Unpacking the Boxes!

As humans, we love categorising things, labelling them, and putting them in a box. Whether plants, animals, flavours, gender or sexuality, the walls of the boxes are changing and keeping up can be challenging.

Before you get stuck into this article, take a moment and think about how you identify yourself. Your name, gender, interests, sexuality, what you do for a job, your political bent. What makes you, you?

The LGBTQA+ community has always been defined by identity, both sexuality and gender. In the past, it was relatively simple, albeit restrictive – Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual or Transgender. Four boxes defined a massive spectrum of human experience and identity.

Today, the letters that encompass the LGBTQ+ community can stretch on for days and can be confusing and, at times confronting as we work through a minefield of gender, sexuality, pronouns and self-identity.

Let’s unpack some of the boxes within the acronym and explore our identity.

Firstly, here are some basic concepts that might help understand the letters;

Gender is part of how you understand who you are and how you interact with other people. Many people understand their gender as female or male, and some understand their gender as a combination of these or neither. Gender can be expressed in different ways, such as through behaviour or physical appearance.

Sex refers to a person’s biological sex characteristics. Historically understood as either female or male. However, we now know that some people are born with natural variations to sex characteristics.

Sexuality or sexual orientation describes a person’s romantic and/or sexual attraction to others.

A person’s gender does not necessarily mean they have particular sex characteristics or a particular sexuality, or vice versa.

LGBTQA+ terminology is constantly changing and evolving

Like any good dictionary, the letters of the LGBTQ+ community are constantly changing as our community changes over time. Some language becomes outdated or offensive as we evolve and learn as a community. For example, The word homosexual has slowly moved out of fashion, although still in use. Non-Binary (and its various abbreviations) is a relatively recent term gaining popularity in the late nineties, is fast-evolving as more younger members of our community identify with this term.

Did you know?

It wasn’t until relatively recently, June 2018 in fact,
the World Health Organization (WHO) declassified being transgender as a mental illness!

Everyone makes mistakes

No one is perfect, and occasionally we slip up by misgendering, using the wrong pronouns or not understanding the latest letter added to our inclusive community. The important thing is to keep trying, quickly apologise and continue with the conversation. A genuine mistake is forgivable, and accepting that your error may offend, even though you may not understand precisely why is the first step to a conversation that may help you discover a whole new box in our complicated world.

Identity is not a preference; it just is

When we talk about gender, sex characteristics or sexuality, we’re not talking about preferences or choices. We’re just talking about how people are or how they identify. They may wish to disclose further to you, but it is best not to assume how someone identifies based on their appearance.

So, time for the alphabet!

This article is just a short introduction to the various terms encompassed within the LGBTQ+ community. Check out some of our Going Deep articles for a deeper exploration of these terms and identities,

L is for Lesbian: A woman who is romantically and/or sexually attracted to other women.

G is for Gay: A person romantically and/or sexually attracted to people of the same sex and/or gender as themselves. Often used to describe men who are attracted to other men, but some women and gender-diverse people may describe themselves as gay.

B is for Bisexual: A person romantically and/or sexually attracted to people of their own gender and other genders. The term’ bi+’ is also sometimes used to describe the diversity of bisexualities. The term Multi-gender attraction (MGA) may also be used for those who experience attraction to more than one gender over a lifetime, regardless of self-identity or labels.

T is for Transgender: A person whose gender does not exclusively align with the one they were assigned at birth. We further explain some aspects of gender identity at the end of this article.

Trans can be used as an umbrella term, but not everyone uses it to describe themselves. For example, a man who was assigned female at birth might refer to himself as ’a trans man’, ’a man with a trans history’ or just ’a man’. It’s important to use the terms someone uses to describe themselves.

I is for Intersex: An intersex person is born with atypical natural variations to physical or biological sex characteristics such as variations in chromosomes, hormones or anatomy. Not all intersex people use this term and may identify by other terms.

Q is for Queer and Questioning: Queer is often used as an umbrella term for diverse genders or sexualities. Some people use queer to describe their own gender and/or sexuality if other terms do not fit. For some people, especially older LGBTIQ people, ‘queer’ has negative connotations because it was used as a discriminatory term in the past. Some people are still exploring or questioning their gender or sexual orientation. People may not wish to have one of the other labels applied to them yet, for various reasons, but may still want to be clear, for example, that they are non-binary or non-heterosexual.

Are there more letters?

Yup, just a few more related to sexuality -

Asexual: A person that does not experience sexual attraction but may experience romantic attraction towards others.

Pansexual: A person who is romantically and/or sexually attracted to people of all genders, binary or non-binary

Demisexual – A sexual orientation in which a person feels sexually attracted to someone only after they’ve developed a close emotional bond with them. Check out our article on Demisexuality here.

And gender -

Gender diverse generally refers to a range of genders expressed in different ways. This is a very fluid space and usually includes non-binary identification - someone whose gender is not exclusively female or male. The opposite of gender diverse is cis (pronounced ‘sis’, short for cisgender) – A person whose gender aligns with the sex they were assigned at birth

So you’ve made it through the alphabet soup of the LGBTQ+ community to the end. Hopefully, we have helped give a brief introduction to the inclusive world in which we live. Don’t forget Heterosexuals (the straights) need some love too!

Our world will continue evolving at a scarily increasing pace; New letters will be added, and some might go out of fashion, but like any good alphabet soup, together, we can spell love, compassion and inclusion.

Check out some more of our Going Deep articles as we explore the various labels within our community in more depth.

QLife provides Australia-wide anonymous, LGBTI peer support and referral for people wanting to discuss various issues, including sexuality, identity, gender, bodies, feelings or relationships. QLife: 1800 184 527 3pm to Midnight every day.