Do you consider polyamory to be LGBT+?

[Holmbo]

I'm not sure what the general view about this is. When I talk with people in the pollya community they say it is because it's non normative. But with that reasoning so many other things could be considered queer as well. Like being single for life or celibate. What makes pollya non normative compare to other things?

I think it makes sense to include pollya in LGBT+ contexts. As people has said it's non normative and so connected to LGBT+. Also if people feel it is queer I'll adjust my view on that.

[MulticulturalFarmer]

Hm, tough question there. I'm not sure if there should be any barriers to what should or shouldn't be considered queer or not, I don't know if it's my place to say that  (because of concerns about gatekeeping and such) but I know there are people who say that there should be restrictions on the definition, and others who want to increase things to infinity and take the idea that being queer means just being weird, almost related to the original usage of the word. So I think the people who say poly is LGBTQ+  are coming at it from that angle.

[Holmbo]

On 8/4/2024 at 10:46 PM, MulticulturalFarmer said:

Hm, tough question there. I'm not sure if there should be any barriers to what should or shouldn't be considered queer or not, I don't know if it's my place to say that  (because of concerns about gatekeeping and such) but I know there are people who say that there should be restrictions on the definition, and others who want to increase things to infinity and take the idea that being queer means just being weird, almost related to the original usage of the word. So I think the people who say poly is LGBTQ+  are coming at it from that angle.

I agree gatekeeping is a concern. I suppose I'm mostly curious if people in general consider pollya people queer. I don't think most queer people in my would care if they want to use the queer label. Current concerns are more about commercialization of pride and which participators should be allowed in the pride parade (for example the police).

I think putting pollya in the LGBT+ sphere limits it unnecessarily because I believe there's a huge part of human population that would be fine about living non monogamously if that was the norm and the culture they were brought up with. So it's different from for example being gay or trans. I also think it puts too much of a boundary between monogamy and polyamoury when in reality different things can work depend on people's situation or the relationship between them. Same as with for example being celibate, it might be something a person wants to do at a certain time, that doesn't mean they're queer at that time and then not queer later.

[nonmerci]

  I think we reach a bit of a problem nowadays, which is that people see "being part of the LGBT" as "being valid in your lifestyle or your identity". Which leads people to want be label as LGBT when their relationships differ from the norm. It seems to be the case of polyamory, it is also the case in the aplatonic community for instance. They look for validation. On the other hand, some people in the LGBT cocmmunity feels like people are taking away their label and changing the meaning by extending it like this.

I don't think there is a good answer to the question. I'd like people to focus less on whether something is LGBT or not, and more on societal problems, but it is not my place to say if something is LGBT or not.

[ABC]

I’d say no, because it’s just the opposite(?) of monogamy.

It can be queer if everyone was the same gender, or if they’re bi/pan for each other if it’s mixed-gender, or even if they’re romance- and/or sex- positive aros/aces/aroaces, or even if one or more of them are trans or enby or agender, etc, otherwise it’s not queer if everyone in a mixed-gender group was straight and cisgender.

[Lilac]

As someone who has multiple friends who are polyamorous, i would say yeah they are part of the LGBTQIA+ community

[MulticulturalFarmer]

On 8/25/2024 at 4:42 AM, Holmbo said:

I agree gatekeeping is a concern. I suppose I'm mostly curious if people in general consider pollya people queer. I don't think most queer people in my would care if they want to use the queer label. Current concerns are more about commercialization of pride and which participators should be allowed in the pride parade (for example the police).

I think putting pollya in the LGBT+ sphere limits it unnecessarily because I believe there's a huge part of human population that would be fine about living non monogamously if that was the norm and the culture they were brought up with. So it's different from for example being gay or trans. I also think it puts too much of a boundary between monogamy and polyamoury when in reality different things can work depend on people's situation or the relationship between them. Same as with for example being celibate, it might be something a person wants to do at a certain time, that doesn't mean they're queer at that time and then not queer later.

Yeah, there is the whole idea that commercializing pride is kind of useless, because the corporations aren't going to fundamentally change anything, in terms of economics, which affects everyone (and that includes queer people).

I guess it's the difference between something being innate vs something that is much more dependent on culture? I also don't know what to think of the people who say that people are born polyamorous but are monogamous due to the influence of Abrahamic religions on society (Judaism, Christian, Islam, etc.) because I'm not sure if that's a testable hypothesis. I'm not too sure where to draw the line if that argument is true..

[lillia]

I'm polyamorous on top of being acearo lesbian. I consider polyamorous by itself basically a cousin of LGBTQ. The poly community has been walking with LGBTQ people in PRIDE parades for a LONG time. 

[Holmbo]

On 9/16/2024 at 6:24 AM, MulticulturalFarmer said:

 guess it's the difference between something being innate vs something that is much more dependent on culture? I also don't know what to think of the people who say that people are born polyamorous but are monogamous due to the influence of Abrahamic religions on society (Judaism, Christian, Islam, etc.) because I'm not sure if that's a testable hypothesis. I'm not too sure where to draw the line if that argument is true..

I heard about some researchers who had concluded monagamy - polyamoury seems to be a spectrum. Some people are highly monogamous and some people highly polyamourus while others fall more in the middle.

[MulticulturalFarmer]

On 10/6/2024 at 3:43 AM, Holmbo said:

I heard about some researchers who had concluded monagamy - polyamoury seems to be a spectrum. Some people are highly monogamous and some people highly polyamourus while others fall more in the middle.

Yeah, it could be true, social science research takes a long time to validate just because it's difficult to measure how humans are behaving and furthermore identify why they behave that way. Nevertheless, I'm glad the research exists despite those problems and hope it gets sorted out in the future.