Originally a comment by Artymorty on We know less about a person than before.

“LGBTQ+” is an example of a term that gives us less information than we had when the individual letters were broken out into separate attributes. And I suspect that’s a large part of LGBTQ+’s appeal.

LGBTQ+ basically just means “different in a sex and gender kind of way.” Which is deliberately more vague than “sexually attracted to persons of the same sex.”

Deliberately more vague is appealing to lazy journalists who don’t want to bother being specific.

Deliberately more vague is appealing to formerly-LGB-focused lobby groups who want to capture a broader demographic.

Deliberately more vague is appealing to straight people who aren’t actually sexually attracted to persons of the same sex, but who want to claim a place in the rainbow parade now that it’s got cachet.

Deliberately more vague is appealing to men for whom their specific “sex and gender” difference constitutes having sexual paraphilias that they’re too embarrassed to openly admit to; and it’s more appealing to the people who have to interact with these paraphilic men in their family or work life, who would rather not have to address head-on the kinky elephant in the room.

And deliberately more vague is most appealing to the many young people who are struggling to reconcile themselves with the bodies they inhabit, which each come equipped with a sex and a sexual orientation of their own, outside of their inhabitants’ control, and often ill-fitting with the identities these young people are trying to curate online so that they can fit in with their peers.

The primary problem with labelling people — especially young people — as “LGBTQ+” is that we’re taking information away: we’re saying, there’s a cohort of kids who are “different” and it doesn’t actually matter how they’re different. Because a lot of people believe that once someone has found his or her (or their) way to the LGBTQ+ club, they’ve found their oasis of acceptance, free from the malign influence of the far right and the Christian conservatives, and everything that comes afterwards must therefore play out organically without friction or bias, in a kind of utopian paradise where all the misfits find their perfect fit. And that void of critical thinking is irresistible to charlatans, profiteers, crooks and liars.