficial than exclusion,  and double A or triple A could even be seen as better.   There are no practical difference between bi and ace that are strongly attracted to the opposite sex/gender in contrast to heterosexual people. An asexual man that is married with a woman is practically no different than heterosexual man married to the woman,  and especially if the heterosexual has really low drive or the ace has no qualm against sex and possibly enjoy it for her pleasure.  The only difference is their identication,  that's it. They can be seen as justifiably excluded,  and there are those that exclude themselves and doesn't want to be seen as lgbtq+,  so things like GSA,  SAGA are also better.

[Sweet Potato]

7 hours ago, R_1 said:

An asexual man that is married with a woman is practically no different than heterosexual man married to the woman

Tell that to all the married-to-an-ace folks in Sexual Friends and Allies.
it is very different to be in a sexual mismatched marriage. the struggles may be generally private but they still exist.

Also, A  bi person in an opposite gender relationship is still bi. they are not straight passing, they are bi.

Honestly if a straight inclusive society fits you better then go for it. But don't try to replace the LGBTQIA, not all of us want to party with the straights.

[R_1]

8 minutes ago, Sweet Potato said:

Tell that to all the married-to-an-ace folks in Sexual Friends and Allies.
it is very different to be in a sexual mismatched marriage. the struggles may be generally private but they still exist.

Also, A  bi person in an opposite gender relationship is still bi. they are not straight passing, they are bi.

Honestly if a straight inclusive society fits you better then go for it. But don't try to replace the LGBTQIA, not all of us want to party with the straights.

 

Sexual incompatibility exists within where two people are heterosexual as well. I mentioned two scenarios where they aren't necessarily different to many observers. So, there's a case to be made that they aren't necessarily so different in the grand scheme of thing or in some cases, there's really no difference. While a bi person in opposite relationship is bi, that doesn't mean that they can't pass straight or straight-as-in-heterosexual society fits them way better to the point where some of them just don't go with LGBTQIA. I'm basically pointing out the issue with the narrow definition of just being cis-heterosexual makes one not lgbtqia when certain non-cis and non-heterosexual scenarios don't really have much of a difference at all, if any. And, I'm not arguing whether a straight-inclusive society fits me better, I'm arguing that there are better acronyms that actually serves a specific ideal with more advantages than disadvantages.

 

Also, I did made a thread on a poll recently which touches more on the semantic of sexuality. Sexuality based on activities/feelings can be broken down to 3 subsets which are social, internal, or a hybrid of social and internal which makes this sort of thing all the more complicated. Not even heterosexuality is defined coherently, and it isn't agreed in general on what makes one heterosexual.

[everywhere and nowhere]

18 hours ago, R_1 said:

Overall, it's probably much better than GSA, MOGAI, and so on. MOGAI has the issue in the letter M, and there's some people that would disagree whether asexuality is marginalized.

I would say that asexuality definitely is marginalised. Not in the sense of heavy social disrimination, but rather in the sense of hardly being mentioned, leaving a lot of people - also those who could benefit a lot from knowing about it - without any knowledge that such an orientation exists. What I dislike about MOGAI is putting intersex so much separately... I care about the situation of intersex people, I absolutely support introducing laws which would ban non-necessary surgeries on underage intersex people, I also agree that intersex is separate insofar as it's not a gender issue sensu stricto, but an issue of physical sex-gender... But still, putting it so much separately does look weird and I think that at the price of a little inaccuracy we could agree that it's a gender issue and that intersex and trans problems have much in common. (A lot of intersex people are also trans anyway because the gender chosen for them by the doctors and family doesn't match their identification.) The acronym I would prefer is GSM - gender and sexual minorities. But I still usually use "LGBTQ+" because I'm used to it.

[Philip027]

Quote

An asexual man that is married with a woman is practically no different than heterosexual man married to the woman,

Uhhh, no?

 

You might as well be saying there's no difference from a homosexual man married to a woman.  News flash: it's pretty fucking different.

 

If you can't grasp something simple like this, I'm not sure you should be trying to propose names/acronyms for anything LGBT+ related.  It's demonstrating a core lack of understanding for why the organization even exists in the first place.

[R_1]

1 hour ago, Philip027 said:

Uhhh, no?

 

You might as well be saying there's no difference from a homosexual man married to a woman.  News flash: it's pretty fucking different.

My point is that it isn't necessarily different.  It can be generally different though. A heterosexual man with very low sex drive may very well have similar dynamics to an asexual man.  There are people who id as heterosexual even though they do have sex just for their partner and in some cases,  that isn't necessarily any different than some aces who actually enjoy sex to make their partner.  I'm not speaking in the general sense,  but rather the caveats with different perception of sexuality and different perceptions of what counts as heteronormative.  Do you have any argument to present that it is always different? Evidence points to generally,  but not necessarily different. Identity is one thing,  but two people with two different identities can be very similar to the point where they may be very well interchangeable with all the caveats of sexuality.

[Philip027]

"Generally" is good enough.  Exceptions are not the rule.

 

If they were, LGBT wouldn't even exist as an organization because they'd have no reason to be.

[R_1]

13 minutes ago, Philip027 said:

"Generally" is good enough.  Exceptions are not the rule.

 

If they were, LGBT wouldn't even exist as an organization because they'd have no reason to be.

I'm not even supporting on the line of exceptions, but somewhere on the line of exception to general. There a lot of bisexuals, asexuals out there that would argue that they couldn't and would rather not be considered part of the LGBT solely because their life experience aligns well to the average heterosexual life experience or you wouldn't be able to differentiate them from heterosexuals. You could even read a book of an asexual or a bisexual that aligns well with heterosexual people, and you would not be able to tell the difference from an average heterosexual. That's the issue I wanted to point out about the limitation of cis-heterosexual qualifier is an auto-exclude. Also, that really undermines LGBT as an acronym.

[gisiebob]

8 minutes ago, Philip027 said:

"Generally" is good enough.  Exceptions are not the rule.

 

If they were, LGBT wouldn't even exist as an organization because they'd have no reason to be.

I've been thinking recently, has there been a religion born from people who do not feel oppressed? what would that look like? can something live without having to struggle to survive? is our basic living goal to propagate life through procreation...or is it to opress life inorder to allow it to thrive?

[Philip027]

Quote

I'm not even supporting on the line of exceptions, but somewhere on the line of exception to general. There a lot of bisexuals, asexuals out there that would argue that they couldn't and would rather not be considered part of the LGBT solely because their life experience aligns well to the average heterosexual life experience or you wouldn't be able to differentiate them from heterosexuals.

That's their right to choose to identify that way.  Just because you fit one of the letters does not mean you have to join the LGBT club if you feel their interests don't align with yours.