Talk:LGBTQ

Move review requested

• Wikipedia:Move_review/Log/2024_September#LGBTQ

Bluerasberry (talk) 21:07, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

Late comments for the rename of LGBT - > LGBTQ

I am late posting comments for the above closed move review but I wanted to share anyway. Thanks. Bluerasberry (talk) 12:47, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for your video. Some thoughts:

• Even in the move we did discuss adding the + and I think most of us (myself included) would have liked to see it for the same reason you called out on inclusivity. But we also acknowledged that the + is much newer and the data on its usage is still much smaller than the Q, so it was hard to suggest it as a policy based reason, since article titling on en-wiki follows the policies pretty strictly.
• You mentioned there is no article on Queer people, which I find confusing, we do have an article for it and it does talk about a lot of the details of what it defines. Anyone is welcome to add to it of course as you know, but I don't think it's fully accurate to say it isn't discussed in our articles. And as it is understood as an umbrella term that is becoming more broadly used (as the data shows) now than LGBT, it seemed appropriat to expand to it.
• You mentioned UN, which while doesn't have an office exclusive for us, it does advocate and has used the Q, alongside I and + for a long time when advocating for our rights and has a very public policy by the United Nations Secretariat on the UNITED NATIONS SECRETARIAT STRATEGY ON PROTECTION FROM VIOLENCE AND DISCRIMINATION OF LESBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, TRANSGENDER, INTERSEX AND QUEER (LGBTIQ+) PERSONS.

Overall, I do very much appreciate your thoughts, and as I said above, personally I would love to see the +, but this was discussed in prior years as well and most people argued that the data doesn't support it and unfortunately it's one of those cases where Wikipedia does lag behind until the RS does use the + more than it doesn't, so we can't really lead the charge here without getting accused of WP:RGW, even if sometimes there may be cases such as this where extending it to LGBTQ+ would be explicitly more inclusive. Raladic (talk) 15:11, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

We could choose to diverge from the article for the wikiproject eg naming the wikiproject LGBT+ or LGBTQ+. It's only the mainspace that has to follow policy and RGW so strictly. lizthegrey (talk) 15:42, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

Imho the article and all the categories should speedily be moved back, the discussion above it not large/representative enough for such a massive change in long-standing convention.★Trekker (talk) 08:46, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

I have mixed thoughts about renaming LGBT to LGBTQ for different reasons. On one hand, I understand that LGBTQ is more used than LGBT currently as it would be more inclusive towards anyone who are part of the umbrella and with the "studies" that shows that LGBTQ is common than LGBT. But on the other hand, there are some:

• LGBT has a lot of acronyms so reading an article where LGBT and other similar acronyms like LGBTQ, LGBT+, LGBTQ+ etc. Appearing in the same sentence can be confusing to some. Not to mention some Wikipedia pages still uses the four letter acronym such as Portal:LGBT, Timeline of LGBT history, List of LGBT rights activists etc.
• LGBT/LGB has been around longer than other acronyms and almost all of the terms have the same four letters in them. Queer can still be a slur against some people as well.
• As for data and studies for which acronym is more common is not always reliable, for example a quick google search for "LGBT" has around 530,000,000 results while "LGBTQ" has around 383,000,000 results. The Ngram for the terms is not really reliable as both LGBT/LGBTQ in all caps and lgbt/lgbtq in small caps have different results on which term is more commonly used.

Imo, I feel like keeping LGBT as the title is fine the way it is but I also agree with LGBTQ+ being the title would be better if you to be more inclusive. LGBT/LGBTQ+ or anything similar could also work as a title if it were possible. Mangolemonz (talk) 20:04, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

Comparing the two shows that the lowercase forms make up a tiny fraction of all occurrences compared to the uppercase forms, so are probably not significant to the discussion. This Ngrams query by SilverLocust shows all four terms; toggling the "case-insensitive" button (which counts "lgbt" and "LGBT" as a single word) makes no perceptible difference in the data.

