The Morality of Exclusion
The Power Politics of "LGB" Separatism
A Necessary Acknowledgment
To those advancing LGB separatist arguments that seek to exclude transgender and non-binary individuals: I see your rhetoric, and I refuse to let it go unexamined. This piece is an invitation to a deeper conversation about the moral foundations of our community, a conversation that requires us to look beyond fear and toward genuine understanding.
Exclusion is not protection. Division is not strength. Our collective liberation has always depended on our ability to recognize the full humanity of one another, even, and especially, when that recognition challenges our existing understanding.
I write not to attack, but to illuminate. Not to divide, but to connect. By bringing these arguments into the light of careful moral scrutiny, we create space for a more expansive vision of community, one that honors the complexity of human identity and the fundamental dignity of every individual.
CC:
by , by LGB Alliance of New York City, & , by , by (This is a list of LGB separatists on Substack that I’ve identified, though many more likely exist. I’ve tagged each name that would allow so that readers can make their own decisions on what I believe to be harmful LGBTQ+ content from our own community.)At night, I dream of my community as a house with many rooms, doors that open freely between them, windows that let in light from all directions. Then I wake to find walls being built inside, by hands I once held, voices I once harmonized with.
These voices now argue that the "T" and "Q+" have no place beside the "L," the "G," and the "B." They claim that transgender identity is a contagion, a trendy affectation, a threat to "real" gays and lesbians. They insist that the struggles are separate, the histories disconnected, the futures divergent. LGB separatism, this movement to cleave our community along constructed lines of biological essentialism, is a betrayal so intimate it inhabits the very acronym we built together.
These LGB separatist groups fill me with a rage that only comes from betrayal within your own home. To weaponize the very language of liberation against our most vulnerable community members is a moral perversion so complete, it takes my breath away.
I trace my fingers over the letters L-G-B-T-Q, each one a thread in the tapestry of my identity, my community, my history. To sever these threads, to declare some essential and others expendable, feels like watching someone cut up a family photograph, smiling as they remove the faces they've decided don't belong. Groups like LGB Alliance USA, NYC, Puerto Rico, Lesbian’s United, and LGB Courage Coalition do exactly this, carefully excising the "T" and "Q+" while claiming to preserve something pure, something threatened. LGB Voices presents itself as "a digital publication where news, advocacy, and art converge," while Courage Coalition portrays itself as concerned liberals worried about "gender medicine for children."1 2 The Lesbian Post, now defunct with a web address leading ironically to a porn site, leaves behind digital artifacts of division. All claim protection while practicing exclusion, all speak of preservation while enacting erasure.
When I first encountered arguments for severing the "T" and "Q+" from "LGBTQ+," I was struck not by their novelty but by their familiarity. The rhetoric employed by these separatist movements, with their appeals to "biological reality," fears of "erasure," and claims of "infiltration," echoes language that has long been used against all of us. I recognize in their words the same logic that once declared homosexuality unnatural, the same reasoning that once pathologized same-sex desire as mental illness, and the same strategies that once portrayed gay men and lesbians as threats to social cohesion. The discourse has simply found a new target.
Even in my lifetime, coming of age in the late 1990s and early 2000s, I witnessed the power of our coalition. I saw how transgender activists stood beside gay men during the ongoing AIDS crisis, how lesbian health advocates created resources that benefited the entire community, how bisexual voices insisted on recognition within spaces that tried to erase them. I remember Pride celebrations where our differences were not divisions but variations in a shared struggle for dignity. The documentaries and oral histories passed down to us showed a community that survived precisely because it refused to abandon its most vulnerable members. When I think of how our elders fought for us, Sylvia Rivera being booed at pride yet refusing to be silenced, Leslie Feinberg writing "Stone Butch Blues" to document lives that straddled the boundaries of gender and sexuality, I wonder how we arrived at this moment of fracture.
