March 24, 2024 - 1:00pm
Open-mindedness is generally considered a good thing. But if you’re too open-minded, it’s easy to forget exactly what you were standing for in the first place. That’s what’s happening at some of the US’s biggest LGBTQ rights organisations, such as Glaad.
Glaad has been influential in American politics for decades, ever since its founding in 1985 to initially advocate for victims of the AIDS epidemic. But since then it has evolved to focus on new issues, such as transgender rights and social justice activism.
Recently, it’s been discovered that the latest iteration of Glaad’s language guide labels “homosexual” an “outdated” and “offensive” term that should be avoided. It recommends using “gay” or “lesbian” instead, but even those are now potentially problematic. Glaad thus suggests the alternative “same-gender-loving”, which the organisation describes as an “Afrocentric alternative” to “what are considered Eurocentric, or white, identities like gay and lesbian”.
At first glance, this is just another example of social-justice ideologues engaging in mental gymnastics to try to stay ahead of the curve (and perpetuate a justification for their organisation’s existence given that many of its initial goals, such as destigmatisation of AIDS victims and gay marriage, are long since achieved).
After all, while “homosexual” was sometimes used in a derogatory manner, it doesn’t really have a negative connotation anymore. And the same could be said, exponentially more so, for the term “queer”, which was originally used almost exclusively as an insult, yet Glaad nonetheless lists “queer” as a favourable, enlightened term for us to now use. This is inconsistent, to say the least.
As a gay man, I’d much rather be called “homosexual” — an accurate term simply meaning attracted to the same sex — than “queer”, a nebulous term that most people don’t know the definition of. Meanwhile, “same-gender-loving” is not just a ridiculous alternative but an inaccurate one too. Gay people are not attracted to people of the same “gender” — at least not in the way that folks like Glaad define gender, which they use as synonymous with gender identity, or one’s internal feelings.
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SubscribeThe author nailed it when he said Glaad achieved its victories decades ago. So it either moves the goal posts to further justify its existence, jobs and fundraising, or closes up shop and walks away. Rinse and repeat for the Southern Law Poverty Centre, Greenpeace and the hundreds of NGOs dominating today’s political landscape. It’s the iron law of bureaucracy. The cause becomes secondary to the welfare and growth of the organization itself.
Same with Stonewall and Hope not Hate in the UK. Nowadays both are essentially engaged in rent-seeking. Maybe one day taxpayers will rebel against the widespread parisitism in the third sector – but right now is the hottest business model in town.
Jim, why do you think you get to decide when Glaad has done its job? Who put you in charge? Why shouldn’t all of these organizations continue to advocate for their causes, especially in the face of the desperate rear guard action that conservatives are trying to mount?
No, Jim, these folks will continue to fight their corner and there isn’t a thing you can do about it because you are wrong on every single one of those issues!
I have a legitimate question. When in your opinion would the LGBTQI+ movement’s work be done?
We can agree that Glaad achieved its initial goals and then set a new set of goals. That’s fine. Maybe we should start with a simple premise – no govt funding for any NGO, no matter what the cause. If they have true grassroots support they won’t need it anyway. By the way, I have no idea if Glaad gets govt funding. I assume they do, but maybe not..
Fine. Let them raise the money for their campaigns themselves instead of leeching off taxpayers who mostly wouldn’t contribute to them if they had a choice.
The article points out the problem. The more disparate causes an advocacy movement embraces, the more the danger of conflicts of interest. For example, lesbians advocate for biological females, while transgenderists believe gender identity trumps biological sex. Lesbians are fiercely opposed to biological males in female spaces and sports, while the transgenderists are adamant that they have a right to be there.
Well put – we need an adult discussion on the basis of a clear understanding of the difference between sex and gender. As the author says: It is a question of acknowledging and working with reality; right now, so much effort is spent fighting against reality, which is a battle that cannot be won.
It seems like every generation needs to fashion its own description of homosexuality in order to obscure what homosexuality really is: two people of the same sex having to use their imaginations to have sex with each other using incompatible equipment. The gay rights movement should have remained an effort to protect homosexuals from violence, incarceration, and worse for doing things in private that humans are reflexively repelled by. That was the very reasonable place where it started. But it has morphed into a movement where those who are repelled by it can never admit that. In fact, they are required to appear to celebrate homosexuality. Worse yet, it is claimed that they are afflicted with a phobia because they’re not cool with homosexual soft-porn in the grade school library and are exhausted by a lot of superfluous and deliberately artless parades down Main Street. I hope the next front in the culture wars re-balances these iniquities and restores the right of people to be grossed out by homosexuality while still protecting homosexuals. Maybe calling homosexuality “homosexuality” is a good place to start.