Ngrams is a useful proxy for how often a term occurs in reliable sources (published books tend to be somewhat more reliable than random webpages). Google Search, by contrast, is not particularly reliable or useful for this purpose. The number of total results for any search may just be an artefact of their opaque indexing algorithm, and not necessarily representative. –RoxySaunders 🏳️‍⚧️ (💬 • 📝) 06:02, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the video, @Bluerasberry. It's definitely easier to convey nuance in a video than via text, so I think you add a bit more here that is helpful for illustrating where you are coming from.

A few thoughts come to mind:

1. I wouldn't mind more info about queer people in the queer article. Or maybe a separate article altogether. However, I'm also not sure how different the latter would be from a page on LGBT(Q+) people more generally. I guess there is the added addition of people who don't identify as L, G, B, or T, who nevertheless identify as queer (e.g., heterosexual but non-heteronormative people as one example, but also I and A folks). But then that also strengthens the argument that the Q is necessary in LGBTQ, as it ostensibly covers those identities as well. If we need an article on queer people as distinct from LGBT people, then we also need LGBTQ. What RSes do we have on that subject?
2. I still can't wrap my head around why LGBTQ is somehow more exclusive than LGBT. That doesn't really make sense to me. I get your point that adding the Q while not adding other letters may privilege English-language terms favoured by academics, but that's also a problem with the nature of RSes more generally, and we're not here to "right great wrongs".
3. At least in the UK, and I suspect the US, terms like gay and LGBT have been seen as unrepresentative by some groups anyway. The former is especially seen as too focussed on cis white homosexual men. So I actually think LGBTQ is more acceptable for POCs in those places. In non-English-language countries, the issue is largely moot, because they have their own local language terms they can use anyway. That should have no bearing on what English-language Wikipedia uses. Where a specific group uses a specific term to refer to themselves even in English, we can of course respect that, but those would be exceptions rather than a blanket rule.
4. I think the average person probably isn't super consistent with which letters they use anyway. Or at least, they'll be unperturbed by a mix of LGBT, LGBT+, LGBTQ+ and LGBTQ. Most people won't even notice (we as editors might do, but that's presumably part of the motivation for editing).
5. The number of links and articles that need changing shouldn't be a major concern. Otherwise, Wikipedia would never implement widescale changes. Anything that can be done manually can be done manually, but anything left as LGBT will redirect to LGBTQ anyway, so it's not an issue for most users of the website and it's not an urgent task for editors and admins. Any piping that occurs in the meantime is unlikely to have an appreciable effect on the user experience.
6. I fully expect to have the same discussion in a few years when we decide to add the +, and that's okay. Don't let perfection be the enemy of good enough, and all that. Incremental change is fine, and is preferable to delays. Just think how much time would've been saved if we'd settled this days ago and just got on with it. We can always change things back later on if RSes or other evidence suggests it was the wrong decision.

Lewisguile (talk) 09:23, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

@Bluerasberry Thank you for your extra dedication of putting in a video and wearing a formal attire for a bunch of Wikipedians.

The other comments have made great points about common name and reliable sources and not censored, but I would like to attempt to address your central point, although I am not well-versed in the topic.

In my opinion, LGBTQ is a word that will stick for a long time as it is unlike LGBT which consistently fell out of favor in the past decade.

Of course, it begs the question why. LGBTQ is arguably a synonym of LGBT+ as the Q is intended to cover all the +. LGBTQ is also seen as more meaningful as the Q which refers to all non-cishet persons is intended to capture the nature of all the +.

It helps to look at the common progression thread of the term, LGB -> LGBT -> LGBTQ -> LGBTQ+ -> LGBTQIA -> LGBTQIA+. Here we see that LGBTQ is intended to recognize the diversity of the community.

As we want to be more inclusive, we start to add more letters, then it gets awkward as it is never enough, we start to add the plus sign, then it gets ambiguous as to how many letters are hidden by the plus sign.

