How is taxonomy causing exclusion and inclusion?
In the portrayal film The LGBTQAlphabet, created by the group Equinox that is made to empower LGBT community to be proud and unapologetic about who they are, twenty six letters of the alphabet create a taxonomy for the queer community (Equinox). By using such alphabet structure, the film attempts to emphasize the intersectionality and diversity of identity categories. Such taxonomy, created in the film with every letter in the alphabet, makes society to be more inclusive of every unique voice. As the film connects each letter to an identity, it visually portrays the terms by using lively performances of humans. In the beginning of the film, the letter “A” is represented as “ally,” and people of mixed race who are holding barriers surround a black female. This action displays a harmonization of multiple races, and thus depicts how all races can be involved in forming an ally. Furthermore, the film defines the letter “B” as “bisexual,” and portrays physical interaction of two males and a female. The film illustrates bisexuality by showing a female approach and attract one of the males, as the two males interact with one another. With the use of vibrant, rich colors and stark physical actions, the film fully engross the audience’s attention. Most importantly, as shown in the image below, the film is portrayed only by the people with ideal body features such as big breasts for female and muscular body for male. The ideal body in the film can be ironic because the film created for inclusion of all identities is actually giving a sense of exclusion to people with non-ideal body features. Furthermore, the unconventional outfits worn by performers further emphasize the physical features. In the picture below, the overexposure of nudity of male person makes the audience focus on mere appearance rather than the identity itself.
I believe that more people would be satisfied if the film had included people with less attractive body features as well. In addition to appearance, the use of live, unique voice for each verbal explanation of letters in the film helps depict each identity with a strong pride.
This paper will explore how this film’s structure influences its attempt to portray queer communities. First, the alphabet taxonomy in the film results in an exclusion and inclusion of different groups of identities, influencing the representation of identities. Thus, it leads to a problem of enforcing expected behavior for each identity. For instance, the choice of defining “ally” and not “asexuality” leads to an uneven acknowledgment of certain identity, which eventually leads to exclusion. This use of taxonomy challenges our society with the question: “How does creating a taxonomy give a sense of pride or a feeling of discomfort for the various queer communities, and if we were to define identities, what is the standard of correct definition?” In this essay, I will argue that it is not possible to satisfy every identity and there is no fixed way of using taxonomy to define queer identities.
I consider that the utilization of alphabet structure to create a taxonomy for the queer community can be very problematic. I agree that the taxonomy of this film, created by twenty six letters instead of six letters of LGBTQA, is allowing the queer community to be more inclusive and recognizing of more identities. The comment section of this film, however, demonstrates that people are feeling excluded and dissatisfied with this alphabet structure. For example, Lauren Taylor comments that she was upset about “a video about inclusiveness that mentions nothing of asexuality” (Taylor, LGBTQAlphabet). I agree with Lauren Taylor that the structure of the film needs to be resolved in order to include those who identify as asexual. To solve this issue, if the film had stated multiple words for a single letter, such as both “asexuality,” and “ally” for the letter A, it would help the film to recognize more identities and be more inclusive. Overall, the structure of the film is being criticized heavily by the YouTube commenters including Jo van Raalte for merely representing particular identities. Jo Raalte states that “(Letter) A should be something that is actually part of the community,” which implies that he considers ally as not being a part of communities (Raalte, LGBTQAlphabet). Based on such comments, I believe that the limited representation of taxonomy structure is causing people such as Jo Raalte to disrespect other identities. However, an overexpansion of taxonomy will make the film lose the purpose of the alphabet structure. In conclusion, I believe it is practically impossible to embrace and satisfy every one of seven billion people in the world, for there will always be a remaining groups who are excluded.
However, I claim that this impossibility rather develops and drives queer communities forward, since it prompts an individual to come out and be more expressive of his or her own identity, in order to be recognized. If taxonomy did not exist, which would eliminate labeling or defining of one another, then a sense of communicating and understanding ourselves would also be impossible. This would eventually lead to an insufficient recognition of voices. Since the lack of recognition leads to a lack of association, the community will be non-existent without the initial inclusion.In contrast, since taxonomy builds a sense of pride in every identity, the queer communities can only flourish with the defining power of taxonomy. For example, one commenter on Youtube called blasianFMA, who identifies himself as gay, said “This was great! Thank you Equinox and everyone involved. I feel empowered that my identity was represented (blasianFMA, LGBTQAlphabet).” This comment reveals that taxonomy actually strengthened his pride in his identity.