This is a very grown-up comment on the subject. I think most people are sick to the back teeth of having to hear about it all the time. I much preferred it when it was a personal aesthetic choice rather than an orthopedic socio-political movement. For the love that dare not speak its name it sure has been surprisingly vocal.
By ‘most people” do you actually mean the tiny minority of people who are infuriated by the fact that nobody cares in the slightest what you think? Yes, that sounds more like it!
Of course, “most people” don’t care too much about what others get up to the bedroom either and we don’t find an episode of Modern Family or Will and Grace something to get into a rage about.
I don’t think it’s just me who reads that sentence and thinks it doesn’t make any sense.
What part do you need me to explain for you, sweetie?
The part that doesn’t make sense.
good….I thought you were replying to Jones….but good. from a non socialist.
“The love that dare not speak it’s name’‘, in the true sense first coined by Alfred Douglas and subsequently defined by Oscar Wilde, was actually a form of intellectualised Pederasty.
“That great affection of an elder for a younger man […] such as Plato made the very basis of his philosophy” – Wilde.
But that’s another conversation altogether.
I”m astonished and delighted to read those words ‘humans are reflexively repelled by.” If we acknowledged this more often it would keep the message of gay rights clearly anchored in most people’s reality. How refreshing it would be to be able to say to a gay man, “I find what you do with each other rather disgusting but I totally defend your right to do it.” I suspect such an observation would not go down well, even though in my dalliance with the gay scene in the 60s gay men often referred to women as ‘fish’ (a reference to certain odours) and would loudly declare heterosexual sex to be a revolting business. Le plus ça change …
That’s what I’m thinking. Even the photo accompanying this article demonstrates a sort of wanton ignorance of that reality. The gay rights people need to stop punishing me for not appreciating same-sex attraction. I feel the same way about opening an article link and being confronted with a picture of two men kissing as I do about opening a web page to a video of a violent car crash: I’m repelled and I remove it from my sight as quickly as possible.
Sounds like someone is protesting just a wee bit too much!
Just like those Tories and Republicans who are so anti-gay, right up until their Grindr profile goes public….
You little teases!
So, if I’m following your logic (if I may be so generous), I don’t really find homosexuality repugnant because I’m actually gay myself? That’s lite-beer socialist prattle right there, sweet pea.
I’m doing okay with my “incompatible equipment.”
“Glaad thus suggests the alternative “same-gender-loving”, which the organisation describes as an “*Afrocentric alternative*” to “what are considered Eurocentric, or white, identities like gay and lesbian”.”
WTF??? Afrocentric alternative? In Africa they are “same gender loving”?? Can someone explain to me what it means?
I’m afraid most Africans are rather ‘unenlightened’ in the matter of shirt lifting
Ah Africa, that well known bastion of gay rights. What does ‘an Afrocentric alternative’ actually mean? Though I get the spirit of it easily enough: Africa/black = good, European/white = bad.
“Biological sex” is a tautology that makes me grind my teeth. As a friend of mine says – it’s not laundry liquid coming in bio and non-bio varieties. There’s no sex that isn’t biological.
It’s an infuriating usage, not least because it capitulates to the activists determined to erase sex as a meaningful category.
Good point. I suspect it’s a response to the misapplication of the grammatical concept of gender from language to people. Once that metaphorical misuse was accepted by the taste-makers, it seemed necessary to coin a term to replace the debased one. This is just one example of what happens when that metaphor is taken literally. People need to recognize a metaphor when they hear one; and to know not to take it literally.
This is just another way to beat up heterosexuals who dont care about the endless navel gazing.
Why are you so obsessed about what the homosexual community is doing?
?
Because it’s ubiquitous and acts as a Trojan horse for governments who want to override parental safeguards under the fluffy guise of diversity and inclusion. This is a form of ‘affirmation’ usually provided to children by adults with nefarious intent.
Politics overrides reality. Such is the times.Matthew 24:37-39 As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. 38 For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, Revelation 13:7 He was also permitted to wage war against the saints (God’s people) and to overcome them, and authority and power over every tribe and people and language and nation.
A sad reality is that this insanity is putting legitimate gay rights movements back generations in the non western world.
