MAP Forum

This was touched on in another post but I'll create a separate post here.
The LGBTQ+ community is often talked about as one harmonious community but the reality from what I understand is that it's quite fractured.

In recent years there's been debate about whether T (transgender) should be included alongside LGB. Actually some LGB groups have actually formed alliances that exclude transgender. I think the LGBTQ+ community as a whole doesn't encourage these splinter groups but over recent years it has increased. There was the high profile "Drop the T campaigns" in the UK and other countries.

Bi people have talked about feeling marginalized within both gay and straight spaces. There's even in a term for it, "bi-erasure".

There's been controversies around pride events with some cities seeing events split into separate events such as Prople's Pride and Reclaim Pride where people argue that the original radical spirit of pride has been co-opted by businesses and sanitized for mainstream acceptance, leaving the actual marginalized groups behind. If maps were included in map-pride then you'd see the company sponsors taking down their flags, so it's now a business promotion brand rather than really putting marginalized people first.

There are divisions along age lines with older activists who lived through the AIDS crisis or early Pride protests clashing with younger members over tactics, language and priorities since younger people often push for broader inclusion while older people tend to push for less inclusivity. For maps, younger members are more likely to be open to inclusion than older members.

Racism and classism have been reported issues as well. Queer people of color have reported racism within the main (usually white led) LGBTQ+ spaces and the new corporate nature of Pride events mean that working-class people are more marginalized in those events and their organisation.

There's a debate as to whether asexual and aromantic people should be included, these are people with little or no sexual attraction.


So plenty of division and tension but a general recognition that going under the LGBTQ+ flag even if they're not happy about it, gives strength in numbers. But tensions and division are real and sometimes there are high high profile splits such as the LGB Alliance in 2019, Radical Faeries, Lesbian Separatism, the ACT UP and Queery Nation split to name a few. There's also a turning of the tide against trans people, it's very visible in the US, the UK courts recently ruled against Trans people being women, there is fear and tension and confusion and I wonder how united the LGBTQ+ community is towards the trans community?


The reason for this post is to ask whether there is an opporunity to form coalitions with other groups under a more inclusive banner? From what I understand, younger activists tend to lean more towards more inclusion of different groups and minorities. Could an alliance form between maps and groups that are unhappy with the corporate LGBTQ+ brand? Forget lettering, something like "My Pride" or "Love for Good" or anything like that and it encompasses all sexualities including asexual's with no sexuality. It doesn't even have to name sub-cultures, sub-cultures can self organise but still be part of one alliance. No sub-culture can judge other sub-culture, all sub-cultures respect other sub-cultures even if they don't connect with them, but respect means standing with. Is the turning of the tide against trans people, the new class wars and commercialization of LGBTQ+ an opportunity to build something with other communities? Perhaps starting with trans groups or gay groups that also have members who are gay and also attracted to younger males for example.

I think there are two divisions. The first, within the sphere of respectability/legitimacy within the current standards; the second concerning potential legitimacy.

1. Current Standard. TERFs versus Trans rights activists/bisexuals (curiously it's often lesbians which take issue with bisexual women, hence the term "gold star lesbian"); it's to do with gatekeeping LGBT rights.

2. Radicals. Don't want acceptance within the current system, for example, family and gender abolitionists.

I think people need to careful about thinking the first division is the same as the second. For the majority of people in both parties of first division, they would tend to agree on gatekeeping MAPs out of LGBT rights, though it goes a step further. Not only do we not belong in the LGBT community in their eyes, there's also zero-sum thinking towards us; i.e. if they supported our legitimization, it would come at the price of their legitimacy.

I expect there are radicals, being anti-authoritarian (or at least anti-bourgeois), who would be more sympathetic than us, but the question is whether we can agree with radical principles. If becoming an anarchist or Maoist is the entry cost for those kinds of allies, how feasible is it?

I'm shifting towards the view that MAPs should view LGBT as the "enemy of my enemy." Particularly for their support for sex outside of the purpose of reproduction against religious conservatives (although as people rightfully point out, their opposition to child marriage creates issues). Another way of thinking of it is support religious conservatives because of child marriage is one step forward, two steps back, whereas supporting LGBT is one step back, two steps forward. Having a more sex-positive society is in the best interest of MAPs, as opposed to having a more sexually repressive society, if only for the indirect effect of making sexual pleasure a right rather than a side-effect of some social responsibility.

