I had an interesting exchange with
Gary McLachlan the other day on Twitter over his rejection of the label 'LGBT'. He makes a compelling argument for the use of the term MSGI. Check out his blog for more (and to find out what MSGI stands for if you don't know). Read it
here.
Sorry, MSGI sounds like management babble aimed at marginalising. But I agree that LGBT/GLBT is bad - I have blogged on a few occassions why I dislike LGBT (see for example: http://www.penwing.me.uk/node/47) - it's divides up a community which should be united, it excludes people who don't define into one of the categories.
ReplyDeleteI personally prefer Queer but I know that makes people uncomfortable and others don't like its expansion from the politicised academic meaning of queer (I know I read something about that somewhere...) - it took me a few years and experiences to become comfortable with it, and still usually fall back on "gay" as being easier to explain.
But Yeah, MSGI - boo!
Alex
x x
I generally use queer myself too - this is for my thesis, as a generalised concept. I needed something that included the inter-sexed individuals who also suffer human rights violations, but who would generally not self-identify as queer. Most transexuals (post and pre-op) also do not identify as queer, and International Law would not recognise the term at all.
ReplyDelete