Queer erasure (also known as LGBTQIA+ erasure) refers to the tendency to intentionally or unintentionally remove

LGBTQ LGBTQ people are individuals who are lesbian, Gay men, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, or questioning (sexuality and gender), questioning. Many variants of the initialism are used; LGBTQIA+ people incorporates intersex, Asexuality, asexual, ...

groups or people from record, or downplay their significance, which includes

lesbian A lesbian is a homosexual woman or girl. The word is also used for women in relation to their sexual identity or sexual behavior, regardless of sexual orientation, or as an adjective to characterize or associate nouns with female homosexu ...

gay ''Gay'' is a term that primarily refers to a homosexual person or the trait of being homosexual. The term originally meant 'carefree', 'cheerful', or 'bright and showy'. While scant usage referring to male homosexuality dates to the late ...

bisexual Bisexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or sexual behavior toward both males and females. It may also be defined as the attraction to more than one gender, to people of both the same and different gender, or the attraction t ...

transgender A transgender (often shortened to trans) person has a gender identity different from that typically associated with the sex they were sex assignment, assigned at birth. The opposite of ''transgender'' is ''cisgender'', which describes perso ...

, and

queer ''Queer'' is an umbrella term for people who are non-heterosexual or non- cisgender. Originally meaning or , ''queer'' came to be used pejoratively against LGBTQ people in the late 19th century. From the late 1980s, queer activists began to ...

people. 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

LGBTQ history LGBTQ history dates back to the first recorded instances of same-sex love, diverse gender identities, and sexualities in ancient civilizations, involving the history of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) peoples and cult ...

from public history that can occur in urban contexts via

gentrification Gentrification is the process whereby the character of a neighborhood changes through the influx of more Wealth, affluent residents (the "gentry") and investment. There is no agreed-upon definition of gentrification. In public discourse, it has ...

. 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 infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a retrovirus which if untreated may progress to acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). According to estimat ...

, and queer

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

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 LGBTQ people has taken place in medical research and schools as well, such as in the case of

AIDS research HIV/AIDS research includes all medical research that attempts to prevent, treat, or cure HIV/AIDS, as well as fundamental research about the nature of HIV as an infectious agent and AIDS as the disease caused by HIV. Transmission A body of sci ...

that does not include lesbian populations. Medicine and

academia An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of tertiary education. The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, founded approximately 386 BC at Akademia, a sanctuary of Athena, the go ...

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 im ...

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

Straightwashing

Straightwashing is a form of queer erasure that refers to the portrayal of LGBTQ 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

Homosexuality erasure

Gay erasure

Lesbian erasure

Trans erasure

In 2007,

Julia Serano Julia Michelle Serano ( ; born 1967) is an American writer, musician, spoken-word performer, transgender and bisexual activist, and biologist. She is known for her transfeminist books, such as '' Whipping Girl'' (2007), ''Excluded'' (2013), a ...

discusses ''trans-erasure'' in the transfeminist 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 roote ...

''. Serano says that

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

cisgender The word ''cisgender'' (often shortened to ''cis''; sometimes ''cissexual'') describes a person whose gender identity corresponds to their sex assigned at birth, i.e., someone who is not ''transgender''. The prefix '' cis-'' is Latin and ...

(non-transgender) or that transgender identification is rare. The notion of transgender erasure has been backed up by later studies. In 2025, transgender erasure has intensified, particularly in the United States, due to significant policy shifts and executive actions. On January 20, 2025, President Donald Trump issued

Executive Order 14168 Executive Order 14168, titled "Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government", is an executive order issued by Donald Trump on January 20, 2025, the day of his second inauguration as pre ...

, titled "Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government." This order mandates federal agencies to recognize only two sexes, male and female, as determined at conception, effectively disregarding the existence of transgender and nonbinary identities. Following this directive, numerous federal agencies have removed references to transgender individuals from their materials. For instance, the National Park Service eliminated mentions of transgender people from the

Stonewall National Monument Stonewall National Monument is a U.S. national monument in the West Village neighborhood of Greenwich Village in Lower Manhattan, New York City. The designated area includes the Stonewall Inn, the Christopher Park, and nearby streets including ...

's website, altering the acronym "LGBTQ+" to "LGB." Similarly, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) expunged information related to transgender health from its resources and withdrew funding from research projects that promoted what the administration called "gender ideology."

Aro and ace erasure

Aromantic erasure

Aromantic Aromanticism is a romantic orientation characterized by experiencing little to no romantic attraction. The term "aromantic", Colloquialism, colloquially shortened to "aro", refers to a person whose romantic orientation is aromanticism. It is d ...

people are often erased due to the societal expectation that everyone prospers with an exclusive romantic relationship, something that

Elizabeth Brake Elizabeth Brake is an American philosopher and Professor of Philosophy at Rice University. She is known for her works on ethics and political philosophy. Brake coined the term amatonormativity to describe the widespread belief that everyone is b ...

has coined as the term ''

amatonormativity Amatonormativity () is the set of societal assumptions that everyone prospers with an exclusive romantic relationship. Elizabeth Brake coined the neologism to capture societal assumptions about romance. Brake wanted to describe the pressure sh ...

''. Aromantic people face continued pressure and prejudice to conform to the "social norms" and form a permanent romantic relationship such as marriage.

Asexual erasure

Intersex erasure

Intersex Intersex people are those 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 binar ...

and

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

gender Gender is the range of social, psychological, cultural, and behavioral aspects of being a man (or boy), woman (or girl), or third gender. Although gender often corresponds to sex, a transgender person may identify with a gender other tha ...

''(see

sex–gender distinction While in ordinary speech, the terms ''sex'' and ''gender'' are often used interchangeably, in contemporary academic literature, the terms often have distinct meanings, especially when referring to people. ''Sex'' generally refers to an organis ...

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

non-binary Non-binary or genderqueer Gender identity, gender identities are those that are outside the male/female gender binary. Non-binary identities often fall under the transgender umbrella since non-binary people typically identify with a gende ...

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 (IMI), sometimes known as intersex genital mutilations (IGM), are surgery, surgical, hormonal and other medical interventions performed to modify atypical or ambiguous genitalia and other sex characteristics, primar ...

which they see as unnecessary and mistreatment.

References

{{Falsification of history LGBTQ and society

erasure Erasure may refer to: Arts and media * Erasure (duo), an English pop group * ''Erasure'' (album), 1995, by the British group Erasure * Erasure poetry, a form of found poetry created by erasing words from an existing text * ''Erasure'' (novel), ...