One community, one family, one flag

How do we decide who belongs where?

I talked about this yesterday already, in reference to Laurie Penny’s “There is no LGB without the T,” but there’s always more to say. Stonewall preached the “all stand together” line in response to the debut of the LGB Alliance:

The LGBT community is at its strongest when we stand together 🏳️‍🌈 Let’s raise each other up today and every day. We are one #LGBTQFamily

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That’s a lot of colors though – are they all one community and one family? And how do they know? How do we know, how does anyone know? How do we know who belongs in and who belongs out?

We know it’s not everyone. It’s a specific group, set, tribe, “community” – it’s not all humans. But then what makes it a community and family while the rest of the humans are not part of it? Why are trans women in while feminist women are out, for instance? What exactly is the commonality? And how does anyone know?

I suppose the truth is it’s a silly question, because they don’t mean it that way. It’s not meant as a statement of fact but as a demand for obedience.

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