Talk:LGBTQ community

Scene verses community

To me, the Scene is something rather different from the Gay community. We should distinguish between the two... OwenBlacker 12:19, Jun 18, 2004 (UTC)

Postmodernism

I totally did not understand this sentence:

Postmodernist gays, for example will often view the gay community as just another social construct.

A community is a type of social structure. I think that makes it a "social construct" pretty much by definition. I was wondering if the author meant that postmodernists (and it need not just be postmodern gays, I guess) would tend to view homosexuality or "gayness" itself as a social construct, and thus the notion of a gay population of any kind is also a social construct. Can someone explain this better or point to any primary sources for postmodern views of gaity? -- Beland 05:19, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Top 5 US Cities with a high gay community

Where are these statistics from?

From "Gay"

After some discussion on the gay page, it was deemed that the information on the gay community would be better served on the gay community page. In a coupll days it will be removed from the Gay page and a link will reference the reader to coem to this page. --Waterspyder 05:12, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

A further extension of social globlization ?

Sorry, but what was that suposed to mean ?

merging Wikipedian categories

On Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion#Wikipedians_by_politics, we're talking about standardizing formats for WIkipedian categories (putting "wikipedian" in most, that sort of thing). Josiah Rowe brought up the question of why we have both category:LGBT SOFFA and category:Queer Supportive Wikipedians. How would people feel about a merge of those two into category:Wikipedians who support the LGBT community? Make a comment at the CfD loation if you like, or here.--Mike Selinker 20:04, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

"The notion of the gay community and 'controversial"

How the article began, "The notion of the gay community" and that it can be "controversial" represent POV's, not fact. I replaced it with a description that is more factually accurate. Can anyone give me an example of a sentence that begins, "The notion of", that isn't followed by something negative? Example: "The notion that Sally can act is silly." Also, the term "controversial" can be mentioned later, but should not be included in its initial description. Michaelh2001 20:32, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

The whole term 'gay community' is controversial, in that it's not accepted that it even exists. Same with 'black community'. The terms are divisive, dreamt up by marketing people and used by politicians and the media, then shoved down the throats of ordinary citizens going about their lives who have no need whatsoever and who receive no benefit whatsoever from stupid terminology such as this. Yet the whole article is written as if '<whatever> community' is without controversy and has universal agreement. The article is also massively biased towards the USA, unsurprisingly. And the USA, of course, just happens to be the place that is so segregated into marketing 'communities' that there's scant sense of normal humanity left. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.29.183.158 (talk) 18:57, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Requested move

Proposing move of article content to LGBT community (with redirect from Gay community) to reflect more inclusive and current terminology. -- User0529 (talk) 02:44, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

• Opposed. Sorry, opposed on this one as well. Lately I've heard LGBT communitie-s but generally the phrase has been "gay community" and I think that's the starting point that the lede will correctly and quickly spell out is often used to refer to all LGBT peoples even though we don't speak as one or even have a leader (see gay cabal). In time this may change but it will be a long time as it's the mainstream term. And gay boys having sex seems to remain the ... ahem ... sticking point with many. Banjeboi 03:15, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose It still seems to be referred to as the Gay Community, even if it does encompass other things, so common name I think would still go to Gay Community. Narson (talk) 21:30, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
• Weak oppose Though LGBT seems to be more accurate term than is gay, "gay community" is by far the more common one, and is understood inclusively. Carl.bunderson (talk) 20:00, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

"Criticisms" Section

I really hate that this entire article is written in a textbook/artsy prose rather than a more easy-to-read format that flows well. But I digress. I have a particular problem with the "Criticisms" section, though, and am going to attempt to expand on it and clarify it a bit. I will also try to cite some sources as I have time (funny there are no sources on most of this article period). I don't think it sounds clear (at all) in its current form, and don't think it hits on the true nature of internal criticisms within the gay community. I don't disagree with the tone of the section or what the section is trying to say, but I just feel like it is written very poorly and doesn't explain enough. Further editing or clarification is appreciated. 68.12.110.233 (talk) 02:53, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

It's not perfect so someone else please improve. I will come back in and source as I can. 68.12.110.233 (talk) 04:26, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Ideally no articles should have criticism sections and the content instead woven into the rest of the article. I'd say continue tightening up each sentence and then look to splitting it up to the most relevant areas. I'm working on some other stuff but will check it in a bit. Banjeboi 20:23, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

I've removed this section from the article entirely. None of the claims made by the author have been referenced, so there is no consideration for inclusion of this research in the first place. Please do not re-insert it without citations. 74.242.121.63 (talk) 00:09, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Red link removed

I removed the red link to "drag shows." There is not a page for this, so the link is a dead link. Juri Koll (talk) 16:22, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Actually it should be sent to drag or drag queen, I sent it to drag queen as that seems most logical for the context. -- Banjeboi 23:42, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Proposal: Move to "LGBT community"