What drives some LGB individuals to advocate for the exclusion of transgender people from their community? A powerful explanatory framework can be found in the concept of internalized homophobia, the psychological process by which LGBTQ+ individuals absorb and internalize society's negative messages about themselves. This internalization can manifest as self-loathing, denial, and perhaps most relevantly here, horizontal hostility directed at other members of the community perceived as more marginalized or visible.3
When LGB separatists claim that transgender individuals threaten lesbian and gay identity, they may be unconsciously reproducing the same exclusionary patterns they themselves have experienced. By distancing themselves from transgender people and presenting themselves as more "normal" or "acceptable" relative to those whose gender expression more visibly challenges societal norms, they engage in defense mechanisms against their own marginalization.
This psychological dynamic helps explain the seemingly contradictory position of organizations that claim to advocate for LGB rights while aligning with political forces that have historically opposed those very rights. The desire for acceptance from mainstream society can lead to a form of respectability politics where one marginalized group attempts to gain status by distancing itself from another. As the Rainbow Project notes, "Internalized homophobia can lead people to police the behavior of other LGBTQ+ people, criticizing those who don't conform to heteronormative expectations."4 This policing function becomes particularly evident in attempts to establish rigid boundaries around who does and doesn't belong in the community.
What we witness in these separatist movements is not protection of lesbian and gay identity, but rather what philosopher Michel Foucault would recognize as a circulation of power, a redeployment of exclusionary tactics that were once aimed at all sexual minorities. As a gay man who identifies comfortably with both "gay" and "queer," I find these attempts at division not only historically inaccurate but morally suspect.
Foucault's analysis of power provides a crucial framework for understanding LGB separatism. In his work, Foucault identified how power operates not just through overt repression but through the construction and control of knowledge, what he termed "power/knowledge."5 When LGB separatists attempt to define "who truly belongs" in the community, they are engaging in precisely this form of power. Their insistence that "queer" is exclusively a slur (despite its widespread reclamation) represents what Foucault would call a "discursive practice," an attempt to control language in order to control people. By declaring certain terms off-limits and others mandatory, these groups assert linguistic authority over how all sexual minorities should identify. Their objection to "queer" is not simply preference; it is an attempt to establish dominance through language policing.
The rhetoric of "gay erasure" employed by these groups functions as what Foucault termed a "strategy of power." Such strategies are most effective when they position themselves as defensive rather than aggressive. By claiming they are being "erased," LGB separatists cast themselves as victims while actively working to erase transgender and non-binary individuals from a community these individuals helped build. This inversion of aggressor and victim is a sophisticated power move that Foucault would readily identify. Consider how The Lesbian Post's critique of the Progress Pride Flag claims that the chevron "blots out part of the rainbow, paralleling the mass erasure and re-closeting of lesbians and gay men." This rhetoric portrays visual inclusion as erasure, a remarkable inversion that positions expansion as reduction. What is actually happening is not erasure but expansion of visibility to include those who have always been part of the community yet marginalized within it.
The claim that transgender individuals are newcomers to LGB spaces represents a profound historical revisionism. LGB separatists engage in what Foucault would call the "production of history," controlling narratives about the past to justify power arrangements in the present.6 Their historical claims display either willful ignorance or deliberate distortion. Transgender women of color like Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera were pivotal figures in the Stonewall Uprising, the very event that catalyzed the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement. Before Stonewall, the 1966 Compton's Cafeteria Riot saw transgender women resisting police brutality. Transgender people have been integral to our collective resistance from its earliest moments.
These are not abstract histories but lived realities, pages from a shared book that LGB separatists now attempt to tear out and rewrite. Each erasure of transgender contributions to our movement is a small violence, a denial not just of historical fact but of the actual bodies that stood alongside us, that bled alongside us, that were arrested alongside us. How quickly we forget the hands that helped lift us when we could not stand alone.
