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It appears that, seriously, placebos are getting more effective. Not relative to other drugs—actually improving. What's happening here?
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LGBT…Q? I had to look it up. Q means "queer." And that's different than those other four things…how? Which I'm not allowed to say, because I'm straight, but I'm *supposed* to say it in an acronym? Listen, I was willing to rattle off four letters. But Q? Not gonna happen.
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No, the “Q” means “questioning” not “queer”. As in questioning whether or not one is gay, lesbian or transgender. Especially relevant or helpful as a safer feeling label to take on for young people.
Now that I’m looking, I’m finding claims that it stands for both. Which is even more confusing.
Waldo- just wait till you hear the argument about whether sex presupposes culture, if gender and sex are interchangable, or if gender presupposes sex. It’s fun, because your answer affects your stance in the debate over whether transsexual is an umbrella term, covering, among other terms, transgender, or whether it’s simply a term on equal footing with transgender. And I’m way over-simplifying.
I had to edit an article last year (I’ll westlaw it and send you a copy if you’re interested) that used venn diagrams to explain it. I’d read it with a bottle of aspirin; venn diagrams with more than 6 circles tend to make my head spin, at the very least. It’s interesting as hell, but it sure gets complicated––and people get really emotional.
Oh! And the “Q,” meaning “queer,” could also cover those who are, for example, gender non-conforming, but who are heterosexual and cis.
I think the (re)claiming of derogatory terms by minorities has been a popular part of several movements in recent history.
A google search for “reclaiming queer”: http://www.google.com/search?q=reclaiming+queer&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
Now I know how old people feel when told that they’re supposed to say “African-American,” replacing their already-learned “negro,” “colored,” and “black,” in that order.
RE: Placebos
There’s a commercial out right now for a smoking cessation drug. It actually highlights the fact that the drug was shown to be 44% effective for cessation compared to the 18% of placebos. Think about that for a second.
The commercial clearly states that there is a nearly 1 out of 5 chance that just by someone giving you a sugar cube, you’ll be able to quit smoking. Why not take the sugar cube first and see if that works? And then you don’t even have to worry about side effects except maybe cavities and diabetes, but there are drugs for that.
If it means anything, I don’t follow the Q stuff either. And you haven’t even seen the GLBTQQIA acronym yet. It’s out there. (GLBT+Queer, Questioning, Intersex, Asexual) We do love us some acronyms. (ugh)
for the record, that “James” up there is a different James than me, the one who usually posts here under that name.
and I generally find “Queer” to be a pretty comfortable, catch-all category for discussing anything non-heterosexual. So do most of the Queer people I know. Actually… make that ALL of the Queer people I know.
In my opinion, people who fixate on overzealous taxonomy are more often than not just control freaks who feel the need to categorize and label EVERYthing. This applies to people who name fictional Metal subgenres and create Wikis for obscure Star Trek minutia just as much as people who can’t get their head out of the Gender Theory box.
(Not that I have anything against gender theory. My point is: if we were gonna have an abbreviation that was fully inclusive of EVERY single person’s sexuality, we’d have an alphabet soup as long as the human race.)
Actually, most transsexuals and intersexed people are straight, so queer doesn’t apply.
Transsexuality is about having a neuroanatomical sex that doesn’t match the general anatomy – which leads to a desire to become bodily consistent. Intersex is a general term for a body matching neither male nor female stereotypes.
GLB is about sexual orientation. Transgender about, well, transgressing gender norms in other ways.
I’ve seen GLBITTTQQ before now, in the terminally politically correct. Gay Lesbian Bisexual Intersexed Tranmssexual Transgender Two-sprited Queer Questioning.
GLBTQQIA? Oy. I’m stopping at “T.”
Basically, the problem here is that human sexuality and ID politics are infinitely varied, and LGBTQ… is an enumeration of variations. This is a problem.
What the term should be is “not utterly straight and/or gender normative”.
I recall attending a “Lesbian and Questioning Women” group in 1986 in Virginia. Except for a single M2F transgendered woman, everyone else was bio female as far as I know.
Huh? When’s the last time someone told you you couldn’t use the word “queer”, Waldo?
Like other words that I’m not allowed to use because I’m not a member of that group, I don’t use them, so I’m fairly sure that I couldn’t give you a date. The last time I remember was round about 1991. But, really, “queer” is way too loaded to use with anybody other than a friend. I understand there’s a long-term effort underway to reclaim it from its status as a schoolyard insult, but it’s not far along enough that I’m about to start tossing the word around.
Yeah, “queer” is not a word to be used lightly in reference to people.
Lo. Dead.
for me, “queer” is like the n-word: when a word has that much historically-accrued power to hurt and marginalize, people who can’t be hurt by it have no business using it (unless, of course, they WANT to be hurtful). if the people who can be hurt by it want to use it, that’s their prerogative.
oh, don’t forget the synonym for queer that starts with an f. I don’t even like to type that one out.
Ah. And sorry for being so late on the reply. I guess I read your reaction to it (specifically, the bit analogizing your confusion to those who don’t understand why they’re not supposed to use the word “colored” anymore) with some of my own confusion. Of *course* no one uses it in a casual or derogatory sense (“Yeah, that queer over there is with me.”), but I wouldn’t think twice about using it in talking about “queer politics” or “queer activism” (and am surprised you would). It’s all context, no? And I guess I just thought it was pretty clear context.
I’m of an age to just barely remember the 1969 Stonewall riots. Wish I had been there. One year later, I WAS at the FIRST gay pride march ever on June 28, 1970 from NYC’s Greenwich Village to Sheep’s Meadow in Central Park. It was an outstanding day that I shall never forget.
I do not recall the word “queer” used during march chants or on signs and banners at that event. In fact the first generation after Stonewall spent a lot of effort trying to rid the vocabularly of “queer” and a lot of other words used by bigots to insult gay folks.
Fast-forward to about the late ’80s/early ’90s. A new generation adopted “queer” as a badge of honor. Some of us still cringe when we hear them self-describe as “queer” or the generation now coming along use it. I’m afraid the genie is too far out of the bottle, though.
As I understand it, the “Q” in “LGBTQ” stands for “Questioning.” I think the origin of it being used that way lies with PFLAG (Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) and with high school and college Gay-Straight Alliances. In other words, “questioning” is a label (albeit often temporary) describing persons just beginning to explore the possibility they are a “sexual minority.” In these examples, usually young people.