- The President got that position by sleeping with the right people and by coming up with one idea that sounded good over cocktails.
- The Strong-Armer is always right; if you don't believe me, ask the Strong-Armer. The Strong-Armer has the force of will or other resources to bend everything to her/his wishes, which are often disastrously misguided, and is never there to pick up the pieces.
- The Apostle of Ideological Rectification would be the Strong-Armer if she/he could be. Instead, the Apostle rebukes everyone else for heresy by thought, heresy by word, and heresy by deed and simply vanishes when the work needs to be done.
- The Critic stands around criticizing what the productive people are doing. When invited to help, the Critic suddenly remembers a conflicting appointment. Most Apostles are also Critics, although the reverse is not necessarily true.
- The Troublemaker fastens her/himself like a limpet onto organizations whose goals are clearly antithetical to her/his own. The Troublemaker fancies her/himself to be the Queen's Loyal Opposition, when in fact she/he is simply an attention hound. Things get interesting when, as sometimes happens, the Troublemaker is also a Strong-Armer.
- The Babbler cannot differentiate between having to say something and having something to say. To the Babbler, the organization's one goal is to act as a group-therapy session.
- The Monomaniac is consumed by a single issue and thinks that everyone else should be, too. The Monomaniac's understanding of that issue may be based on a single article in the mainstream press, but the Monomaniac is still convinced that she/he understands that issue better than do people who have worked on it their entire adult lives. When the Monomaniac shows signs of becoming an Apostle or, worse, a Strong-Armer, be afraid; be very afraid. It is best to try to keep the Monomaniac at Babbler level.
- The Super-Volunteer shows up and then instantly involves her/himself in all aspects of the organization. Even worse, the Super-Volunteer tends to get things right, much to the annoyance of the other group members. At best, the other group members simply assume that the Super-Volunteer's work is mystically doing itself. Absent proper care and feeding, which the Super-Volunteer almost never gets, she/he tends to burn out quickly. LGBT organizations often collapse when their Super-Volunteers either quit or are driven out.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Who's who in LGBT organizations
The dramatis personae of LGBT organizations tend to look like this. The categories are not necesarily mutually exclusive.
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