“Glaad thus suggests the alternative “same-gender-loving”, which the organisation describes as an “Afrocentric alternative” to “what are considered Eurocentric, or white, identities like gay and lesbian”.”
As Black Americans we are so tired of this insulting mockery of our very legitimate movements as well!
https://www.the11thhourblog.com/post/usa-black-people-used-as-avatars-shields-as-marketing-tools-for-gender-ideology
I bet you are. The polling numbers post Obama certainly seem to point in that direction. The other thing that always struck me as an outsider (Sydney) was this constant term black culture. In such a vast nation I imagine there are lots of different “black cultures”.
The whole thing is wrongheaded. Critical race theory inherently breeds sectarianism. It gets in the way of national healing. Not to mention sensible policy. BLM is a retribution movement. This is the last thing Black Americans need or the wider plural society.
For sheer stupidity, out of touch and counter productive approaches the term Latinx takes the biscuit for me. Again, this is an outsiders perspective but from what I can see the Latin community is proud and quite fond of their language. Another group who have steadily moved behind Trump in the polls.
I’m not shedding any tears because your sexual revolution got around to devouring you.
“Queer” is still extremely abusive, offensive and painful for large numbers of gay men. Don’t validate the cultural appropriation of other people’s pain by a load of bored straight people with pink or blue hair. They are parasites.
Queer = Parasite
It may well be; I don’t know.
But it is used ‘officially’, with a (very) serious face in academia. Want to study, say, the classical world? You’ll have to attend the lectures on Queer Theory to enable you to do this properly.
Use the word ‘queer’? You’re a bad person. Doubt the validity of ‘queer theory’? You’re a bad person.
This racket keeps you in a state of fear that you’re a bad person, and will be made to suffer for it. That’s the whole point, that’s why they do it.
Queer Theorists claim to want to ‘queer’ society. It encompasses much more than just sex, although that is a large part of it. When you look at it closely it appears to be an attack by the ugly and stupid upon everything that is beautiful and strong.
Since graduating from primary school to secondary school, my 11-year old daughter is being bombarded by this stuff. At school, at the girl guides, on line and by her friends, the talk is of little else but “gender identity”, sexuality, race and mental illness. Oh, and global warming. I’m not surprised these kids are depressed! I have told her that if she mentions any of these topics within my earshot, I am cancelling the broadband at home.
Change the Wi-Fi password now for the sake of your children and don;t allow them a phone with Internet access..The contagion is more dangerous than Covid.
It is all about size and feeling special. The term ‘size queens’ comes to mind.
I’ve watched Brad Polumbo on YouTube before and agree with much of what he says. Where we part company is his insistence on using the term LGBT when trans has nothing in common with homosexuality. We share no commonality of experience or definition and, while trans people are as free as any other group to campaign against perceived inequality, I feel they’re using LGB people as a Trojan horse because of the more or less successful (and deceptive) conflation of homosexuality with trans. Homosexuals looked to the women’s equality and black civil rights movements for inspiration in our own struggle. We did not mount a home invasion of either. Brad knows this. He’s acknowledged it in this piece. Why then continue to perpetuate the damaging forced teaming of LGB with T? It’s long past time for a divorce.
How about getting rid of the B, too? I’m straight and really don’t have a dog in the fight, but, I don’t understand its inclusion. Maybe that’s where homosexual, while sounding a little clunky when you say it (like using heterosexual instead of straight), makes the most sense.
Yeah, I agree, especially given most allegedly bi people in the millennial/GenZ cohort are bored straight women married/partnered to a man and have likely never eaten p***y in their lives. It’s weird to me that so many younger straights think having some ‘gay adjacency’ makes them more interesting. Believe me, gay lives are as mundane or as exciting as anyone else’s.
I’m a straight guy, but if I was gay I’d be pissed.
And if I were a lesbian, I’d be pissed too.
I remember “homo” as the worst thing I could be called. Or the “fag tag” at the back of my very nice button down shirts…which would be yanked off. The college psychiatric office was contemptuous of me when I came to them for help. It was the girlfriend of a dorm friend whose mother was gay to provide some comfort and support when I had none. now this Gen Z and Millenials have adopted “queer” to differentiate themelves from the like of me and my boomers. I don’t use “queer.” I remember when there was a radical paper out of Boston USA, Fag Rag. So that was an attempt to claim a word of abuse in the sixties and seventies. Yes I think there is biological gender. Generally I agree with the writer. Homosexual…clinical but otherwise an okay description of my identity.