Over the last decade, a number of terms have arisen that aim to describe people who do not follow traditional patterns of sexuality and gender. The most common designation used is probably LGBT or LGBTQ. But other terms exist like: LGBT*, LGTBQ2, LGBTQI2S, LGBTTIQQ2SA, and LGBTQQIP2SAA. If you are like me, you have probably struggled to understand what each of these letters stands for. So here’s a guide to help you to understand accurately what these terms mean.
LGBTQ
Egale Canada Human Rights Trust defines LGBTQ as:
L: Lesbian
G: Gay
B: Bisexual
T: Transgender, transsexual, and two-spirit
Q: Queer and questioning
The organization further defines terms, clearing up possible confusion. For example, a transgender person does not identify with their “assigned sex” at birth. A transsexual person also does not identify with their assigned sex at birth, but they may go further than a transgender person by physically changing their body and “gender expression to correspond with their gender identity.”
A two-spirit person is somewhat unlike others on this list. A two-spirit person is an aboriginal person who uses the identifier two-spirit rather than, for example, gay.
The term queer formerly was a slur but is now used as a term of pride for LGBT persons. A questioning person is “unsure of their sexual orientation of gender identity.”
Other Letters
These are the basics, but the LGBTQ acronym has expanded. The Canadian Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce uses the term LGBT*. The * appears to refer to two-spirited and intersex persons. The Egale Canada Human Rights Trust prefers the term LGBTQI2S. Our Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, recently used LGTBQ2 “to include First Nations’ two-spirited communities.” Even the “2” here is not secure, because the two-spirit has acronym has been called T, 2, or 2S at various times. In the past, Pride Toronto has used LGBTTIQQ2SA, referring to “‘a broad array of identities such as, but not limited to, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual, transgender, intersex, queer, questioning, two-spirited, and allies.'” A longer version of the term also exists: LGBTQQIP2SAA. Sometimes a K is added as in LGBTQIAPK or LGGBTQQIAAPPK
The longer version makes explicit what the term LGBTQ makes implicit. It also adds other kinds persons to the group. According to Huffingpost, the letters beyond LGBT mean:
QQ: Questioning and queer
I: Intersex
P: Pansexual
2S: Two-spirit
A: Asexual
A: Ally (a person who is not LGBTQ but supports LGBTQ persons)
Intersex refers to “people born with anatomy or chromosomal makeup that doesn’t correspond to male or female.” Pansexual refers to a person who “[c]an be attracted to all members of all gender identities and biological sexes.” Asexual does not refer to a biological description but to a person who is not sexually attracted to others. When K is added to the phrase, it stands for “kink.” The term kink includes persons who are into bondage and fetishes.
Conclusion
While the nomenclature will probably be updated again, this guide should at least help you to understand what people mean by terms like LGBTQ and so on. If I have made a mistake or missed something important, please let me know in the comments.
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LGBTQQIPK2S? Purple unicorn? Has this world gone completely mad? Will next year find us LGBTQQIPK2SXYZ to the power of 3? Well A) unicorns have never existed. Never will. We have 2 genders. Plain and simple. Stop spreading lies. “Identify” with the Truth instead. Im abcd outa here lol
The world hasn’t gone completely mad yet. All the letters make sense, but I personally don’t agree with allies being a part of the community itself.
Then what do you call transgender? Or do you not believe in that either? If you can believe in 2 genders than what’s wrong with believing in unicorns?
Whats wrong with believing in unicorns? Lol Good one .
I literally love you so much you have no freaking clue i have found my soulmate you are literally the queen in this world omg i love you for standing up for what you believe thank you so freaking much!!!!! jeez like i freaking love you i have no words for my adoration towards you, speak your truth thank the freaking lord there are non sheepeople in this world who still literally have more than 2 brain cells (how many genders are there? 37 or 2?) well whatever the number that many braincells, you are a beautiful human being.
You’re an idiot. People have the right to identify how ever they feel comfortable and honestly the reason you’re probably against this so much is probably because you have trouble admitting to yourself that you might be part of the community (whether that might just be being an ally or more). Grow up please. Thank you.
Equal rights for all!
Yup, be your best you without forcing others to do uncomfortable things against their will. Everyone already has equal rights in the USA. Thinking they don’t is brainwashed institutional government bullshit.
What rights are being violated??
I swear this whole thing is just a ruse so that needy people can get attention.
Hi!
As hard as it may be to believe (because things have moved quite quickly in the past 50 years or so), there really ARE more than two sexes and there always have been. It is only now, however, that we openly recognize them and can properly identify them. Admittedly it can be a bit hard to keep up but everyone wants to be acknowledged and if you’re not sure what all of the letters (and one number – so far!) stand for, a quick Google search will always help you out.
Cheers,
A – not for Asexual, but for Agreeing, Accepting, Allying or … hmmm, I can’t remember! I’ll need to Google that!
