I’m old enough that I can remember a simpler world where there was just straight people and queers. As time passed people’s interactions with one another became more complicated.
LGBTQIA+
What do all those initials mean anyway? Well, I had to look them all up. Here’s a link that explains what each letter of the acronym stands for.
There are other terms like binary, cisgender, etc. Since I tend to be a little thick my wife is constantly explaining them to me.
Dumb Ass
“What am I again babe?”
“For the umpteenth time you’re cis!”
“And what are my pronouns?”
“He and dumb ass!”
“Ha! Dumb ass isn’t a pronoun!”
I like to dazzle her occasionally with expressions of insight and knowledge especially when it’s so obvious that I am being mocked. Being a man of a certain age I kind of lean towards the “A” anyway. We may have to rethink my pronouns.
But what does LGBTQIA+ mean and why isn’t an “H” in there?
GAGA
The conservative estimate is that 10% of the population identifies with one of the letters in LGBTQIA+. Ten percent. I think it’s more than that but even with that percentage we’re talking 30 million plus people in this country.
OMG! They’re everywhere. Yes they are. At those numbers practically every family in America has an LGBTQIA+ person in their midst. They may not want to admit it. They may not want to talk about it. But they are there. What’s more they have always been there. None of this is new. Thousands of years of history acknowledge their being with us. It’s normal.
I happen to be straight and it’s like Lady Gaga said, “I was born this way.” I could have been born under the sign of any other letter but I wasn’t.
I was born this way.
Lucky me.
Why would I make such an outrageous comment like ‘lucky me.’ Well, no one wanted to punish me for being straight. It never came up. No one wanted to discriminate against me for being straight. No one wanted to kill me simply because I am straight. It was easy to get married and have kids. It was not an impediment to getting a job. Hippie hair was but that’s a different matter altogether. I had no trouble buying cakes.
It just doesn’t matter
Being LGBTQIA+ is decidedly NOT okay with the majority of Conservative Republicans or the previous administration, sadly, like many others. Being LGBTQIA+ is NOT okay with Christian Nationalists like those in the Evangelical Party from the Church of Just Us. They want to impose their religious beliefs on all the rest of society. BTW that love the sinner hate the sin is a nice catchy phrase and it’s bullshit. They hate the sinner and they want the sinner punished. (Not only that, they spend way too much time contemplating the sin. It would help if they would just stop thinking so much about other people’s sex lives. That would minimize the “ick” factor considerably for them.) They want their ancient made up religious laws to apply to the secular world. They’ll tell you that they have a god given right to do that.
They don’t!
All lives matter.
Frankly my dear
Choice not nature. Who cares? It’s supposed to be the land of the free not pick and choose who gets to be free with full equality. It isn’t just for those dressed in white robes with pointy hats. People can choose to be any letter that they want. It’s no skin off my nose. Doesn’t pose any kind of threat to me or my family or those that I choose to be my family. What my family chooses or is, is up to them.
These bigots are NOT the victims, no matter how much they lament and beat their breasts. Sadly their LGBTQIA+ children are victims too many times. The people using the cudgels are claiming that those they are using them on are a threat simply by existing. They want them submissive. Here’s what I’ve got to say to that.
What Clark said.
So, what does LGBTQIA+ mean?
It means that we are wonderfully and beautifully diverse.
We were born this way.