Ultimately we realize the previous LGBTQ has addressed all of these, making it not only the common name, but also the descriptive name. Sir Kenneth Kho (talk) 11:34, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

Rename of WikiProject LGBT studies

•  Discussion ongoing: Rename of WikiProject LGBT studies
  Sincerely, Dilettante 16:21, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Words as words

Should we unitalicize terms like LGBT, and/or LGBTQ? 213.132.76.9 (talk) 06:21, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

Requested move 15 September 2024

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: withdrawn. isn't it obvious that this, and other RMs, just serve to waste editors' times? I should listen to what I say sometimes. (closed by non-admin page mover) LilianaUwU ^{(talk / contributions)} 07:03, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

---

LGBTQ → LGBT – The fact that "queer" is still considered a slur by some in the community should be enough of a clue for the article to omit it. Also, isn't it obvious that this, and other RMs, just serve to waste editors' times? LilianaUwU ^{(talk / contributions)} 06:01, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose. The recent RM that closed with a clear consensus to move to LGBTQ was based on the latter being established under the WP:COMMONNAME policy. The application of WP:NOTCENSORED is particularly important here; we cannot suppress mention of queer individuals (where warranted by policy) because some people don't like their chosen identity.--Trystan (talk) 06:45, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

  I can tell you that LGBTQ is not the common name. And no, I'm not suppressing mention of queer individuals. They're just not in the common name yet. LilianaUwU ^{(talk / contributions)} 06:52, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Lambda for LGBT...

Lambda is used for LGBT. It is just the first letter in Greek. The current elongation of syllables has been the subject of derision.

Even if you don't want to change the article title, include a Greek letter lambda as short for LGBT.... Arbeiten8 (talk) 14:03, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

It is not one of the initialisms, but one of many LGBTQ symbols#Lambda that may be used by the community.

If we were to include it in the lead, we’d need strong RS to support that it is widely used.

I think a better place is to add it to the List of LGBTQ acronyms which documents the many different terms used to refer to the LGBTQ community, or LGBTQ slang. Raladic (talk) 15:15, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

It's well placed in the symbols article. I agree with Raladic that we'd need stronger sourcing to mention it here (and I doubt such sourcing exists). I'm not sure it really belongs at the acronyms or slang articles, but that's a discussion for other talk pages. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 15:28, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Requested move 10 October 2024

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: not moved. Per WP:SNOW. No arguments were presented that were not considered at Talk:LGBTQ#Requested move 14 August 2024. (closed by non-admin page mover) -- Maddy from Celeste (WAVEDASH) 11:55, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

---

LGBTQ → LGBTQ+ – The name "LGBTQ+" is the name for the community. Kolano123 (talk) 19:49, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

• Comment - While many of us would have preferred LGBTQ+, this was discussed during the recent Talk:LGBTQ#Requested move 14 August 2024 discussion, but currently the data doesn’t support it yet as LGBTQ+ still lags behind in usage (Google Ngrams for reference) behind just LGBTQ, which is why that was chosen as the new article title.

Article titling policy is fairly strict on adhering to the WP:COMMONNAME, so it may yet be a few more years before LGBTQ+ may overtake LGBTQ. Raladic (talk) 20:47, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose this would have been the consensus of the very recent move discussion if people thought it was the real common name. As in a lot of cases, Wikipedia is a lagging indicator of usage and must wait for books/the press/the public to catch up with whatever the latest name is. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 02:54, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

Snowclose. I strongly prefer LGBTQ+, but we had a well-attended discussion about this less than 2 months ago, plus drama afterwards and a Move Review from queer-exclusionists. It's too soon to revisit this. Let's come back once Ngrams updates with 2023 data; I anticipate this will be the last nail in the coffin. –RoxySaunders 🏳️‍⚧️ (talk • stalk) 12:36, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.