By Sean Little
Some LGBT rights activists have proposed adding more letters
to the acronym, “LGBT”, to become more inclusive. Suggested additions include
the following letters: “A” for Asexual, ”Q” for Queer, “A” for Allies, “Q” for
Questioning, “I” for Intersex, and some others. At the same time, the
importance of culture has increased in the fields of policy analysis, program
planning, implementation, and evaluation. People in these fields should examine
how these proposed additional letters effect cultural competence. This
examination could refine LGBT cultural competence. It may also involve disentangling
social communities from their associated political coalitions. This examination
may be more important than the decision about adding initials.
Few discussions about LGBT politics can avoid the term
“community”, but many people do manage to avoid defining that term. Some people
use “community” to mean a political coalition. Others use it to describe a social
entity (or entities). Still others use it to describe a population.
Populations, Political Coalitions, and Communities
The concept of a population serves the interests of
the outsiders who have defined it. Those people in a population may lack any subjective
identification with others in that population or even with that label. MSM (men
who have sex with men) exemplifies an externally defined population. Epidemiologists developed that acronym to
include non-gay/bi identified men who had sex with men. Few men identify as a
man who has sex with men.
A political coalition functions instrumentally. It
has goals, no matter how vaguely stated. By definition, it has a certain amount
of political unity, but consists of discreet elements. People participating in
a political coalition may not have much in common other than their goals and
their need to work together.
A community exists for itself. The members of a
community subjectively identify with that community. If it has a purpose, it
would be to adapt to the larger physical and social environment. A community
may have interests but its members can disagree about those interests. It transmits
its language/dialect/slang, values, beliefs, norms, customs, and roles from one
generation to the next. Its shared culture unifies a community.
Culture belongs among the terms associated with
community: socialization, norms, values,
customs, beliefs, and patterns of interaction. Culture determines the language
or dialect of service delivery and the acceptability of slang. The values of a
culture distinguish between acceptable and unacceptable behavior. When a
cultural mismatch occurs between a program and its target, two types of failure
can result. The intervention can fail to reach the target population. People may
be so desperate for some services that they access those services, no matter
how mismatched. They then may perceive those services as a part of a nexus of
oppression.
Community and social networks
It’s possible to think of a community as a set of
interlocking and overlapping social networks. These networks socialize new
members. All individuals belong to multiple social networks and exist at the
intersection of multiple social networks.
A culture exists on many levels from the nano
(smaller than micro) to the macro. Every group of friends forms a nano-culture. Larger,
public social networks, such as the regulars at a leather bar, will have their own
values, norms, and customs, forming a micro-culture. Each MCC church, a gay gym,
or a lesbian softball team will have its own micro-culture. While the micro-culture
of one leather bar will differ from other leather bars, all leather bars will
share many cultural elements. If a leather bar failed to exhibit many cultural
elements of mezzo-leather culture, people would be unable to identify it as a leather
bar.
At the next level, the interlocking and overlapping set of
social networks of all leather bars forms a community and a leather bar mezzo
culture. The set of all MCC churches, gay gyms, and lesbian softball teams will
each have their own mezzo culture. Lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, and
transgender people each have mezzo cultures with large overlaps. LGBT culture
forms a macro-culture.
At each higher level, the culture becomes more abstract. At
the macro level, culture has reached such an ethereal degree of abstraction
that cultural competence may lack utility. For cultural competence, the
mezzo-culture may be a more appropriate level than the macro level.
As culture becomes more important to effective policies and
programs, the distinction between political coalitions and social communities also
increases in importance. Some people have proposed the letter “A” for allies
among the additional acronymic letters. Allies, by definition, differ from
those with which they are allied. Allies belong with the language of political
coalitions, not with the language of culture. Of course, some allies participate
in LGBT mezzo cultures and networks. For example, the straight son of two
lesbian parents has become a marriage equality activist. He lives in at least
two LGBT mezzo cultures: the LGBT
marriage equality mezzo culture, and the LGBT parenting mezzo culture. “Fag
hags”, like the fictional Grace Adler and Karen Walker (Will and Grace),
are allies and participate in the gay male mezzo-culture. Communities differ
from populations in that communities may include people outside of the narrow
and arbitrary definitions of populations.
Asexuals share many political goals with the LGBT
communities, but their relationship to social policies and programs may differ.
A program directed towards asexuals would require a very different type of
cultural competence than one directed towards gay men. For example, most
programs directed at gay men involve, with good reason, HIV and STD awareness,
but asexuals have very low risk for HIV or STDs.
People, identifying as “Questioning”, probably do not
develop coherent and long lasting cultures and communities of their own. The
state of “Questioning” implies leaving that state when those issues being
questioned are resolved. This state may be part of identify formation progress.
Some people currently identifying as “questioning” may resolve their identify
as heterosexual and cisgender.
Political coalition with an agenda or social community with
a culture
The acronym has much greater utility as a political
coalition with an agenda, than as a social community with a culture. This
argument does not claim or imply that political coalitions have no value. They
obviously do. Distinguishing between these two constructs has great importance,
however, for those of us concerned with how culture affects policy, program
design, implementation, and evaluation,
Like living organisms, all communities and cultures have
boundaries and exclude what lies outside those boundaries. Cultures can clash.
Those cultures that clash will have problems mixing, for example, scientists
and fundamentalists. This exclusion allows policy and program planners to
design policies and programs for particular groups and not others. Political
coalitions, however, should include as many discreet elements as possible to
further the agenda.
Evaluation exists in the world of public policy, program
planning, and delivery. In this world, culture plays a critical role. Despite
its importance, the field of evaluation has not yet developed an adequate
understanding of LGBT cultures. The proposed addition of more initials to the
acronym can be an opportunity to further our individual and collective
understanding of culture. We need to be clear whether we are talking about political
coalitions with agendas or communities with cultures. Otherwise, we will never
develop a coherent understanding of culture.
Next post, that other acronym MSM
