Talk:LGBTQ

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Most common or standard

I thought GLBT was the standard order of the letters. It's the one I usually see. To be honest, I've never seen LGBT outside of Wikipedia. -Branddobbe 17:41, Apr 2, 2004 (UTC)

It's all in the eye of the author, really. GLBT is definitely the most popular but I've seen pretty much every permutation of the letters that can be built (including F, for friendly, A, for "allied", and/or Q, for questioning (or queer)). It makes a rather interesting alphabet soup. --Chirstyn 17:28, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I don't want to claim that one order is the majority and another is not, but I'll list myself here as somebody that's more familiar with the "LGBT" ordering in RL. To be sure, I've seen both. (For the sake of the following debate, let me also note that I've come to queer culture in the past 5 years or less, and almost entirely in the USA.) -- Toby Bartels 20:22, 1 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I would have thought that GLBT made more sense. The word "gay" is the most significant because in its broader sense it includes lesbians. Lesbian is more specific, because it refers only to gay females. Bisexual comes after gay/lesbian because it is the gay/lesbian part of a bisexual person's sexuality that makes them distinct from the majority of society and part of the group that the acronym intends to capture. Transgender comes last because it is the least common by incidence and because it's a slightly different group.

Actually last time I spent time in circles where such acronyms were prevalent the it had become: GLBTIQ. Gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, intersex and questioning. No wonder people are looking for generic terms like "queer" and "rainbow" Ben Arnold 01:04, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I've seen both in real life, but am generally more familiar with LGBT. I think some people prefer LGBT because it doesn't give the men (G) primacy over everyone else, but I couldn't swear to that. The magazine Anything That Moves coined the acronym FABGLITTER (Fetish, Allies, Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian, Intersexed, Transgender, Transsexual Engendering Revolution), which I love but don't think we can actually use on Wikipedia. Bearcat 14:57, 11 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

In a class I took at school about GLBT Social Movements our professor told us that certain areas of the country (United States - I don't know about other countries) use GLBT and in other regions LGBT is more common. Of course I can't remember which regions she said used what, and I can't find those notes, but that's just what I remember. --David 01:39, August 17, 2005 (UTC)

I think that LGBT might be used mainly because it seems to flow better when you say it than GLBT. Also, i think to order the letters in the order of numbers of members of each of the groups is narrow-minded. Because there are more lesbians than bisexuals mean they get to come first? I don't think that that should be the way to decide, but if that is the order that everyone understands, and has no mal-intent behind it then i think it works fine Davepealing 18:37, 25 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It used to be just gay or lesbian then became GL and later GLB and GLBT with politically L placed first to help address that the gay community is not just men as GLBT opponents play on the stereotypes that gay issues are just men trying to have sex with and as well as children. Most people reading this know better but the stereotypes persist and use still perpetuated.

US vs others?

Google says

GLBT 621,000
LGBT 495,000

In .uk, LGBT is far more common

LGBT 18,900
GLBT 4,270

other results

GLBT: .us
LGBT: .au .ca
even: .nz

So it looks like it may be a US versus the world thing.

Morwen - Talk 20:30, 1 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I ran this search today on Google and found:

LGBT 1,710,000
GLBT 1,290,000

Yahoo! is showing:

LGBT 2,450,000
GLBT 1,520,000

tdempsey 08:53, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Keeping in mind that LGBT is a stock symbol, here's today:

LGBT 1,580,000
GLBT 1,260,000
LGBTI 72,500
GLBTI 40,700
FABGLITTER 1,070

PubMed and libraries

PubMed is showing:

LGBT 45 [1]
GLBT 17 [2]

Librarians also favour LGBT: [3]

(es_uomikim 11:55, 2 November 2007 (UTC))[reply]

Old vs new?

Lets look at it another way besides most and least common. I would argue the GL(B) is an older configuration and that more people and organizations are moving towards LGBT. Here's my approximate timeline:

Gay and lesbian
Gay, lesbian, and bisexual
GLB
LGB
LGBT
etc

Hyacinth 20:46, 1 Jul 2004 (UTC)

NPOV and Anti-LGBT community LGBT people

Even though they have been greatly improved, the last two paragraphs in the 'Controversy' section of the LGBT article are no longer entirely neutral. They give the impression that all people who are against a distinctive LGBT community are against equal rights under the law and social acceptance for LGBT people, which is simply not true. Does anyone have any suggestions about how to make this section more neutral? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:71.214.17.198 (talk • contribs) 04:27, 20 September 2006 (UTC).[reply]

While I would admit that in their current form those 2 paragraphs don't paint the Anti-LGBTs in the same light as LGBTs, I think that is rather the purpose of the descriptions, so that doesn't really stray outside of NPOV.

