Everyone Pick A Letter Before They're All Used Up... Twice

If you were to ask me what the best thing about being gay is, I would say the sense of community that comes with it. For sure.
But what do we call this Community?
This week I learned that there is an interesting disagreement on this. :)

GLB:

This is the first acronym that I ever remember hearing about. Gays, Lesbians, and Bisexuals. I don't really even believe in bisexuals, but they got their name in the initialism before I even came out.

LGBT:

Then I came out, and spent time with other gay people and I kept hearing this new acronym. Transgender is a new addition. I guess there is some argument over whether the G or L should come first. Personally, I say put the L first. It just flows better, plus I'm still a bit old fashioned; ladies first.

LGBTQ:

I got involved with helping a group here in the valley called 1n10 and noticed that they had added a "Q" (sometimes a "U" or just a "?") to the end for Questioning. So people that are not comfortable to come out as gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender... and may possibly be straight... can still feel at home in our community.

LGBTQI:

Kathy Griffin was brilliant on Larry King!!!! On his show she made a reference to LGBTQI. She explained that "I" stood for Intersex but could not explain what that meant. A quick trip to Wikipedia gave me more information and visuals (literally... there were pictures) than I needed or wanted. In short, an intersexual person is a heraphrodite.

LGBTQIA:

PFLAG coined this term. This was probably the first time that I thought, "hmmm... that feels like a LOT of letters for one initialism." But "A" stands for Allies so I was willing to accept it.

LGBTQQIA:

Ok so THIS "Q" was added to stop any other letters from being added. It stands for Queer. I wasn't sure at first why it was needed since we already have gay, and lesbian in the acronym. I found out though, that its supposed to just be an umbrella term to cover all the non-traditional-sexual groups.
However, this didn't work as planed.


Sometimes other groups like to make sure their voice is heard and add their letter into the mix.

An additional T

Transvestites and Transexuals have been placed under the same category of Transgender, but they feel that their issues are different enough to require separate letters.

O

Omnisexuals (or pansexuals) are often mistaken for bisexuals but they would also like to be separated. Bisexuals are attracted to both men and women. Omnisexuals are attracted to people. They call themselves gender blind. Man, woman, or intersexual; there is no difference to an omnisexual.

An additional A

Asexual individuals do not experience any kind of attraction to anyone. I suppose it is the opposite of an omnisexual. I'm not sure why they would want to be listed amongst the ranks of such sexualized groups, but apparently there is a cry for it because they wish to have their "A" added to the acronym as well.

P

Polysexuality. This is the belief in a multiple partner relationship..........
ok I draw the line here...

If we satisfy every group we end up saying that we are part of the

LGBTTQQIOPAA community.

What happened to equality and unity and what not? Why are we separating ourselves further by adding more and more letters?
Don't misunderstand me. I believe that there is a need for EVERY group to have a voice, but we have to make a choice in order to be effective. Unite as one voice or Split up and address each groups individual needs separately.
I'm in favor of the later option. We are just too diverse of a group, looking for different things, to function as a collective unit.

I feel like we are just hurting each other by tying ourselves to one another. We each have our own battles to fight and issues to deal with.

• Transgenders have to worry about what public bathroom is acceptable for them to use.
• Some Polysexuals fight for the legalization of plural marriages.
• Intersexuals have to deal with gender labels.

Those are just some of the things I will never have to deal with.
So what is my community?
I friends in nearly all of these groups. I like all of my friends but my question is more of "who can I stand by and join them in their fight for rights?"

I would have to say that my community would look more like LGA (lesbians, gays and allies).
This isn't necessarily because I don't believe that all the other groups issues are not valid. Frankly, some I just do not understand.


But why are people trying to link us all together?