LGBTQQ/SGL

[Mark Mandel]

Thanks, Arnold.

Mark

On Thu, Sep 16, 2010 at 10:01 AM, Arnold Zwicky <zwicky at stanford.edu> wrote:

> On Sep 15, 2010, at 7:26 PM, Larry Horn wrote:
>
> > At 10:07 PM -0400 9/15/10, Mark Mandel wrote:
> >> Just sent to my synagogue discussion list in response to an announcement
> >> forwarded by our rabbi:
> >>
> >> ========
> >>
> >>>  Representatives from numerous area organizations and programs serving
> >>> *LGBTQQ/SGL* youth and young people
> >>
> >> I can't keep up with this ever-growing initialism. I think i know LGBTQ
> --
> >> lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgendered/queer -- but after that I'm lost.
> What
> >> does the final "Q/SGL" stand for?
>
> the Q is for "questioning" -- one of the possibilities you suggest in your
> next posting.  this is an extension of the category, to take in a set of
> people not in the historical core.  the historical conceptual development is
> from G&L or L&G (the homo core), to take in B, and then T.  at every stage
> there are questions about whether the extended category is socially and
> psychologically real, and those questions continue with suggested additions,
> of Questioning people (exploring their sexuality and puzzling about it),
> Intersex people, Eunuchs, Friends and Family, PWAs, and an assortment of
> people with non-normative desires and/or engaging in non-normative sexual
> practices (BDSM folk, leatherpeople, furries, and much much more).  to some
> extent the addition of Queer to the mix is intended to take in some of these
> conceptual extensions -- but it's also to some extent a labeling or
> identificational matter, as in the choice of "homosexual", "gay", or "queer"
> for same-sex-desiring !
>  people.
>
> > I'd have guessed "single", but I'd have been wrong. According to the
> > info at the YES! Coalition (Philly) site,
> > http://www.yescoalitionphilly.org/outreach/,
> > it's "Same gender loving".  I'm not sure how that's different from
> > the other categories.  Seems like maybe it's a question of
> > identificational rather than referential distinction.
>
> yes, one of the motives for messing with the initialism is to give
> something for everyone in the category in question to latch onto, regardless
> of the labels they prefer for themselves or others.  this can be a
> self-defeating strategy, since people who use one label may reject being
> associated with people who use another (self-identified "queers" might
> refuse to have anything to do with a "gay" group, for example -- and might
> argue that this isn't just a preference for a different name but a different
> social identification).
>
> there's also the incredibly important question of the *purpose* of all this
> categorization and labeling.  in Mark's original example, the purpose is
> providing social support services to a particular target group picked out by
> sexual desires.  in other social-service settings, the target group is of
> people engaged in particular sexual practices -- notably in providing health
> and medical services to men who engage in or are likely to engage in sex
> with other men: G and B men, plus MSMs ("men who have sex with men"), who
> typically reject the label G or B for themselves (i've written about them on
> Language Log on several occasions).
>
> there are other contexts, of course -- groups formed for political action
> or representation ("speaking for" the mumble-mumble-mumble community),
> groups formed for mutual support, groups formed for socialization with one
> another, etc.  typically, such groups have mixed and shifting purposes.
>
> >> =======
> >>
> >> (And what's the difference between "youth" and "young people"?)
> >>
> > I'd guess one of the groups is younger than the other, but I can't guess
> which.
>
> i believe that the intention is to take in "teens" and "young adults",
> respectively.  but the category divisions -- though socioculturally real, i
> think -- are vague, and the sociocultural divisions tend to get mixed up
> with legal distinctions, and in any case the ordinary-language labels for
> the groups are unsettled (no matter what technical vocabulary the
> professionals settle on for their own uses), so that if you want to offer
> social services to these people, you'd do well to offer a variety of labels.
>
> arnold
>
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>

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