Queer Unity

A group of gay men show their support for lesbians.

NerdyKeppie's 'Join Or Die' queer unity flag parody.

Queer unity refers to the solidarity and allyship among queer individuals. Generally, queer unity stems from similarities in experiences and goals between queer people. Queer unity often inspires hope and joy in individuals, and is generally celebrated among the queer community.

History

Gay Men and Lesbians

The most well-documented examples of queer unity are those between gay men and lesbians, including achilleans and sapphics. One significant example of this unity is the acronym LGBTQ+ itself. During the AIDS crisis, a community of lesbians rallied together to care for and fight for the queer men affected. This included donating blood, providing clothes and food, and protesting. Before this, the queer community was often referred to as the GL community. Afterwards, the acronym was commonly swapped, putting lesbians first, and paving the way for the LGBTQ+ acronym we know today.

Gay men, lesbians, and bisexuals, who were sometimes classified as gay or lesbian at the time, often unified during the early queer rights movements, including during events like the Stonewall Riots. Lavender marriages that consisted of a gay man and a lesbian are generally seen as examples of queer unity as well.

Friendship between gay men and lesbians have never been uncommon. In the modern day, many have even compared the gay man and lesbian flags to friendship bracelets due to their similarity.

Transunity

Transfeminine, Transmasculine, and Non-Binary Individuals

Trans individuals often unify against transphobic groups and to celebrate or joke about similarities. Transgender Day of Remembrance is a more sorrowful example of transunity, with many trans people joining together to mourn those who have died due to transphobic violence. Groups like BreakOUT! and Trans Women of Color Solidarity Network have been very effective in providing resources for local trans communities and creating support networks for the trans community. In the age of social media, it's been a lot easier for trans individuals to interact with each other and discuss the similarities in their experiences.

Dysphoric and Non-Dysphoric Trans Individuals

Transunity between dysphoric and non-dysphoric trans individuals emerged in the 2010s in response to transmedicalist exclusionism. A lot of dysphoric and non-dysphoric trans flags mirror each other for this reason. Many dysphoric trans individuals express support for non-dysphoric trans individuals in the form of validation, such as this post shared from the Tumblr blog dysphoric-culture-is:

"dysphoric culture is loving and supporting your nondysphoric trans friends :) /gen"

"Dysphoric culture is!

"Also, epic! Mod has some low dysphoria friends and they are all very cool. People who invalidate no or low dysphoria trans people as ’just cis’ clearly haven’t had in depth gender analysis conversations with them haha"

Abinary Individuals

Many abinary individuals, including non-binary, genderqueer, xenine, outherine, etc, have often expressed solidarity with each other in a binary society, especially in the 21st century. Blogs like this-is-exorsexism have united those outside of the gender binary to fight against exorsexism everywhere. Organizations such as Beyond Binary Legal have helped fight for those outside of the binary to be recognized legally.

Miscellaneous Examples of Queer Solidarity

Intersex and Multigender Individuals

In the 2020s, a sense of solidarity began to form among multigender and intersex individuals, with many finding similarities within each other. Often, these similarities involved being excluded and erased for breaking the binary. A post created by Tumblr user thee-radio-host-is-a-kookaburra seems to have boosted the idea, stating "idk how to explain it but I've always felt a sort of solidarity with multigender ppl as an intersex person", with many multigender and intersex people sharing similar sentiments in the replies. Another example is a post by Tumblr user butchtwinkimp, which discusses similarities between intersex and multigender people and ends with "anyways multigender and intersex solidarity forever!!!!".

A-Spec and Polyamorous Individuals

A-spec and polyamorous communities often stand side-by-side in the face of amatonormativity - the set of societal assumptions that everyone prospers with an exclusive romantic relationship. One popular polyamorous blog, polyamorousmood, gained 300 notes after posting:

"It really says something that a lot of monogamous people consider polyamorous and aromantic to be "opposites" but every polyam person I know took one look at aromantics and said 'they're just like me for real'"

A-spec and polyamorous individuals also often relate to the experience of being overlooked, both within and outside of the queer community. One polyamorous individual, chatdomestique, even stated that, despite being bisexual, felt more related to aroace communities then lesbian and gay ones. This post would quickly receive over 100 interactions.

A-Specs and Transmasculine Individuals

A lot of people have cited similarities between the exclusion and erasure of those on the a-spectrum and transmasculine individuals. One Tumblr user, monoukotori, gained over 200 notes discussing similarities between those who harassed asexuals and those who harassed transmascs, ending their statement stating that "It's always the same, the only thing that changes is what identity is the current 'acceptable target'".

Another post by Tumblr user manstrans gained over 1,000 notes by stating,

"honestly the reason I'm so confident in myself when I talk about transandrophobia being real is because I remember what it was like to be ace in 2016 ...so now when I hear 'transandrophobia isn't real you don't need a word for that' I remember 'aphobia isn't real you don't need a word for that'"

This sentiment has also been shown within art. One example is a piece of art by Tumblr user satyrradio that shows an a-spec colored dragon comforting a transmasculine-colored dragon, with the caption "here before" and the tags "aphobia" and "transmisandry".