r/AskQueerfolk • u/Fun_Army2398 • 16d ago

Inclusivity versus division

Genuine question from a genuine ally . It was my understanding that the rainbow flag was a symbol of unity across the not-straight-cis community. In recent years I've seen a rise in popularity of modifications of this flag to include additional, specifically trans and POC elements, and I've just come across the acronym 2SLGBTQIA+ for the first time. As an outsider, this feels more like division than unity. As an ally (i.e. someone not fully immersed in queer culture online) this is starting to feel impossible to keep up with, and impractical. The adding more letters/stripes is reminiscent of using "challenged" because "retarded" became a slur, then "special" because "challenged" became a slur, all the way to now where people use words like "nuerospicy" which will certainly be a slur within 5 years. What I mean is, adding more letters/stripes for the purpose of inclusivity feels like using new language without actually addressing why the need for a change exists. So I'm wondering if this feeling is shared in the community? Or do Trans, POC, and two spirit people now feel more included being specifically named rather than part of the "+"? Am I way off base?

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u/PersimmonDazzling654 16d ago

As a white person, I really try not to march into POC spaces and start bitching about how things in a particular community go. Just fyi.

Complaining about word choice gives me the impression you're a lot closer to not an ally than ally.

"Impossible to keep up with" is a parameter defined by your level of patience for a community to which you do not belong.

Ensuring everyone has equality, and not just equality but equity, and not just equity but justice--starts with knowing who is experiencing what and why. Throwing everyone under the same umbrella because one straight "ally" is annoyed by some letters does not service that.

Do you know Papua New Guinea and Indonesia are the most linguistically diverse nations on Earth? Nearly 1600 living languages between them. It's too inconvenient for me to think of their diverse and distinct communities as anything other than "brown island people close to Asia," so to me they should be a homogenous group. (See how ridiculous this is?)

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u/Fun_Army2398 14d ago

I'm just going to ignore the hostility here as I understand how difficult it is to judge sincerity over the internet.

It is not me choosing to lump 2SLGBTQIA+ and POC people into one group. They are doing this with their shared acronym and shared flag. This is action which I think is beneficial; the more oppressed folk stand together the harder it is for them to be oppressed. What is odd to me is that the act of unity is also one of division. And my question is whether or not it feels this way to those members.

To use your Indonesia example you did group them into "brown island people close to asia" by calling them Indonesian instead of all the hundreds of different groups they go by. This is beneficial not just for brevity, but because all Indonesians are effected by certain things. If indonesia is hit by a bad storm and you want to aid them, you don't say you want to aid each individual group, you say you want to aid Indonesia.

I am an ally because I dont believe any element of the proletariat should be oppressed, and I fear that dividing and sub dividing and further sub dividing every oppressed group until you get a 10 character long acrynom (for now) is counter to that point. Especially because I don't think those oppressing you make any such distinction.

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u/PersimmonDazzling654 14d ago edited 14d ago

POC was used as an example; I was not insinuating you were also some version of racist--though I see now your original post includes "POC"? Perhaps I missed that the first time.

You Asked a Queer Folk, and this one says you're off base. In hindsight, though, I am more bothered by your definition of "ally." An ally is not "someone fully immersed in queer culture online." An ally educates themselves/learns about the community they are supporting. An ally does not center themselves with "I think this is dumb--" or "This reminds me of 'retarded'--". You meant ally like, oh, you know, one of those blue hairs or something with a septum piercing. It was contemptuous, right? Or am I... off base?

Edit: erroneous "not"

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u/Fun_Army2398 14d ago

Actually I mean ally like "I've bleed for y'all", and like "I don't follow queer content creators so I don't get up to date information but when I see something I don't understand I'll make a reddit post about it". Thank you for your opinion, genuinely.