The LGBTQ community has seen controversy regarding acceptance of different groups (bisexual and transgender individuals have sometimes been marginalized by the larger community), but the term LGBT has been a positive symbol of inclusion and reflects the embrace of different identities and that we’re stronger together and need each other. While there are differences, we all face many of the same challenges from broader society.
In the 1960′s, in wider society the meaning of the word gay transitioned from ‘happy’ or ‘carefree’ to predominantly mean ‘homosexual’ and was an umbrella term that meant anyone who wasn’t cisgender or heterosexual. The community embraced the word ‘gay’ as a mark of pride.
The modern fight for queer rights is considered to have begun with The Stonewall Riots in 1969 and was called the Gay Liberation Movement and the Gay Rights Movement.
The acronym GLB surfaced around this time to also include Lesbian and Bisexual people who felt “gay” wasn’t inclusive of their identities.
Early in the gay rights movement, gay men were largely the ones running the show and there was a focus on men’s issues. Lesbians were unhappy that gay men dominated the leadership and ignored their needs and the feminist fight. As a result, lesbians tended to focus their attention on the Women’s Rights Movement which was happening at the same time. This dominance by gay men was seen as yet one more example of patriarchy and sexism.
In the 1970′s, sexism and homophobia existed in more virulent forms and those biases against lesbians also made it hard for them to find their voices within women’s liberation movements. Betty Friedman, the founder of the National Organization for Women (NOW), commented that lesbians were a “lavender menace” that threatened the political efficacy of the organization and of feminism and many women felt including lesbians was a detriment.
In the 80s and 90s, a huge portion of gay men were suffering from AIDS while the lesbian community was largely unaffected. Lesbians helped gay men with medical care and were a massive part of the activism surrounding the gay community and AIDS. This willingness to support gay men in their time of need sparked a closer, more supportive relationship between both groups, and the gay community became more receptive to feminist ideals and goals.
Approaching the 1990′s it was clear that GLB referred to sexual identity and wasn’t inclusive of gender identity and T should be added, especially since trans activist have long been at the forefront of the community’s fight for rights and acceptance, from Stonewall onward. Some argued that T should not be added, but many gay, lesbian and bisexual people pointed out that they also transgress established gender norms and therefore the GLB acronym should include gender identities and they pushed to include T in the acronym.
GLBT became LGBT as a way to honor the tremendous work the lesbian community did during the AIDS crisis.
Towards the end of the 1990s and into the 2000s, movements took place to add additional letters to the acronym to recognize Intersex, Asexual, Aromantic, Agender, and others. As the acronym grew to LGBTIQ, LGBTQIA, LGBTQIAA, many complained this was becoming unwieldy and started using a ‘+’ to show LGBT aren’t the only identities in the community and this became more common, whether as LGBT+ or LGBTQ+.
In the 2010′s, the process of reclaiming the word “queer” that began in the 1980′s was largely accomplished. In the 2020′s the LGBTQ+ acronym is used less often as Queer is becoming the more common term to represent the community.
The way I’ve already seen uncountable “Netflix is hiring!” Ads. They’re really just gonna hire scabs and pretend the WGA strike isn’t happening….
This is a reminder to anyone who wants to go into screenwriting. This is not an opportunity to get your foot in the door. Do not take any writing jobs during the strike. This includes freelance or “script editing” jobs.
You will be a scab. Scabs are barred from union membership. By crossing the picket line to get your foot in the door you’ll be burning one of the most important bridges in your life. You will actively be harming your future job prospects.
This strike will end one day. Those writers who are out picketing will reenter the writers room and start producing work with the legal and financial protections and guarantees they’re fighting for, and you will not be among their ranks. You will be a scab. A traitor.
A lack of union membership will harm your prospects job wise. Do not scab. Knowledge of your scabbing, traitorous ways will cost you your ability to make friends in the industry. Do not scab. Support the WGA as they fight for your rights. Do. Not. Scab.
Get hot water, not boiling hot but almost hotter than you can stand, and put a metal spoon in it for a few seconds. Take the spoon and put it against the mosquito bite for about 30 seconds. Do it a few times if you like. The proteins that cause the itching are susceptible to heat and break down.
WHY DON’T THEY TEACH THIS SHIT I have four decades of suffering from skeeter bites behind me
One study on 146 individuals treated with a Bite-Away heat pen found similarly effective results from heat treatment; thankfully, spoons dunked in water cost way less than the Bite-Away’s 30 bucks.
You can also blast the bite with a hair dryer - learned this from my mom and it works great
Thanks to this post, I have four swiftly-healing, non-itchy mosquito bites and one second-degree burn
When Overwatch 2 launched last October, it was framed by Blizzard as a PvP-only early access preview of a game which would eventually include a substantial PvE campaign, to be added in a later patch.
Today, Blizzard’s representatives admitted not only that the PvE campaign mode has been scrapped, but that the internal decision to do so was made in late 2021 – meaning they’d been knowingly lying about the game’s planned feature set for nearly a year at the time of the October 2022 early access launch.
a great thing about people transitioning is it presents us with scenarios where we have the perfect control variable to undeniably reveal sexism in the workplace. I read about a trans man neuroscientist who was told he was “so much smarter than his sister” (his sister being his pre-transition self)
and damn i knew the gaming industry was notoriously sexist (even more sexist than other stem fields, and that’s saying a lot) but seeing it laid out so clearly like this is so demoralizing.