LGBTTIIQQ2SAAP

I just got an email from Canada World Youth requesting my presence at a focus group for people who are of a non-dominant sexuality or gender identity/expression...

Okay, it went out to Toronto area alumni, and it says "if" I am of a non-dominant sexuality or gender identity/expression, plus I'm not sure I know the lady who forwarded it to me, so it's not like somebody eyeballed me and made a decision about my orientation/identity/expression, but like the job offer, it's not like it was sent out from a mailing list, either...

What the hell is going on? First I get that job offer that would be "more suited for a woman", then a couple days ago, some gay guy hit on me, and now, my presence is being requested to represent people in sexual minorities...

By the way, the strand of letters that used to represent people in sexual minorities was LGBT. It stood for Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgendered. But they kept adding more labels and categories, and the workshop I got invited to was the LGBTTIQQ2SA Workshop. Let's see how many of those I can name:

Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgendered Transsexual (don't know) Queer Questioning (don't know) (don't know) Asexual.

That's not bad. Of the ten letters (and one number), I was able to name eight. I didn't know what the "I", the "2", or the "S" stood for.

Oh wait, "S" would be for "Sisgendered". I don't really remember what that means, but I've heard it. I think it means somebody who is mostly heterosexual, but who doesn't mind walking the other side of the fence every once in a while. It can't be a too widely-used term. It's the only word in this post so far that the spell check doesn't know.

Wait, the email's got a list of categories that are spelled out. They are: "lesbian, gay, bisexual, pansexual, asexual, queer, questioning, trans, intersex, genderqueer, and two-spirit"

Okay, yeah, that's 11 terms to fit the 11 letters. I guess the "I" stood for "Intersex" and the "2" stood for "Two-spirit". But they have "Pansexual" and there's no "P" in the list of letters, and there's nothing in the full-word format that starts with "S".

Okay, I'm going to look up some definitions.

Okay, using wordnet....

Pansexual: "A person who participates in (or is open to) sexual activities of many kinds."
Intersex: "One having both male and female sexual characteristics and organs; at birth an unambiguous assignment of male or female cannot be made."

Wordnet's not giving me anything for "Sisgender" or "Two-spirit" (And yeah, I tried two-spirit, two spirit, twospirit, 2spirit, 2-spirit, and 2 spirit).

Let's try a generic Google search.

Using Wikipedia...

Two spirit: "Two-Spirit People (also Two Spirit or Twospirit), is an English umbrella term for Indigenous North Americans who fulfill one of many mixed gender roles found traditionally among many Native Americans and Canadian First Nations communities."

Cisgender: "A class of gender identities where an individual's gender identity matches the behavior or role considered appropriate for one's sex."

Okay, so Cisgender turned out to start with a "C" and just means that you fit the definition of what your society thinks is appropriate for your gender. Still don't know what the "S" stands for. Let's do a Google search on the original strand of letters. Maybe there's a list...

Looks like it's a Canada-exclusive list. Here's a list:

“LESBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, TRANSGENDER, TRANSEXUAL, INTERESTED, QUEER, QUESTIONING, TWO-SPIRITED and ALLIES.”

Okay, so "I" stands for "Interested" instead of "Intersex", and "A" stands for "Ally" instead of "Asexual". Oh yeah, I remember this lesbian woman saying that I could have some kind of association with the gay community because I'm an "Ally".

Well, then why can't I go to this workshop? I'll just be like "Yo, I'm an ally." But they seem to the the "A" stands for asexual, and the "I" stands for intersex, since those were on their list.

And where's the "S"? They have eleven figures, but drop the "S" when they spell them out. Let's try somewhere else.

Ohhhhhhhh... I just checked another list, and it bolds what each one stands for. "Two spirit" is "2S" They get two figures instead of one, and the "S" stands for "Spirit".

Okay, now to judge the accuracy of the CWY list:
-They lumped "Transgendered" and "Transsexual" together under the term "Trans"
-They replaced "Allies" with "Asexual" and "Interested" with "Intersex"
-They added "Pansexual"

My God, if you included the CWY-exclusive terms and added them to the already 11-character term, you could add another three figures (Asexual, Intersex, Pansexual)

So it would be LGBTTIIQQ2SAAP.

Look, I'm all for being inclusive, but if I have to memorize this entire list to prove it, I feel like the assumption is that people are going to be discriminatory, and if you want to be accepting, you have to complete some fucking challenge to be accepted as accepting. That's kind of messed up. If you want people to respect you, why are you making it so inconvenient?