I was recently watching a host interview a drag performer when I heard him mention “LGBTQIA+” people. I was so struck by the absurdity of the initialism that I lost track of his point. This particular initialism seems to be cohort-making to the point of becoming alphabet soup.
Before I say why, I acknowledge that I’m ignorant about many of the cohort’s issues. I welcome your constructive feedback if you can help educate me on the issues. I’ve already admitted to being slept, so it won’t hurt my feelings. But it seems to me that the initialism has watered the cohort down so much that it’s almost meaningless.
I’m old enough to remember when people simply referred to the cohort as “LGB”. This made sense to me because the words the initials refer to have a commonality. They refer to what gender a lesbian, gay, or bisexual person desires having erotic sexual activity with. It’s this second-person perspective that differentiates the cohort from heterosexual people and a person cannot be defined as lesbian, gay, or bisexual without considering the second-person perspective.
But when they appended T onto the original initialism, it seemed to me that they were trying to shoehorn transgender people into a cohort that didn’t fit them. Transgenderism has to do with what gender a person identifies themself as being. The gender with which they desire having erotic sexual activity is irrelevant to the gender the trans person identifies as. This first-person perspective differentiates transgender people from the LGB cohort.
It wasn’t long before the cohort tagged Q at the end of the initialism. Granted, I’m not completely clear on what queer means but at least it returns to the second-person perspective, so it is a better fit with the LGB cohort. But what I am ignorant about is what makes a person queer that cannot be characterized as lesbian, gay, or bisexual, so it seems to be an unnecessary initial to add to the initialism.
Then the initials IA were added. It was so obtuse that I had to look up what they stood for. It makes sense to group intersex people with transgender people because it has the same first-person perspective on gender identity. As with transgender people, the second-person perspective defining lesbian, gay, bisexual (and queer) people is irrelevant to a person being intersex. And being asexual has to do with neither the gender the person identifies as nor with the gender they desire having erotic sexual activity with because they do not desire having sex with anyone.
Finally, the cohort appended a + to the initialism. The + suggests that the cohort is concerned they’re running out of letters. My suggestion is to just stop shoehorning people who don’t really fit into this alphabet soup.
The Progressive Zone 