GLAAD Fumbles the Ball... Hopefully for Good.
By Kai
In light of GLAAD's recent release of their updated Media Glossary of Terms, I would like to take a quick look at all of the terms they have deemed acceptable and what I, a Gen Z lesbian of color, should avoid when referring to my…brethren of folx, for lack of better words. If you are unfamiliar with this organization, these are their own words on their "About GLAAD" page:
"Founded in 1985, GLAAD is a non-profit organization focused on LGBTQ advocacy and cultural change. GLAAD works to ensure fair, accurate, and inclusive representation and creates national and local programs that advance LGBTQ acceptance. Serving as a storyteller, media force, resource, and advocate, GLAAD tackles tough issues and provokes dialogue so that authentic LGBTQ stories are seen, heard, and actualized. GLAAD strives to protect all that has been accomplished and helps create a world where everyone can live the life they love."
…what a load of postmodern hogwash.
Getting immediately to the point at hand, it is abundantly clear that the group formerly known as the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, now just known by the acronym GLAAD, has successfully been prioritizing and spearheading the shift in the cultural zeitgeist away from protecting against homophobia in hopes to appeal to the "post-gay," "queerified" timeline in which we currently reside. Gone are the days of looking to GLAAD for earnest ways to present gay, lesbian, and bisexual stories in the face of perpetual homophobia in the media and our lives. If anything, GLAAD's hyperfocus on supporting queer theorists and gender ideology within the past five to ten years strengthens my distaste toward the "Media Glossary Resource" on their official website.
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Let's take a straightforward term, as seen in the acronym GLAAD: Lesbian.
What does it mean to be a lesbian? For me, the answer is a simple one – a homosexual (READ: exclusively same-sex attracted) woman (READ: female). GLAAD's response is as follows: "A woman whose enduring physical, romantic, and/or emotional attraction is to other women [...] Avoid referring to lesbians as 'homosexuals.' Ask people how they identify before labeling their sexual orientation."
Quite a meandering response, isn't it?
How is Gay defined, then? In this scenario, I would say Gay commonly refers to homosexual men. GLAAD, on the other hand, defines gay as "An adjective used to describe a person whose enduring physical, romantic, and/ or emotional attractions are to people of the same sex (e.g., gay man, gay people)." They go on to again advise us to avoid using homosexual because it's "an outdated term considered derogatory and offensive to many lesbian and gay people."
You may now be asking, "What's offensive and outdated about saying homosexual?" GLAAD, too, has defined this as a "Term to Avoid." Their reasoning may as well have come out of a magician's hat (or my rear end): "Because of the clinical history of the word "homosexual," it is aggressively used by anti-LGBTQ activists to suggest that people attracted to the same sex are somehow diseased or psychologically/emotionally disordered – notions discredited by the American Psychological Association and the American Psychiatric Association in the 1970s."
Okay, stop. Just stop. Hold the phone. When have you ever heard anyone past the 1990s use "homosexual" in this way – never mind the 2010s to the present day? If anything, the people who are using the term homosexual tend to be gays and lesbians who are fed up and reject the muddying of language and definitions, myself included. If homosexual is to be avoided, how will it be possible to accurately define the way a gay man or a lesbian feels?
That's the point, you can't. There's no such thing as same-sex attraction in the eyes of Gender Ideologues and Queer Theorists alike. You have to "be into" someone's gender identity, lest you use the terms "androsexual" and "gynesexual" to attempt to describe your same-sex attraction. Even those terms are borderline offensive to specific groups of people (those being radical trans activists and their hench–erm, allies). In their eyes, an opposite-sex attracted woman who is pressured to stay with her husband/boyfriend during his transition – read: autogynephilic fantasies – is now in a "lesbian" relationship just because her man put on a dress, cosplayed his dame's looks to the exact hair strand, and slapped on she/her pronouns with anime girl profile pictures on social media. HE gets to be a lesbian, while I am reduced to being a gynesexual, "same-gender lovin'" black "womxn" who is excluded from dating apps due to the "genital preference" I must have for rejecting this same straight man's advances onto me.
GLAAD, if you'd like to personally reinstate my Tinder profile on the basis of wrongful defamation…the floor is yours. It's in your name, right? No? I'm a bigot? Good to know.
This does not even get into the whole Bisexual+ diatribe, as if the sexuality that implies there being only two sexes needed an unnecessary and bloated DLC* update.
GLAAD has decided to present a whole research study and campaign for Bisexuality+, showing that you can be bi and somehow only into biological males, including transwomen. This nifty little DLC pack includes but is not limited to: Bisexual, pansexual, trisexual, omnisexual, queer, and whatever else your twisted, postmodern mind deems acceptable. All of these made-up words (with the exception of bisexual and queer) are used to erase one's bisexuality on a systematic level.
Within the legacy "LGBTQ+” organizations, the leaders and advocates of queer theory and radical trans activism have pushed a narrative of perpetual victimhood and a related inability to gain the full social and political acceptance they need to thrive. Truly, the stronghold of modern pop culture and social media exposure could argue otherwise in the case of these legacy NGOs. Once the pendulum inevitably swings back, however, these organizations will blame the "evil gender-critical crowd" with pointed fingers. This has already harmed the acceptance, rights, and autonomy of homosexuals, women, and children. Some gay influencers may have enough clout to make this a full-time fight, but the average user who reads or hears my words will need to understand one thing: we have a growing chance of pushing back against foes such as the Dylan Mulvaney stans and the notorious legacy LGBTQ+ NGOs when more people use their voices to push back. We must make minor adjustments to our lives to accommodate common sense community building like the LGB community has done for years prior.
The term "homosexual" is not offensive or outdated– it's simply the term that denotes exclusive same-sex attraction. "Bisexual" denotes the same-sex and opposite-sex attraction one may feel. If it is not already clear, the suffix "-sexual" is about WHO your sexual orientation is directed toward instead of HOW that sexual orientation is acted upon in day-to-day life. Have we seriously gotten to the point where sexual orientation means absolutely nothing to the organizations and community that are supposed to support and protect us from blatant homophobia? Is it any surprise that actually bigoted people will take a look at what GLAAD is doing to perpetuate queer theory in mainstream Pop culture, combined with social media personalities with large followings being able to have a platform of nonsense, and assume we have caused the slippery slope fallacy to come into fruition?
GLAAD may not be the first to openly present a narrative shift away from correct sexed language (not even by a long shot), but there really is no way anyone can look away from this anymore. This is actively rewriting the course of gay activism and the stories of our history. But, hey, that's what GLAAD wants, right? "Rewrite the script for 'LGB'TQ acceptance."
The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation was started with good intentions and did solid work for many years, but its new incarnation, GLAAD, has become a joke, and I don't want to stand idly by anymore while the very people claiming to support us make a mockery out of every bit of progress we have gained.
Interesting that the word gay is allowed to mention same sex attraction but not lesbian, and by interesting, I mean a tool to tell trans identified males that it's the lesbians who don't want you who are the problem, not you.