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was no consensus. @harej 02:16, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

---

Gay community → LGBT community — - The name "gay community" is ambiguous, as it can mean any one of "LGBT community", "gay men and lesbians community", or "gay men community". This article is about the LGBT community, so it should be under that title for clarity. --Alynna (talk) 13:55, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

• Support. Lesbians in general are sometimes called gays, but tend to prefer to be called lesbians, and LGBT is the normal term used to include lesbians (females), gays (males), bisexual (both male and female) and transgender (sex change). 199.125.109.99 (talk) 01:35, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

• Still opposed for now, LGBT community should redirect here, and it does. LGBT people are still and possibly most commonly called "the gays" no matter how incorrect that is. There is also the fact that there is no one community, there are in actuality thousands of overlapping and intersecting communities. As much as Wikipedia has standardized the use of LGBT the rest of the world does not usually do so. The article should make these points clearer if it doesn't already but I feel the title is fine for now although there might be compelling reasons to do so. -- Banjeboi 02:41, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
  • I agree. Probably 90% of the population thinks that LGBT must be a misspelling, or variation, for LS/MFT. 199.125.109.99 (talk) 06:03, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
    • Perhaps it's because I'm not American, but I had never heard of LS/MFT so if you mean Lucky Strike, I suspect that "90%" is a significant overestimate. As for the proposed move, WP:COMMONNAME applies as supported by the WP:GOOGLETEST and the page name should stay as-is.—Ash (talk) 08:29, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
    • I'm American and I've never heard of LS/MFT. In my experience, most people know that LGBT is something to do with gay people, but aren't sure what it stands for. But my experience skews towards liberal and/or diverse areas. --Alynna (talk) 18:06, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
  • Oops, I didn't see the other discussion earlier on this talk page. Sorry for the rehash. "Gay community" is a more common term than "LGBT community", so I see the argument for leaving the article at the "gay" title. The main reason I requested this move is that someone recently removed a link to transgender, arguing that trans isn't part of gay. If this article is really about the nebulous community of all LGBT people ("LGBT community", for short), then that link belongs, but the title "gay community" is causing confusion for some editors. Regarding your other point, I agree that there's not one monolithic community. I'm not actually sure "the community" is a coherent topic to write about; it's sort of a smooshing-together of an assortment of LGBT-related topics that don't have much to do with each other: LGBT culture, LGBT rights and LGBT social movements, media representation of LGBT people, and demographics of LGBT people. That's probably because when people refer to the "gay community", they usually mean either "the set of all gay/LGBT people" or "the set of all LGBT activists and organizations". Should this article exist at all? --Alynna (talk) 18:06, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
• Weak Oppose. For the move to be valid, we'd need to establish that (a) there's such a thing as the LGBT community (which, per Benjiboi above, I don't think we can), and (b) the undeniably common term "Gay community" is synonymous with it, which I don't think it is. It's possible that a _new_ article LGBT community could be split off from this one, leaving this one to be solely about the male homosexual community - but I don't think that such a split is appropriate at the moment. Tevildo (talk) 18:43, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

• Support For reasons of clarity and WP:COMMONNAME. Even though I'm straight, I'm familiar with the term - LGBT is quite a common term now in the UK and Europe, maybe its less common in the USA. I agree that "gay community" is ambiguous, as many individuals covered by the scope of this article, including lesbians, bisexuals and especially transexuals, may not find themselves covered by the term "gay". 84.92.117.93 (talk) 22:43, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
  • Oh it is common in the U.S., but only in the gay community. 199.125.109.99 (talk) 15:05, 9 November 2009 (UTC)
    • In Britain it's quite common in mainstream media as well. 84.92.117.93 (talk) 16:39, 9 November 2009 (UTC)
      • Interestingly, I tested that, and found only 13 news sites in the uk domain for LGBT and 180 for gay, while in the .com news sites a majority did include LGBT. Not common enough to make the move, I would still say (558 for LGBT and 532 for gay), especially considering the overwhelming use of gay in the uk. 199.125.109.99 (talk) 18:16, 9 November 2009 (UTC)
• Neutral for now. I use the term LGBT a lot in articles, but to refer to may overlaping groups. There are certainly times when the "gay community" refers to LGBT pople all together, but also times when the gay part of community is seperate from Bi or trans parts (sometimes even in opposition), so needs treating seperately. To some extent an LGBT community exists, if only because of overlap of bars and magazines etc, but it is much less coherent than the gay community. If something get written on the trans or bi communities, i can see a place for an overarching LGBT community article, with the separate identities also having subarticles if large enough.YobMod 18:24, 9 November 2009 (UTC)
• Support - LGBT is the more common usage. Jeni ^(talk) 01:29, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose - GLBT, LGBT (and increasingly more letters) are becoming more common but are still far from universally understood. Jonathunder (talk) 05:52, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
• Comment. Out of curiousity ... presently "gay community" yields 489,000 Google-hits vs. 268,000 for "lgbt community". If someone is inspired maybe popping in all the variations would also be entertaining. -- Banjeboi 11:36, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
• Comment - Wikipedia in general uses LGBT, because it is the correct term in some instances. (But we try to spell it out wherever we use it.) The issue is not whether "LGBT" is acceptable on Wikipedia (it is), but whether this article should be called "gay community" or "LGBT community". As I said above, I'm willing to accept that the former is a more common term -- just wanted to clarify what the issue is. --Alynna (talk) 13:15, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
  • Maybe we should look at the use of both terms and when they are about equal we can simply switch over? -- Banjeboi 01:21, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
    • Wouldn't the opposite apply in that case, I thought it would be common sense to avoid moving pages in such a situation as the same argument could be used to move it back again.—Ash (talk) 05:28, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
• Support. LGBT may not be quite as common but to my mind the use of a term that is ambiguous and possibly raises the expectation of a different topic to many than is actually presented (because gay so often is associated with males only), should bend to a term which is far more precise but not quite as common.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 13:22, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose - As per my comment above, COMMONNAME applies.—Ash (talk) 14:06, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