This is indeed crazy! We are losing sight of the fundamental point upon which this all rests (or is meant to rest). The letters L, G and T are legitimate and necessary in this context. They are intended to secure legal rights and access to government provided benefits and protections for people who would otherwise be denied them. For example, being able to legally marry a person of the same sex is a big deal, requiring legal recognition of that fact. With legal marriage comes access to a great many publicly available social and financial benefits. Being able to use a PUBLIC washroom, that is to say a washroom available to the public (including the washrooms in a government facility or place of business), is a big deal. In other words, these issues have material impact and consequences on people’s lives. Being able to change your government issued identification to reflect the fact that you are living your life in the gender other than the one aligned with their biological sex is a big deal. Again, it is about having the same legal rights and access to benefits and protections as others within society. It is NOT about political correctness, pronoun use or not hurting people’s feelings. It is also NOT about recognizing, accepting or celebrating what individual consenting adults choose to do in private. Whether a person is bisexual, pansexual, asexual, queer or kinky has nothing to do with public policy, legal rights or access to publicly available facilities, benefits and protections. With gay marriage in place, a bisexual or pansexual person is free to marry someone of the opposite sex or someone of the same sex – and that is awesome! – the fact that he or she may choose at different times to have sex with people of different sexes is utterly immaterial.
The Left had it correct in the 1960s and 70s, in terms of the Civil Rights movement, Second Wave Feminism and Gay Rights. These movements sought to secure legal rights and access to public facilities, benefits and protections (from access to public washrooms and drinking fountains, to equal pay for equal work to the right to marry a person of one’s choosing to a host of other issues) for visible minorities, women and homosexuals, respectively. By and large, they won – by the end of the 1990s, most of this was in place or on the way.
Since then, however, the Left has lost its mind. Having fought and won the real battles, it is now inventing imaginary battles and extending the logic of equal rights and non-discrimination to ridiculous extremes. Nobody cares with whom you have sex! Hurting your feelings is NOT “violence.” (On the other hand, bullying and persecution is more than hurting your feelings; so, this is a nuanced issue.) Nobody needs to recognize and celebrate the fact that you are bisexual, pansexual, asexual, queer, kinky or whatever – as long as you are free to marry whomever you wish and can access publicly available facilities, benefits and protections, you are good to go. If people condemn or look down upon your lifestyle, so be it. Either keep your private life private, associate with different people or get a thicker skin.
Contorting the very real and legitimate struggle for equal rights and treatment under the law into today’s unidimensional and indiscriminately applied “oppressor-oppressed” narrative, in which people’s private proclivities and subjective sense of “self” are made the subject of public policy debates is both ridiculous and harmful to society. L, G and T represent significant attributes of a person’s life that materially affect that person’s legal rights and access to publicly available facilities, benefits and protections, as do the colour of his or her skin, his or her ethnicity and his or her religion. It would be unthinkable in this day and age to declare a public washroom “Protestants Only,” or to deny Jews the right to be legally married. And yet, religious discrimination and persecution were the cause of countless wars and millions of deaths in previous centuries. But the struggle for legal rights and access is NOT the same as invoking legal protection against someone using the wrong pronoun – which by the way is NOT hate speech. Using the wrong gender pronoun is NOT inciting people to violence against the transgender person, and certainly not against the transgender community. The Left has gone way too far and LGBTQ++++ is the perfect illustration of this nonsensical and destructive force within contemporary Western society.
Anyhoo, that is enough of me ranting. Take care and please do apply reason, tempered with empathy, rather than senseless, unthinking ideology, to your consideration of social justice and what that means to our society (we only have one, let’s not ruin it).
<3 <3 <3
Stacy
Correcting grammatical error:
Thank you Stacy! Your post is the most reasoned and sensible treatment of this divisive topic that I have yet seen. It establishes the perfect framework for protecting rights and eliminates the distractions that seem to engender (pun intended) the most animosity between people of differing views. Well done. This belongs on the opinion pages of all major newspapers.
That was awesome , agreed.
When has the left lost its way? How are they different now from 2nd Wave Feminism (etc.) from the 60’s and 70’s? Aren’t today’s progressive movements/ideas the bi-product of the ideas of the 60s and 70s followed to their logical conclusions?
I’m betting it will get crazier…
Continuing your point – I note that you are forgetting about polyamores, who are now vulnerable in rights such as: custody for >2 people, marriage for >2 people.
Bigamy is a very old word and polygamy has been with us as long as the Mormons have existed! All the rest of those initials comprising the sexual anomaly gobbledigook are fads and will probably fall by the wayside as being excess and boring, in time!
can we be friends? The way you articulately broke this down is so on point and powerful. It is getting completely out of control and watering down all the work that has been done for equal rights….period.
