Global Gay Nation > Gay Identity - Queer as Volk?

Dan's Confused

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Kyleovision:
The only thing that I could add to the above is this: nobody-- gay, str8 or indifferent-- used to know what a 'transexual' was (I'm talking right up into the early 80s) and for even longer there wasn't alot of knowledge about how a transexual differs from a transvestite. (Or, how a proper transvestite differed from guys who just liked drag.) I mean, you either liked to dress up in clothes generally reserved for the other gender, or you didn't. Nobody particularly cared what your motivation was: cross-dressing as neurosis, transexualism, or just the desire to be faaabulous. No one minded.

It's 1978. Where on Earth is a transexual going to go but the gay bar when out on the town?

The original realtionship between transexuals and queer people was formed back then, when those queer attitudes held more sway. So, the trans-folk have been around from the beginning. They get an initial in GLBT; why not?

vanrozenheim:

--- Quote from: "Kyleovision" ---They get an initial in GLBT; why not?
--- End quote ---


My point was not about exclusion of the trans folks from the acronymes, my point was about abandoning the tong-breaking acronymes as such in favour of a beatifull, encompassing "Gay" = "Gai" = "Fröhlich" = "Весёлый" (and so on).

GLBT = GAYLIBERATION.  :wink:

Vizier:

--- Quote from: "vanrozenheim" ---... The word "gay" was initially used to embrace homosexual males and females and the trans people too.
--- End quote ---


Sorry, V, but I take issue with that statement.

All historical research on the use of the word "gay" in the context it is used here points to the fact that the word was used originally almost exclusively to include male homosexuals only. The term itself first began surfacing as a moniker for us in the later 1960s in the Castro in San Francisco and spread eastward from there. Before then, "gay" simply meant happy...

Lesbians have almost always objected to being included under what they perceive as a pejorative "catch-all term," gay.

Bisexuals have also almost always taken great pains to distinguish themselves as such, rather than to be included in our "wrapper," for fear people might think them gay and thus "tainted" by the same stigmas we face daily. (This coincides with my own personal belief that most bisexual males are just gays who have not yet taken the "coming out" plunge or are to cowardly to do so.)

As for "transsexuals," I personally do not like to see them included in the trendy but horrid "GLBT or LGBT" monikers (depending on who is composing/using them) as many people belonging to the "T" group are much different from those of us (whether gay or lesbian) who are homosexual. Many are content after "reassignment surgery" and are decidedly not homosexual, nor interested in our way of life, lifestyles and culture.

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