As far as I understand the term, "Anti-LGBTs" are those L,G,B, and T people who are 'actively positioned aginst the existence of the LGB/T community', and mustn't be confused with those L,G,B, and T people who merely rarely/never interact with the community, but are ambivalent or positive about it's existence. And in at least the UK, Anti-LGBTs do genuinely in the majority believe in social darwinism and consider liberation and equality of social minorities is pointless or an interferance in 'the natural order of things'.

Maybe it could do with some clarification and caveats to circumvent misreading. Myfanwy 10:53, 20 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think those are the only possible positions. There are also anti-LGBTs who object to lumping L, G, B, and Ts together into one coherent group (for example, some of the lesbian feminists mentioned above). --Delirium 19:30, 20 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Geographical scope

This article seems to apply mainly to North America, and to a much lesser extent some other countries such as New Zealand and Australia. Can anyone expand it with a more global view? Da Masta 19:22, 15 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Opening sentence

Sorry to be petty, but I think the article begins with a rather badly worded sentence: "LGBT (or GLBT, or Rainbow people) is an initialism used as a collective term to refer to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender people."

Firstly, it implies that "Rainbow People" is an initialism, which it clearly isn't. So, that's either got to be re-worded, or the "rainbow people" reference removed... I personally have never heard the term before, but if it is common, I'm cool with it staying in a better worded sentence. Secondly, should the T stand for "trans" or "transgender"? Both of them are umbrella terms, but most trans people I've met prefer trans... ok so that's not a very representative sample, but still. I know the National Union of Students (UK) LGBT campaign, and most UK student LGBT groups prefer trans. What's the case elsewhere? Saluton 01:59, 26 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, and I for one definitely prefer "LGBT". As well as being far more common in the UK than "GLBT", it flows off the tongue better and doesn't give the impression of being in order of how marginalised they are. Saluton 02:25, 26 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

See what you think of the way I've modified it. (Feel free to make further changes.) -Aleta 02:47, 26 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Nice try at changing it, however, it does feel a little bit tacked on now. Would anyone object if we removed the term altogether? I too have never heard of it before (frankly I can think of few things worse than being called a "rainbow person") and there are also many other terms refering to LGBTs and none fo these are mentioned (nor arguably should they be in the introduction to the article). I'll leave it for a few days in case anyone holds the term dear and then remove it and wait to see if I'm struck down by lightning. Intesvensk

I've never heard of it outside this article either, but then I was allowing for the possibility that it is commonly used in another anglophone country, but just not in the UK. I guess that it should be fine to remove unless someone can come up with proof in the next few days of said use. --Myfanwy 18:56, 4 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

OK - trying to find some reference for "rainbow people" (I, too, have never heard the term elsewhere) - I found this LGBT-in-anime page which defines nijijin as "literally 'rainbow person'; refers to people who gather under the rainbow gay pride flag". I don't know yet if that's the main context of the term. If I find anything else useful, I'll post it here. If this is it, though, we should drop the mention of the term. -Aleta 05:07, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hey hey. Thanks for trying to find out about this. I agree though, it is looking like this is something that should be nowhere near the introduction of the article. I mean, in Sweden gay people are sometimes referred to as tvecksam handleder (lit. doubtful wrists) but it is a vaguely interesting side note to the topic at best. Lets give it another day and delete if we don't find anything more. Intesvensk

Ok, I have deleted it. If anyone has any problems with it then feel free to put it back (preferably with a source as I would love to know where on Earth people use the term in everyday speech) Intesvensk 15:47, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Examples

I'm considering the inclusion of examples in the article, such as the description used by the Triangle Program of Toronto, which bills itself as "Canada's only classroom for LGBTTI2QQAP youth."[4] I don't know whether such examples merit their own section, should exist only as footnote references, or should not be included at all. 72.244.207.209 18:34, 8 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]