• comment I'm not sure that common names works well here. We use the most common name "of the person or thing that is the subject of the article" (emphasis added). A Google test tells us very well, but generically, that "gay community" is used far more often than "LGBT community", but it does not tell us how many of the sources in the results for gay community actually refer to a different topic, i.e, the male gay community alone. Every source that uses the phrase in that restrictive manner cannot be counted in the commonality column for "gay community" because the topic they are referring to is not this one. That's why concerns of precision cannot be separated out.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 00:14, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

What should this article be about?

Now that we've determined it's not going to be moved, I'd like to formally open a discussion on what this article should be about. Currently, it's an assortment of LGBT-related topics that don't have much to do with each other: LGBT culture, LGBT rights and LGBT social movements, media portrayal of LGBT people, and demographics of LGBT people. That's probably because when people refer to the "gay community", they usually mean either "the set of all gay/LGBT people" or "the set of all LGBT activists and organizations". I'm not sure this article makes sense as a coherent topic.

Banjeboi said elsewhere: "The article should be about what is meant by the phrase and why there actually isn't a single definable community. The etymology and use of the phrase as well could echo to what we have at LGBT."

I propose we create a new Demographics of LGBT people article, merge each section from the current gay community article into the appropriate main article for that section, then rewrite this page as what Banjeboi suggested. --Alynna (talk) 14:12, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

We have Demographics of sexual orientation, {{Demographics of the United States}}, and {{Demographics of US}} which might be useful. A guideline of helpful information might be this builder-template which gives some of the demographics lingo. My hunch is that potential article could actually grow here but otherwise am unsure the best way forward. BTW there is also Demographics of Queens but that may not be as helpful. -- Banjeboi 20:34, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

What I had in mind was different from Demographics of sexual orientation. That article is about the prevalence of homosexuality/bisexuality. The article I am proposing would hold the information currently in gay community about education level, income, and mental health, in addition to new information such as race, tendency to live in urban/rural areas, housing status, etc. It could also give more details - some of these things have been studied separately for lesbians, gay men, and transgender people (probably bisexual people too sometime). --Alynna (talk) 22:47, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

I suggest starting a subsection on this article regarding the demographics - even if they are limited to data from the US or remain country-specific, etc. Start migrating the content there. I know there is Witeck-Combs Communications, Inc. which has gone US-based surveys and undoubtably other surveys have also taken place. When you feel it's large enough then birth the article. In the US it was big news that the 10-year census in 2010 will include more data on LGBT people so the timing is great. The lede of the section/article could include how exact numbers remain elusive. -- Banjeboi 11:20, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Scene vs community

Further to what Owen Blacker said in 2004, having Gay scene redirect here might be OK if the article was a little different - but the article is pretty much "Gay issues" - again not to much of a stretch, but the combined effect makes this a bad redirect. Rich Farmbrough, 20:13, 28 June 2010 (UTC).

POV/Questionable wording

First sentence of the rights section:"The LGBT community represents a social component of the global community that is believed by many, including heterosexual allies, to be underrepresented in the area of civil rights". Who are the many, gays, rights groups, heterosexuals, celebrities, people in general? And how much is many, it's too ambiguous and has no citation. Furthermore is, "including heterosexual allies", necessary I'd assume any of their supporters coming from any group wouldn't believe they have equal rights (or they obviously wouldn't think they need more rights), this sentence seems to be borderline propaganda to me.