The initialisms LGBT or GLBT are no

The initialisms LGBT or GLBT are not agreeable to everyone that they encompass.[65] For example, some argue that transgender and transsexual causes are not the same as that of lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) people.[66] This argument centers on the idea that transgender and transsexuality have to do with gender identity, or a person's understanding of being or not being a man or a woman irrespective of their sexual orientation.[28] LGB issues can be seen as a matter of sexual orientation or attraction.[28] These distinctions have been made in the context of political action in which LGB goals may be perceived to differ from transgender and transsexual goals like same-sex marriage legislation and human rights work that is not inclusive of transgender and intersex people.[28]

Many people have looked for a generic term to replace the numerous existing initialisms.[67] Words such as queer (an umbrella term for sexual and gender minorities that are not heterosexual, or gender-binary) and rainbow have been tried, but most have not been widely adopted.[67][68] Queer has many negative connotations to older people who remember the word as a taunt and insult and such (negative) usage of the term continues.[67][68] Many younger people also understand queer to be more politically charged than LGBT.[68][69] "Rainbow" has connotations that recall hippies, New Age movements, and organizations like Jesse Jackson's Rainbow/PUSH Coalition in the United States. Some people advocate the term "minority sexual and gender identities" (MSGI, coined in 2000), or gender and sexual minorities (GSM) so as to explicitly include all people who are not cisgender and heterosexual, or gender, sexual, and romantic minorities (GSRM) which is more explicitly inclusive of minority romantic orientations and polyamory, but those have not been widely adopted either.[70][71][72] Other rare umbrella terms are Gender and Sexual Diversities, MOGII (Marginalized Orientations, Gender Identities, and Intersex) and MOGAI (Marginalized Orientations, Gender Alignments and Intersex).[73][74]

A reverse to the above situations is evident in the belief of "lesbian & gay separatism" (not to be confused with the related "lesbian separatism"), which holds that lesbians and gay men form (or should form) a community distinct and separate from other groups normally included in the LGBTQ sphere.[75] While not always appearing of sufficient number or organization to be called a movement, separatists are a significant, vocal, and active element within many parts of the LGBT community.[67][75][76] In some cases separatists will deny the existence or right to equality of nonmonosexual orientations and of transsexuality.[67] This can extend to public biphobia and transphobia.[67][75] In contrasts to separatists, Peter Tatchell of the LGBT human rights group OutRage! argues that to separate the transgender movement from the LGB would be "political madness".[77]

The portrayal of an all-encompassing "LGBT community" or "LGB community" is also disliked by some lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people.[78][79] Some do not subscribe to or approve of the political and social solidarity, and visibility and human rights campaigning that normally goes with it including gay pride marches and events.[78][79] Some of them believe that grouping together people with non-heterosexual orientations perpetuates the myth that being gay/lesbian/bi/asexual/pansexual/etc. makes a person deficiently different from other people.[78] These people are often less visible compared to more mainstream gay or LGBT activists.[78][79] Since this faction is difficult to distinguish from the heterosexual majority, it is common for people to assume all LGBT people support LGBT liberation and the visibility of LGBT people in society, including the right to live one's life in a different way from the majority.[78][79][80] In the 1996 book Anti-Gay, a collection of essays edited by Mark Simpson, the concept of a 'one-size-fits-all' identity based on LGBT stereotypes is criticized for suppressing the individuality of LGBT people.[81]

Writing in the BBC News Magazine in 2014, Julie Bindel questions whether the various gender groupings now, "bracketed together" . . . "share the same issues, values and goals?" Bindel refers to a number of possible new initialisms for differing combinations and concludes that it may be time for the alliances to be reformed or finally we go, "our separate ways".[82]