Recently, as a result of the introspection that takes place during Pride month and is freely shared with the world on Facebook, I was corrected by more than one person for not putting the letters used to label our Community in the required order and that this also, somehow, was a clear illustration of my luxuriating in white Gay privilege with my misogyny and the perpetuating of the Patriarchy clearly shown by my not putting the L first, when I go beyond the word “Gay” when describing all of the Community, or GLBT when it seems best to use more than the one word.

“Homosexual”, a clinical term, makes it easy to treat a person like a clinical patient or a condition but not a person and, so, it was replaced by the word “Gay” which covered anyone not Straight, whatever that might be. During the time leading up to the Stonewall Rebellion, Lesbian organizations were still reluctant to become politically active as opposed to being a form of self-support, and there had been a more general debates about how inclusive the visible “Homophile Movement” should be as image would play a part in any progress.

There were levels of interaction between Gay men and Lesbians that ran the gamut from total separation, to feeling victimized by the male population regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity, some internalized and unconscious prejudice in both groups, to working closely with each other for mutual gain something that at times got contentious.

Eventually militancy won out as organizations among the Lesbian members of the Community morphed, dug in, expired, or were replaced, and the business attire image of the Mattachine pickets gave way to the free expression of the 1960s.

You cannot tell the majority society we have nothing to hide if we hide some of us for their comfort.

The traditional word used by the Mattachine Society was “Homophile”, but like “Homosexual” it seemed too clinical. And as the Stonewall Rebellion was creeping up from behind and, seeing the success of others in getting their Civil Rights, the Homophile Movement needed a new approach and a better name.

Gay was chosen for reasons only too obvious and the Mattachine slogan “Gay is Good” gave way to “Gay Power”, inspired by Black Power that had been a successful slogan, and it was under the banner of the Gay Liberation Front that the nascent modern-day post Stonewall Rebellion activism took form.

As women became more obviously militant and saw the role that they had played at Stonewall and had before, just as with the feminist movement in the wider society, Lesbians wanted recognition of their existence and contributions clearly acknowledge and so what had begun as “Gay Liberation” became “Gay and Lesbian Liberation” and the militant Gay Liberation Front became the Gay and Lesbian Liberation Front.

Again, it was a very Binary 1969 not invented by Gay people but lived in by them, and besides the Heterosexual norm, Gay and Lesbian, which included Drag Queens and kings, was all most people knew about gender and nothing further unless someone had a direct connection to someone. The sexual revolution came about because the Victorian oppression of anything sexual had become all too prudish or there would not have been a need for it. Gays and Lesbians lived in that world before, during, and after society grew up, but in which, as they grew, sexuality, forget any variations on the theme, was simply not a topic for polite conversation.

A baby might be a gift from God, but Satan wrapped the gift.

It was the same in the Community. You may have heard there were various types of gender identity, but people were not mixed in numbers sufficient to see all the variations in one place or at all. Closets, forced or chosen, limit free contact with people like yourself beyond yourself and your known world.

This would change over time and letters were added pretty much in their order of appearance, first with Bisexual and then Transgender as people learned more.

Along with which letters are included, there are getting to be quite a few, their order is also somewhat open.

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A number of years ago when Gay topics started entering the news media coverage more frequently, it became necessary to have a universal term for the community for media consistency. When the Associated Press called one national organization to ascertain what the actual name of the Community was, what it was we called ourselves since it was sometimes just “Gay” and sometimes ”Gay and “Lesbian” with the rise of the B and T complicating things, the president of the organization, a Lesbian, unilaterally put the L first, understandable to a degree,  not only taking it upon herself to speak for every person and not just her organization, but having our official title not come from within, but being assigned to us by a misled media.

Although the official media designation is LGBT (etc.) the rule of practice is that the order of letters you choose can certainly begin with the letter of the group to which the user belongs, unless the person feels the letters as one person determined them are cast in stone.

I choose to stay with GLBT for a number of reasons.

The order of the letters is an historical record of how the movement and community grew to become more inclusive beginning with a general G and expanding first to L and then B and T. I am also unsure of all succeeding letters and who might get offended if I do not assign a letter its proper place in order, so I err on the side of caution.

I very often use just “Gay” because its quicker to type and that’s where my mind might be. I know a woman from New York who was in the city before during and after the Rebellion and she refers to herself as Gay because that is what she and all those she fought the fight with had been called when they were fighting, and she holds the memory. Why not?

I spent many decades politically active in the GLBT Rights Movement working with some very effective, yet unsung, warriors who fought under the original four letters and saw their letter added over time on both the East and West Coast and in the Heartland. I have not just entered the fray. I have been there.

Gay Liberation was US speaking and acting for US as US. The objective was to be able to be who we are and not have to accept what role we were assigned.

LGBT was an assigned, non-organically grown name. It is what others decided to call us when we already had a name.

My choice of GLBT is not an erasure, rather, it is a preservation of history. It is not a white-privilege-gay-man-thing that wants myself first, nor is it a revelation of my preference for one member of the Community to remain the supreme member.

It is not a trigger.

And it keeps the memory of some very great people alive to me. Someone else might just see letters, I see the people I knew who gave those letters substance.

If you see or object to the order of the letters and do so based on assumptions without clarification, it would not be the first time I was condemned for what someone else thought up without telling me.

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