Investigation into the origins of groups like LGB Alliance reveals troubling connections that belie their claims of simply protecting lesbian and gay rights. The LGB Alliance, founded in the UK in 2019, has demonstrated connections to American conservative organizations that have long opposed LGBTQ+ rights broadly. Co-founder Bev Jackson has defended working with the Heritage Foundation, a conservative American think tank with a long history of opposing LGBTQ+ rights, stating that "working with the Heritage Foundation is sometimes the only possible course of action" since "the leftwing silence on gender in the US is even worse than in the UK."7 One of the speakers at LGB Alliance's launch was Gary Powell, who has allied himself with the Heritage Foundation against gay surrogacy rights and has written for the Witherspoon Institute, which staunchly opposes same-sex marriage.8
What is particularly revealing about groups like Courage Coalition is their claim to speak as progressives and liberals while advancing positions that align almost perfectly with conservative political agendas on transgender issues. Courage Coalition states they are "concerned about the current political and media environment that actively censors dissent, even, and perhaps especially, when it comes from Democrats, liberals, and progressives."9 Yet their focus on opposing gender-affirming care for transgender youth mirrors legislation being advanced by conservative politicians, not progressive ones. This strategic positioning allows them to present themselves as politically diverse while obscuring the alignment of their goals with right-wing political movements.
The Heritage Foundation itself has seen the potential for division within the LGBTQ+ community as a strategic opportunity. At the 2017 Values Voter Summit, Meg Kilgannon, executive director of Concerned Parents and Educators of Fairfax County, explicitly advocated for focusing on gender identity issues "to divide and conquer" the LGBTQ+ community, noting that "Trans and gender identity are a tough sell."10 This strategy has evolved into the broader framework of Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation's comprehensive plan for reshaping the federal government. In this plan, the Heritage Foundation portrays transgender people as an "ideology" linked to pornography and the "sexualization of children" rather than as real people.11 The project advocates for enforcing sex discrimination laws only based on "biological binary meaning of sex," effectively erasing transgender identity from legal recognition.12 This deliberate strategy of separating LGB from T aligns perfectly with the goals of LGB separatist groups, suggesting not just parallel thinking but a coordinated approach to undermining transgender rights by fracturing coalition politics that has historically protected all sexual and gender minorities.
While the LGB Alliance itself predates Donald Trump's administration, both are part of a broader pattern of anti-transgender politics that has gained momentum in recent years. Trump's administration has systematically targeted transgender rights through executive orders defining sex as binary and immutable, banning transgender people from the military, and removing protections for transgender students.13 The philosophical foundation of both Trump's policies and LGB separatism share a fundamental position: the rejection of gender identity in favor of rigid biological sex determinism.
These alliances with conservative organizations that have historically opposed all LGBTQ+ rights reveal the moral contradiction at the heart of LGB separatism. How can groups claiming to defend lesbian and gay interests align themselves with organizations that have actively fought against same-sex marriage, anti-discrimination protections, and other fundamental rights for lesbian and gay people? The alliance becomes comprehensible only when understood as united by a shared opposition to transgender rights rather than a genuine commitment to lesbian and gay welfare.
The philosophical contradictions in LGB separatism become particularly evident when examined through Judith Butler's theory of gender performativity. Butler's insight that gender is not an essential quality but a series of repeated performances challenges the rigid categories upon which LGB separatism depends.14 LGB separatist rhetoric often relies on a biological essentialism that contradicts itself. They simultaneously reject the gender essentialism that claims men must be masculine and women feminine (celebrating gender-nonconforming lesbians and gay men), while insisting on a rigid biological essentialism that defines "real" lesbians and gay men by their chromosomes or genitalia. Butler would identify this as a performative contradiction, the separatist position cannot maintain both that gender norms are socially constructed stereotypes to be rejected AND that biological sex is an immutable category that must determine identity. Their own existence as gender-nonconforming individuals undermines their insistence on rigid biological categorization.
I think of the butch lesbians I've known whose gender presentations blur the very lines LGB separatists claim are immutable, the gay men whose expressions of femininity have long been both their liberation and the source of society's condemnation. The body carries many truths at once, and the attempt to reduce identity to chromosomes or genitalia fundamentally misunderstands the complex relationship between sex, gender, and sexuality that all LGBTQ+ individuals navigate. We contain multitudes, contradictions flowering within us like gardens too wild to be mapped by those seeking simple boundaries.