Furthermore, taxonomy can be offending to certain groups of people because it imposes a fixed, limited definition to an identity. For instance, the word “queer” itself has innumerable definitions, representing diversity in interpretations within queer communities. The keyword definition of the term “queer” created by Somerville is that it refers to anything “strange,” “odd,” “peculiar,” and many more (Somerville, 203). Therefore, since taxonomy refers to a single definition of “queer,” it fails to define the various aspects of an identity. In addition, this limitation of definition enforces an expected set of behaviors from certain identities, regardless of the rich diversity within the community. Furthermore, Somerville points out that queer can be about refusing to adopt to identity categories entirely (Somerville, 203). This shows how imposing fixed definition can be problematic, since such imposement will cause discomfort to certain groups. Such creation of keyword definition also shows that people can define same identity differently, showing the inadequacy of taxonomy in communities. I believe it will be better to allow free association, instead of defining identities, in order to preserve the diversity within communities.
Exclusion and inclusion also exist in terms of racial identities. The flag shown above, which is a new variation of the Rainbow Flag, containing a brown and black stripes, addresses importance of racial inclusiveness in defining the identities (Owens). The brown and black stripes represent a group of people who are marginalized both in terms of race and sexuality. This not only emphasize the equality within sexuality, but also equality of race within the queer communities. By uniting stripes of diverse sexuality and race into a flag, the designer is highlighting that all the identities are in harmony with one another. Therefore, I believe that this variation of a Rainbow Flag unites and solidifies different race and sexual orientations within the queer communities. In the film LGBTQAlphabet, Equinox emphasizes harmonization of race by involving a variety of races to portray the identity (Equinox). For instance, as shown in the picture below, people of both white and darker race portray the letter “O” in the film. By choosing to represent an identity with multiple races, Equinox minimizes exclusion of any orientation or race (Equinox).
Similarly, in the picture shown below, which is describing identity Femme, the races and genders of the performers are intermixed: there are five black performers and two whites, and three males and four females (Equinox). However, all of the performers are united and solidified by an overarching color of pink. By using a stark, salient color of pink as a common theme of outfits, Equinox is emphasizing that despite of the differences in their race and gender, they are all unified under the identity of Femme. Also, each of the performer is posing differently from one another, yet, they form symmetric order as a whole group. This emphasizes that although the each performer is an unique, individualized person, they come together as a member and a part of the community.
Another artwork that portrays an importance of racial inclusion is Blue Face by Ernest Mukasa, which is shown above (Fisiy). The vibrant color of the lips and the smooth facial shape emphasize the femininity of the three figures. By filling the canvas entirely with females, instead of dominant male figures, Ernest Mukasa is raising awareness of female in our society. Moreover, by incorporating all the races of white, black, and brown in an extended face of one female figure, Ernest Mukasa is highlighting the harmony among the races. This unity is further illustrated in that all three figures have the same lip color and facial outlines regardless of their skin colors. Just as the variation of the Rainbow Flag represents racial minorities within the queer communities, this painting depicts racial minorities within the marginal gender of female, thus emphasizing further inclusion (Eastmond). This painting is similar to the LGBTQAlphabet in a sense that it employs proportionate and orderly figures in order to portray the minorities just as the film utilizes well-shaped ideal bodies to illustrate different identities (Equinox).
In the picture above, a woman is wearing a rainbow face painting in order to display her support for the LGBTQ communities (Tann). The face painting exhibits the support for queer communities even by the people with conventional sexual orientations. The face painting is an intimate form of a support for the queer communities, since the person is representing diverse identities on their bare skin. The face painting is similar to LGBTQAlphabet in a sense that they both attempt to show support and raise awareness of queer identities to the public in general (Equinox).
In conclusion, the acknowledgement of complexities of different identities is a crucial factor in recognizing every individual. On the one hand, it is impossible to include and acknowledge all identities within the alphabet structure. It can also cause an under representation of some definitions within one queer community. On the other hand, taxonomy provides a recognition of different identities. As people realize that they are excluded from the taxonomy in the film, they often show dissatisfaction and be more proactive in revealing their identities. Due to this provocative power, taxonomy plays a pivotal role in developing and expressing varying opinions and viewpoints of people.
Works Cited
“Queer.” Keywords for American Cultural Studies, vol. 2, 2014, pp. 203–204.
Taylor, Lauren. “The LGBTQAlphabet.” YouTube, YouTube, 5 June 2017,
www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQ0D5W5Htc0.
Raalte, Jo. “The LGBTQAlphabet.” YouTube, YouTube, 5 June 2017,
www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQ0D5W5Htc0.
blasianFMA. “The LGBTQAlphabet.” YouTube, YouTube, 5 June 2017,
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Fisiy, Cyprian. “Inclusion Matters.” World Bank, 9 Oct. 2013,
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