Louis On Air Posted June 23, 2016 Share Posted June 23, 2016 So first a bit of backstory: I've been thinking of ideas for a series on YouTube called 'How to fix.../How to not ripoff...' and one idea was 'How to fix LGBT+ online visibility' after seeing comments of people assuming that the 20,000 genders on Tumblr are how LGBT+ people think. Anyway I came up with a 3-tier system for categorising all these terms (for now only identities like aromantic and not other concepts like amatonormativity and squish) which I'm only conceiving to aid LGBT+ education by breaking down all the identities into bitesized chunks (basically you can say "there are a lot of terms yes... but you only really need to grasp tier 1". I might drop Tier 3 but not if it proves a useful divider. This isn't gonna be perfect but is it ok? Sexuality Tier 1- Simple Preference -Heterosexual (opposite gender) -Homosexual (same gender) -Bisexual (male and female) -Pansexual (all genders) -Asexual (no attraction) -Gynosexual (female) -Androsexual (male) -Ceterosexual (non-binary) Tier 2- Detailed Tier 1 & Umbrella Terms -Demisexual -Gray-asexual -Autosexual -Bi-curious etc... Tier 3- Incredibly Particular/Combination -Autoandrosexual -Demipansexual -Homozoosexual etc... Romanticism Tier 1- Simple Preference -Heteroromantic -Homoromantic -Biromantic -Panromantic -Aromantic -Gynoromantic -Androromantic -Ceteroromantic Tier 2- Detailed Tier 1 & Umbrella Terms -Demiromantic -Gray-aromantic -Lithromantic -Arospec -Quoiromantic etc... Tier 3- Incredibly Particular/Combination -Gyneceteroromantic -Homolithromantic -Romantic Automobilophilia etc... Gender Tier 1- Simple Preference -Female -Male -Transgender -Agender -Non-binary -Genderfluid -Intersex Tier 2- Detailed Tier 1 -Demigirl -Demiboy -Genderflux -AFAB -AMAB etc... Tier 3- Incredibly Particular/Combination -Demitransmasculineflux -Non-Binary Male Presenting -Intersex-Genderflux etc... Obviously it doesn't matter which tier holds a label of yours, but if people knew the more distinct labels before getting into more detail, maybe people would be more willing to understand those more particular terms if they know where they come from. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
omitef Posted June 24, 2016 Share Posted June 24, 2016 I've been thinking about this problem for awhile too. But over time, I've realised that maybe, trying to get other people to understand exactly what identifying with a certain label means might not be the best solution. Let me give an example: when I came out as trans for the first time, many cis people asked me what being trans felt like. And I can't really explain what being trans "feels" like in a way that cis people would understand, because they aren't trans.They will never perceive gender the way I do. For cis people, there is no "gender assigned at birth," there is only "gender." Cis people could only understand me as "a woman who wants to be a man," not "a person assigned female at birth who slowly realised they were a man." But what I noticed was, even if cis people didn't understand what being trans meant, they still accepted me. Which led me to the following questions: Is understanding necessary for acceptance? What is the purpose of understanding in the LGBT+ community? If acceptance is the end goal of LGBT+ people, then maybe we should focus on achieving acceptance as our end goal, not understanding. I cannot speak for all who are LGBT+, but for me, acceptance is enough. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
XesEri Posted June 24, 2016 Share Posted June 24, 2016 I've always thought of this almost the opposite way, with my tiers being broken up into direction and magnitude or condition (for attraction), and gender being presentation (appearance, name, and pronouns), then sort of the way you have with labels used publicly (if a totally accepting person asks your gender, and you could be out to this person, this is what you say), and then super deep detail (this is the stuff that really isn't necessary to explain to other people, but might help you come to terms with yourself or understand yourself). For example, if a person is demiromantic and homoromantic, the "direction" level would be homoromantic. That is what other people who know this person would think when they look at this person's relationship history and it's generally the information that will be relevant more (excluding when in aro spaces, of course), and gives prospective partners an idea of whether this person could be attracted to them. The magnitude or condition then becomes relevant if the direction is satisfied. So, if the hypothetical demi/homoromantic person meets a nice person of their own gender, their condition for experiencing romantic attraction is a close bond, which they may (or may not) explain to their prospective partner. After establishing this bond, they may or may not be attracted to the person. It's uncertain, but such is life. Gender is pretty much the same rationale. For example, a few weeks ago at pride prom I met a person. This person would have seen (as he had eyes that see) that I was wearing a dress, had long hair, and other gender expression that typically reads as "girl," but when we were introduced, heard a fairly neutral name and pronouns. That's as much as a stranger on the street is going to see/hear. While it's not a label in its own right, it's a sort of public identity that everyone has, being perceived socially as one of 3 groups, "masculine" "feminine" or "uncertain". If he had asked, as it was a safe place and there was no reason to not tell the truth, I would have been okay telling him that I'm genderfluid, but that's really all the clarification that should be needed. Gender doesn't really matter all that much in most interactions and as long as the right pronouns and such are being respected specific identity labels really don't affect a ton. Beyond that, labels are generally private "me things" that nobody else really cares about, that aren't worth bringing up except maybe in trans circles. For example, I could tell people that I am a librafluid demiboy nan0girl* but it is pretty much meaningless to most people and, honestly, most people really don't care beyond making sure they have the right name and (some people) right pronouns. Super-specific identity labels are more useful as a way to monitor my own thoughts. *disclaimer: I do not actually identify as such. I just wanted to use an example of an identity that someone could have that would be beyond what is socially necessary to know. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cassiopeia Posted June 24, 2016 Share Posted June 24, 2016 Well making sense of your orientation is never easy, especially with all this latin in it, and because these terms were created on a "I kinda feel like this" basis and not a scientific one. We have historical marvels like the concept of lith/stone butch. Is that gender? Its that sexuality tier 2, with some possible hints of the romantic orientation? Its kind of all that but people use it all sorts of ways depending on what generation of queer culture they grew up with. And then the whole butch, femme, lipstick, twink, bear, otter, thing (and the rest)? Is that gender presentation? Its also strongly implies sexuality? But kind of vaguely, all sorts of queer people use them. Tricky. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dodgypotato Posted June 24, 2016 Share Posted June 24, 2016 I like this idea. Although I would add polysexual to the tier 1s. However many people are stupid. And the people saying these kind of things (the sort of comments on YT's latest pride video) are those stupid people. I think this would help! But some people will never accept this. We need to keep educating the young so that the new generations are more accepting. That is why the current young generation is already a lot more accepting of racial and sexuality issues. As most of us won't be having kids, we should form a cult. A cult dedicated to stealing children, educating them, and returning them. We shall feed them icecream for breakfast, lunch, and dinner... THE PAPO FAMILY Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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