The body exists as a site of both violence and tenderness, boundaries functioning simultaneously as necessary protection and artificial division. The flesh becomes a battlefield where larger social forces play out, identity both claimed from within and imposed from without. The separatist attempt to draw rigid lines through the LGBTQ+ community makes bodies into contested territories, imposing definitions and categories that many individuals experience as violence against their lived realities.
Transgender individuals speak truths that LGB separatists claim not to understand, like letters written to readers who cannot or will not decipher them. The failure of comprehension becomes not just a personal limitation but a political weapon, a refusal of recognition that maintains power hierarchies. When LGB separatists claim transgender identities are incomprehensible or illegitimate, they engage in the same epistemic violence once directed at all sexual minorities, declaring certain lives and experiences unintelligible and therefore unworthy of respect.
The separatist position fundamentally misunderstands how communities and identities form. Communities are not static entities with fixed boundaries but dynamic networks that evolve over time. The desire to maintain "purity" in LGB spaces reflects what anthropologist Mary Douglas identified as a cultural preoccupation with boundary maintenance, a fear that mixing categories leads to contamination.15 When LGB Voice claims that "the TQ+ fights for gay eradication," they frame inclusion as contamination. This rhetoric of pollution and purity has historically been used against all sexual minorities. The same logic that once kept gay men and lesbians out of "respectable society" is now being deployed to keep transgender and queer individuals out of "respectable gay and lesbian spaces."
The following logic is deeply disrespectful and I present it only as a thought exercise to expose LGB Separatist’s inconsistencies. Transgender women are women and transgender men are men, full stop. Their authentic gender identities should be respected and recognized without qualification.
The hypocrisy of LGB separatism becomes painfully apparent when we examine their dual criteria: biological sex and same-sex attraction. Their argument creates an impossible standard that serves only to exclude transgender people regardless of circumstance. When a transgender man transitions and forms a relationship with a woman, he loses the "same-sex attraction" criterion in their framework despite meeting their "biological sex" requirement. Similarly, a transgender woman attracted to men meets one criterion but not the other. This rigid construction ignores the lived reality that transgender people face the same societal discrimination and legal vulnerabilities as cisgender LGB individuals, often more intensely. The cruel irony is that LGB separatist groups have actively aligned with conservative forces pushing for rollbacks of legal protections that affect all LGBTQ+ people, including potential threats to marriage equality established in Obergefell v. Hodges. Their advocacy against gender-marker changes on passports, bathroom access, and healthcare access doesn't just harm transgender individuals; it strengthens the same political movements that have historically opposed LGB rights as well. This reveals their true motivation isn't protection of a community based on consistent principles, but rather exclusion based on prejudice, even at the cost of undermining their own rights and protections.
Madeleine Albright once powerfully stated that "there is a special place in hell for women who don't help other women."16 I would adapt this sentiment: there is a special place in hell for LGBTQ+ people who don't help other LGBTQ+ people. When LGB separatists turn their backs on transgender individuals facing discrimination, violence, and legislative attacks, they betray the fundamental moral principle of solidarity that has sustained our movement through decades of struggle. They forget that the same forces seeking to restrict transgender rights today were the ones fighting against lesbian and gay rights yesterday, and will return to attacking lesbian and gay rights tomorrow if given the opportunity.
The moral failing of LGB separatism lies not just in its historical inaccuracies or philosophical contradictions but in its betrayal of the ethical foundations of our movement. We fought not merely for tolerance but for a world where difference is not merely accommodated but celebrated, where identity is not prescribed but discovered, where community is defined not by exclusion but by mutual recognition and support. The attempt to exclude transgender individuals from our community represents a failure to live up to these principles, a moral regression that should trouble anyone committed to justice and equality.
