Currently, LGBTIQCAPGNGFNBA is believed to be the world’s longest acronym used to describe human sexual orientations and gender identities. Chances are it’s already been surpassed by an even longer acronym with the self-discovery of yet another person, or group of persons, with a unique gender fixation. It’s probably pointless to try to memorize what all the letters stand for, because theoretically there’s no limit to the proliferation of sexual identities. But some of them come with unique pronouns, and you had better learn those. Otherwise you might run afoul of new federal and provincial human rights and hate crimes laws.
How on earth did we get here?...
LGB was no ordinary acronym. It had an electromagnetic charge and began attracting other letters. Soon it became LGBT, with the T standing for Transgender/Transsexual. LGBT then added a Q for queer. I still don’t understand the difference between a queer person and a gay person, but apparently some queers do. And one good Q obviously deserves another, so Q for questioning was added to make it LGBTQQ, or LGBTQ? for those who prefer punctuation over repetition.
At this point there was some serious momentum. The next addition was the letter I for intersex – people born with indeterminate genitalia, an exceedingly small percentage of the population. Race broke into the line-up with the addition of 2, meaning two-spirit in reference to First Nations people who have both a feminine and a masculine spirit. Other letters that have been added include U for unsure, C for curious, P for polyamorous, F for flexual, A for asexual, and so on and so forth....
Most of the letters in the LGBT+ acronym are not related to sexual activity but to sex identity which subdivides almost daily.
Unfortunately, I had a mouth of tea when I reached that sentence, so I now need to clean my keyboard.
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