That all makes sense and raises interesting points and arguments.

I wouldn't expect the LGBT community as a brand to accept maps because it would of course badly harm brand identity for no benefit. But it's the clean, corporate branding approach that has been a frustration to some within that community. For those, the LGBT brand is no longer representative of them, it's now a coopted brand that serves a different purpose. T's are not on brand so much for everyone these days either, so for some there's a move to be more about LGB as a safer brand. Actually B's express frustration about being pushed to the fringes by pure LG's so the purists are more about LG and that's the safest from a corporate marketing perspective.

It isn't so much about maps being welcomed into the LGBTQ+ brand but whether that brand is losing its prestige inwardly and outwardly. There seems to be issues from outside towards that brand and what it represents and those inside the brand are feeling that and it's causing fractures within. We know that Maps were ejected when it was convenient to do so, some in the + are particularly feeling the pressure and the T and Q isn't as safe as they once were, will Trans people be as welcome and on-brand in the future? There are those who argue that Trans isn't a sexuality like LG and should make its own way in the world outside of the community.

When one coalition falls because of prejudice and history can show that maps were an early group to be ejected in the same way it at least raises the question whether such coalitions can exist in a robust way and if they can do they need to be more inclusive and less worried about brand since it was the coopting of brand that led to the fall of the first coalition? I don't know, I'm just gaming out the scenarios but I do think there's the potential for new collaborations as a once respected brand fractures. I wouldn't expect L, G, B, T, Q or +'s to openly support Maps, but a coalition that welcomes all while allowing each to remain distinct, but agree to foundational principles of rights to dignity and respect regardless of sexual orientation or views would create a safer place to build from for maps.

It feels to me like trans rights are more corporate friendly than TERFs at the moment, although I could be wrong/have an outdated impression. I think TERFism is political in a way that biphobia isn't. TERFs will actively try to undermine trans rights, but biphobia happens more at an interpersonal level.

I think the trouble contemporary the LGBT rights movement has is because the comparatively low hanging fruit has been used up, and now the more controversial questions about transgender rights, and (more significantly, I feel) the spread of LGBT rights outside of the West are very divisive. It's kind of like where the democratic factions go after a dictatorship or autocrat gives way to democracy. My feeling is that as Western gay and lesbian people get further away from the era of persecution, prejudice, and having to hide, they will become less engaged with politics through the lens of being LGBT. As that breaks down, it largely becomes a matter of aesthetics: TERFs are uncomfortable for the radical individuality/subjectivity of modern progressive culture because of their sex essentialism (i.e. women have shared experiences based on having the same body versus gender is a matter of self-identification and experience varies from individual to individual), while criticizing non-Western countries for their treatment of LGBT rights comes across as too adjacent to racism.

I think trans identity has historically been more thoroughly connected with to homosexuality than pedophilia. From the category of "inverts" (that combined the two), to shared gender non-conformity, to drag being associated with gay bars. While it's true that pederasty is central to an honest account of gay history, heterosexual pedophiles have never been part of the LGBT community as far as I'm aware. I sometimes wonder if gay and lesbian MAPs had completely distanced themselves from heterosexual MAPs, would they have been more politically successful?

I think it was a matter of "any port in a storm," back when there was more common ground between MAPs an LGBT people. When both groups were outsiders facing a great deal of hostility, it made sense for LGBT people to be more tolerant of MAPs. Now, not so much. If TERFs do end up becoming the mainstream of the LGBT movement (which I think is unlikely), then potentially they will put trans people in a position where they would be more sympathetic or tolerant of us. However, even then, I think what limited recognition trans people have had means that even if it is undone, they will still think of themselves as above us/more legitimate than us.

I think the most likely allies today (in terms of demographics) are non-MAPs who have been charged with sex offenses, given they are often in very similar situations to MAPs. Outside of that, in purely ideological terms, I'm sure you're aware my opinion is that advocates for civil libertarianism and criminal justice reform are our best bet.

However, having said all that, I hope you're right and I'm wrong. I'd like to be wrong about this.