As a gay man who came of age in a time when the letters "LGBT" were already firmly established, I find it morally unconscionable to change it now. I cannot imagine looking at a transgender person's struggle for dignity and responding with exclusion rather than solidarity, especially when I know how it feels to be told I don't belong. I remember the sting of exclusion, the casual cruelties of those who saw my sexuality as reason enough to deny my humanity. How could I inflict that same pain on others within my community? How could any of us who have felt the knife-edge of discrimination turn that blade on those standing beside us?
What separatist movements fundamentally misunderstand is that solidarity is not charity, it is self-preservation. A fractured community is more vulnerable to the forces that would oppress all sexual and gender minorities. When we understand power as Foucault did, as a circulating force rather than a fixed possession, we recognize that the techniques used to marginalize transgender people today can be repurposed to target gay men and lesbians tomorrow. The historical record is clear: our liberation has always been interconnected. The medical establishment that once pathologized homosexuality now pathologizes gender variance; the religious ideologies that condemned same-sex desire now condemn gender transition; the political forces seeking to restrict transgender rights are the same ones that oppose gay marriage and adoption.
Light spills across these artificial boundaries like water breaching a dam, revealing the truth that we have always been more fluid than the categories imposed upon us. Our bodies refuse simple classification, our desires defy easy explanations, our communities form not through rigid definitions but through shared experiences of both marginalization and liberation. The transgender individuals that LGB separatists would exclude are not strangers at the gate but family already in our house, their struggles intimately connected to our own.
The night sky does not argue with itself about which stars belong in its expanse. It simply holds them all, the ancient light of distant suns traveling across impossible distances to shine together in a single darkness. This is the community I choose, one vast enough to contain all our differences, strong enough to withstand attempts at division, and wise enough to recognize that our liberation has always depended on our unity. Against the artificial boundaries of separatism, I choose the boundless solidarity that has sustained our movement from its beginning and remains our best hope for a more just future.
Bibliography
1 LGB Voices. "About Us." Accessed April 1, 2025. https://lgbvoices.substack.com/about.
2 Courage Coalition. "About Us." Accessed April 1, 2025. https://couragecoalition.substack.com/about.
3 The Rainbow Project. "Internalised Homophobia." Accessed April 1, 2025. https://www.rainbow-project.org/internalised-homophobia/.
4 Ibid.
5 Foucault, Michel. Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972-1977. Edited by Colin Gordon. New York: Pantheon Books, 1980.
6 Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality, Volume 1: An Introduction. Translated by Robert Hurley. New York: Vintage Books, 1990.
7 Parsons, Vic. "LGB Alliance founder defends working with anti-abortion, anti-LGBT+ Heritage Foundation in resurfaced tweets." Pink News. August 21, 2020. https://www.thepinknews.com/2020/08/21/lgb-alliance-founder-bev-jackson-heritage-foundation-tweets/.
8 Parsons, Vic. “Activist instrumental in the launch of the LGB Alliance linked to anti-abortion and anti-LGBT+ hate groups.” Pink News. June 3, 2020. https://www.thepinknews.com/2020/06/03/lgb-alliance-gary-powell-center-bioethics-culture-alliance-defending-freedom-anti-lgbt/.
9 Courage Coalition. "About Us." Accessed April 2, 2025. https://couragecoalition.substack.com/about.
10 Fitzsimons, Tim. "Conservative group hosts anti-transgender panel of feminists 'from the left'." NBC News. January 29, 2019. https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/conservative-group-hosts-anti-transgender-panel-feminists-left-n964246.
11 Mulvihill, Geoff. "6 ways Trump's executive orders are targeting transgender people." PBS News. February 1, 2025. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/6-ways-trumps-executive-orders-are-targeting-transgender-people.
12 GLAAD. "Project 2025 Exposed." Accessed April 1, 2025. https://glaad.org/project-2025/.
13 Saric, Ivana. "What Project 2025 could mean for LGBTQ+ Americans." Axios. November 7, 2024. https://www.axios.com/2024/11/07/project-2025-lgbtq-rights.
14 Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge, 1990.
15 Douglas, Mary. Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1966.
16 Albright, Madeleine. Speech at "Celebrating Inspiration" luncheon with the WNBA's All-Decade Team, 2006.