Thursday 24 October 2013

lgBt and Europe

Another press release lands in my in-box from the European Parliament's LGBT Intergroup. This one's on tackling hate speech. It mentions homophobia and transphobia...


This is far from the only time they've left that yawning gap. The LGBT Intergroup defines itself as "LGBT" and yet so very often I find it only talks about homophobia and transphobia.

If the "B" is meant to be in there, why doesn't the Intergroup also talk about biphobia? Sometimes things are specific to homophobia or transphobia or both, specific to lesbians and gay men, specific to trans people.  I don't expect B to be in there on every occasion - though equally I do expect there to be times when an LGBT organisation will have things to say that are just about the B. Time and again the LGBT Intergroup publishes findings, calls to action, and suchlike that give the impression they think "LGBT" just has the B in there as a cheap substitute for an ampersand.



Try the results for these searches on their website:

http://www.lgbt-ep.eu/?s=biphobia&submit=Search
http://www.lgbt-ep.eu/?s=transphobia&submit=Search
http://www.lgbt-ep.eu/?s=homophobia&submit=Search


Two produce pages of results. One draws a blank.


And naturally, they had nothing to say about Bi Visibility Day last month.


I've dropped them a line and will report back on how that goes...

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