LGBT erasure (also known as queer erasure) refers to the tendency to remove lesbian, gay,

bisexual Bisexuality is a romantic or sexual attraction or behavior toward both males and females, or to more than one gender. It may also be defined to include romantic or sexual attraction to people regardless of their sex or gender identity, whi ...

transgender A transgender (often abbreviated as trans) person is someone whose gender identity or gender expression does not correspond with their sex assigned at birth. Many transgender people experience dysphoria, which they seek to alleviate through tr ...

, asexual and

queer ''Queer'' is an umbrella term for people who are not heterosexual or cisgender. Originally meaning or , ''queer'' came to be used pejoratively against those with same-sex desires or relationships in the late 19th century. Beginning in the lat ...

groups or people (i.e. the

LGBT community The LGBT community (also known as the LGBTQ+ community, GLBT community, gay community, or queer community) is a loosely defined grouping of lesbian, gay men, gay, bisexuality, bisexual, transgender, and other queer individuals united by a comm ...

) intentionally or unintentionally from record, or to dismiss or downplay their significance. This erasure can be found in a number of written and oral texts, including popular and scholarly texts.

In academia and media

Queer historian Gregory Samantha Rosenthal refers to queer erasure in describing the exclusion of

LGBT history LGBT history dates back to the first recorded instances of same-sex love and sexuality of ancient civilizations, involving the history of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) peoples and cultures around the world. What survives af ...

from public history that can occur in urban contexts via

gentrification Gentrification is the process of changing the character of a neighborhood through the influx of more Wealth, affluent residents and businesses. It is a common and controversial topic in urban politics and urban planning, planning. Gentrification ...

. Rosenthal says this results in the "displacement of queer peoples from public view". Cáel Keegan describes the lack of appropriate and realistic representation of queer people,

HIV-positive people HIV-positive people, seropositive people or people who live with HIV are people who have the human immunodeficiency virus HIV, the agent of the currently incurable disease AIDS. According to estimates by WHO and UNAIDS, 34.2 million people were i ...

, and queer

people of color The term "person of color" ( : people of color or persons of color; abbreviated POC) is primarily used to describe any person who is not considered "white". In its current meaning, the term originated in, and is primarily associated with, the U ...

as being a type of aesthetic gentrification, where space is being appropriated from queer people's communities where queer people are not given any cultural representation. Erasure of LGBT people has taken place in medical research and schools as well, such as in the case of AIDS research that does not include lesbian populations. Medicine and

academia An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary education, secondary or tertiary education, tertiary higher education, higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membershi ...

can be places where visibility is produced or erased, such as the exclusion of gay and bisexual women in

HIV The human immunodeficiency viruses (HIV) are two species of ''Lentivirus'' (a subgroup of retrovirus) that infect humans. Over time, they cause acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), a condition in which progressive failure of the immune ...

discourses and studies or the lack of attention to LGBT identities in dealing with anti-bullying discourse in schools.

Straightwashing

Straightwashing is a form of queer erasure that refers to the portrayal of LGBT people, fictional characters, or historical figures as heterosexual. It is most prominently seen in works of fiction, whereby characters who were originally portrayed as or intended to be homosexual, bisexual, or asexual are misrepresented as heterosexual.

Bisexual erasure

Bisexual erasure refers to attempts to ignore or re-explain evidence of bisexuality and may include the belief that bisexuality does not exist, or is simply a phase. Bisexual erasure often causes struggles for bisexuals even from within LGBT communities.

Lesbian erasure

Lesbian erasure is the tendency to ignore, remove, falsify, or re-explain evidence of lesbian women or relationships in history, academia, the news media, and other primary sources. Lesbians may also be ignored within the LGBT community and their identity may not be acknowledged.

Trans erasure

In 2007,

Julia Serano Julia Michelle Serano (; born 1967) is an American writer, musician, spoken-word performer, trans– bi activist, and biologist. She is known for her transfeminist books ''Whipping Girl'' (2007), ''Excluded'' (2013), and ''Outspoken'' (2016). Sh ...

discusses ''trans-erasure'' in the

transfeminist Transfeminism, also written trans feminism, has been defined by scholar and activist Emi Koyama as "a movement by and for trans women who view their liberation to be intrinsically linked to the liberation of all women and beyond." Koyama not ...

book ''

Whipping Girl ''Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity'' is a 2007 book by the gender theorist, biologist, and writer Julia Serano. The book is a transfeminist manifesto that makes the case that transphobia is rooted ...

''. Serano says that

people are "effectively erased from public awareness" due to the assumption that everyone is

cisgender Cisgender (often shortened to cis; sometimes cissexual) is a term used to describe a person whose gender identity corresponds to their sex assigned at birth. The word ''cisgender'' is the antonym of ''transgender''. The prefix ''wiktionary:cis ...

(non-transgender) or that transgender identification is rare. The notion of transgender erasure has been backed up by later studies.

Asexual erasure

Intersex erasure

Intersex Intersex people are individuals born with any of several sex characteristics including chromosome patterns, gonads, or genitals that, according to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, "do not fit typical bina ...

and

individuals are often erased in public health research which conflates sex and

gender Gender is the range of characteristics pertaining to femininity and masculinity and differentiating between them. Depending on the context, this may include sex-based social structures (i.e. gender roles) and gender identity. Most cultures u ...

(see:

sex and gender distinction Though the terms ''sex'' and ''gender'' have been used interchangeably since at least the fourteenth century, in contemporary academic literature they usually have distinct meanings. ''Sex'' generally refers to an organism's biological sex, while ...

). The narrow and inflexible definitions of sex and gender in some countries means some intersex and

non-binary Non-binary and genderqueer are umbrella terms for gender identities that are not solely male or femaleidentities that are outside the gender binary. Non-binary identities fall under the transgender umbrella, since non-binary people typically ...

people are unable to obtain accurate legal documents or identification, preventing their access to public spaces, jobs, housing, education and basic services. It is only recently that the concept of legal rights for intersex people has been considered, even in LGBTI activist circles. However, there is a growing

intersex activist Intersex people are born with sex characteristics, such as genitals, gonads and chromosome patterns that, according to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, "do not fit the typical definitions for male or female bodies". In ...

community which campaigns for intersex human rights, and against

intersex medical interventions Intersex medical interventions, also known as intersex genital mutilations (IGM), are surgical, hormonal and other medical interventions performed to modify atypical or ambiguous genitalia and other sex characteristics, primarily for the purposes ...

which they see as unnecessary and mistreatment.

References

{{LGBT history LGBT and society