The LGBTQIA+ acronym: What is stands for...

Hello all. Here I am on this wonderful bank holiday Monday in May. Now I am going to be celebrating the LGBTQIA+ community all month long. But you might be asking yourself what LGBTQIA+ actually stands for? Or maybe you are unfamiliar with some parts of the acronym? It is a good job that I am here! This is what each part of the acronym means...

L: The 'L' refers to Lesbian. This is often someone identifying a woman who has attraction to other women, namely only women. However, some non-binary may choose to identify with this label and that is valid. For some non-binary people they might feel more feminine in their own gender identity. They may also consider their relationship as lesbian. It is not up to anyone to judge them on how they choose to label themselves.

The reason the 'L' comes first in the acronym is because during the AIDs pandemic of the 1980s, it was lesbian women caring for gay men who were going through an extremely tough time.

G: The 'G' as I briefly mentioned above stands for 'Gay'. This is often someone identifying as a man with an attraction to predominantly men. As with being lesbian, some non-binary might feel this is a label that they can relate to.

B: The 'B' here is for bisexual though biromantic exist too. Bisexuality is when someone has a sexual to people of their own gender identity and those of another gender identity. That could be someone who is non-binary, having attraction to both non-binary people and women.

T: The 'T' denotes someone who is transgender or trans. This is someone who has changed their gender identity from one to another because they have had the euphoric experience of realising their true self. Sometimes people who are non-binary might use trans, transfeminine or transmasculine with the label non-binary. That is up to them and not for anyone to pass comment or judgement on.

Q: The 'Q' has two meanings of queer and questioning. Questioning is when people are unsure on their label or still figuring out their identity. Queer is a word that some people could be uncomfortable using because there is a history of having previous pejorative associations. Queer was used an insult particularly back in the 1980s. Nowadays some people choose to use the label 'Queer' as a way of identifying not heterosexual or not cisgender or both, with finding that another identity fits best.

I: The 'I' means intersex. There are some people who are not born biologically as female or male. These people are intersex and could either have visible or invisible biological differences. When people are intersex they can choose how to identify and might grow up to decide they identify with either man or woman. Again, no one should face any judgements, criticism or comments regarding this.

A: Here in the acronym 'A' is for asexual. This is where people do not experience have a sexual attraction to others. On the asexuality scale, there are minor identities such as demisexual where a person will experience sexual attraction once an emotional bond has been formed. Then there is greysexual [or gray asexual in which people sometimes experience sexual attraction. They can move between asexuality and allosexuality [allo for short], (where someone experiences sexual attraction).

+: This '+' refers to a multitude of identities that are not covered in the 'LGBTQIA' part of the acronym. These could include Aromantic where someone does not experience romantic attraction, pansexual or panromantic where someone is attracted either sexually or romantic to people regardless of gender. This is different to polysexual and polyromantic where are sexual and romantic attractions to people of more than one gender identity, not as such all. But omnisexual and omniromantic are where someone does have sexual or romantic attraction to people of all genders though the difference here is that gender plays a key role in attraction. Someone identifying as 'omni' might be attracted to all genders but only a certain one or certain ones at any given moment.

Another identity that falls under this '+' is non-binary which is umbrella term for someone not identifying strictly as just 'man' or 'woman'. There are sub-identities that fall underneath this including gender-fluid where someone's gender identity fluctuates between different genders, agender where someone identifies as having no gender or neutrois where someone identifies as having a neutral, third gender that is neither man or woman.

There are many more identities included in the '+' part of the acronym but it would be a long list to include them all. I hope this clears things up for any people who were unsure.


Until next time,


Thomas.

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