Adding things like two spirits and kink (which are chosen identities) takes the seriousness of the progress away. What’s next …P for Pedophiles because “ they were born that way” (which a majority weren’t, it’s usually due to childhood trauma)
I also have to deal with harassment as a straight woman, we’re still fighting as well. Let’s just get back to human rights. The main one being that everyone has the right to feel safe and that they won’t be killed or harassed and receive equal treatment in the workplace and governmentmental dealings due to whatever they look like or are perceived by others. We’re still fighting…..don’t add tiny new hills to a Mountain we’re still climbing.
I believe that the LGBTQ+(pan included) community should be celebrated. We (people of the past) went through hundreds of years fighting for our rights and now we have them. We deserve celebration. Also, the LGBTQ+ community is still not completely excepted in society. So what you said is your opinion, not fact, and EVERYONE should understand that. Also, just an fyi, I am only 13 and proud to be PANSEXUAL. So, STACYG, please write that it is your opinion and try to keep other people’s feelings in mind (especially those of members of the LGBTQ+ community). Thank you.
Excellent post, Cherry. Opinion, not fact, should be noted.
Btw G, you posted on my b-day
Beautifully said!
Dear cherry,
You have a WHOLE life ahead of you; 13 and committed to a group at the “lunch table” of sexuality, whoa. Kid, your feelings are going to get hurt, no matter who you do or do not hump.
Stacy, well put. Equal rights for all, and the rest can stay between the sheets. Not everything needs to be up for discussion.
LOL. Nice to see others share my views
This is indeed crazy! We are losing sight of the fundamental point upon which this all rests (or is meant to rest). The letters L, G and T are legitimate and necessary in this context. They are intended to secure legal rights and access to government provided benefits and protections for people who would otherwise be denied them. For example, being able to legally marry a person of the same sex is a big deal, requiring legal recognition of that fact. With legal marriage comes access to a great many publicly available social and financial benefits. Being able to use a PUBLIC washroom, that is to say a washroom available to the public (including the washrooms in a government facility or place of business), is a big deal. In other words, these issues have material impact and consequences on people’s lives. Being able to change your government issued identification to reflect the fact that you are living your life in the gender other than the one aligned with their biological sex is a big deal. Again, it is about having the same legal rights and access to benefits and protections as others within society. It is NOT about political correctness, pronoun use or not hurting people’s feelings. It is also NOT about recognizing, accepting or celebrating what individual consenting adults choose to do in private. Whether a person is bisexual, pansexual, asexual, queer or kinky has nothing to do with public policy, legal rights or access to publicly available facilities, benefits and protections. With gay marriage in place, a bisexual or pansexual person is free to marry someone of the opposite sex or someone of the same sex – and that is awesome! – the fact that he or she may choose at different times to have sex with people of different sexes is utterly immaterial.
The Left had it correct in the 1960s and 70s, in terms of the Civil Rights movement, Second Wave Feminism and Gay Rights. These movements sought to secure legal rights and access to public facilities, benefits and protections (from access to public washrooms and drinking fountains, to equal pay for equal work to the right to marry a person of one’s choosing to a host of other issues) for visible minorities, women and homosexuals, respectively. By and large, they won – by the end of the 1990s, most of this was in place or on the way.
Since then, however, the Left has lost its mind. Having fought and won the real battles, it is now inventing imaginary battles and extending the logic of equal rights and non-discrimination to ridiculous extremes. Nobody cares with whom you have sex! Hurting your feelings is NOT “violence.” (On the other hand, bullying and persecution is more than hurting your feelings; so, this is a nuanced issue.) Nobody needs to recognize and celebrate the fact that you are bisexual, pansexual, asexual, queer, kinky or whatever – as long as you are free to marry whomever you wish and can access publicly available facilities, benefits and protections, you are good to go. If people condemn or look down upon your lifestyle, so be it. Either keep your private life private, associate with different people or get a thicker skin.
Contorting the very real and legitimate struggle for equal rights and treatment under the law into today’s unidimensional and indiscriminately applied “oppressor-oppressed” narrative, in which people’s private proclivities and subjective sense of “self” are made the subject of public policy debates is both ridiculous and harmful to society. L, G and T represent significant attributes of a person’s life that materially affect that person’s legal rights and access to publicly available facilities, benefits and protections, as do the colour of his or her skin, his or her ethnicity and his or her religion. It would be unthinkable in this day and age to declare a public washroom “Protestants Only,” or to deny Jews the right to be legally married. And yet, religious discrimination and persecution were the cause of countless wars and millions of deaths in previous centuries. But the struggle for legal rights and access is NOT the same as invoking legal protection against someone using the wrong pronoun – which by the way is NOT hate speech. Using the wrong gender pronoun is NOT inciting people to violence against the transgender person, and certainly not against the transgender community. The Left has gone way too far and LGBTQ++++ is the perfect illustration of this nonsensical and destructive force within contemporary Western society.