We at Clarity Okanagan Counselling and Consultation are excited to announce a new monthly series of blog posts. These are designed to help parents/caregivers of LGBT2QIA+ children. We hope to help navigate the changes and challenges associated with supporting your child through a complex coming out process that may be completely foreign to you. Most of these posts will be written by myself, an openly nonbinary counsellor identifying with aspects of both bisexuality and asexuality. This series may also feature other counsellors who identify as members of the LGBT2QIA+ community. We may select topics from general questions that have come up in our practices, or could come from submitted questions. If you’d like to submit a question/concern/topic of discussion, please feel very free to email me.
As an introduction, let’s begin with the acronym “LGBT2QIA+”. We will discuss what it means and why I chose this way to refer to my community in this series:
L is for Lesbian: a woman who has romantic and/or sexual interest in women and only women.
G is for Gay: a person who is romantically and/or sexually interested in the same gender. Some may use “Gay” as an umbrella term for anyone in the LGBT2QIA+ community.
B is for Bisexual: a person who finds romantic and/or sexual interest in more than one gender, or in both their own gender and another gender. You may have also seen the word “Pansexual” before. This has a very similar meaning but a different history than the term “Bisexual”. Both are valid ways to identify as someone who is not monosexual or only feels attraction to one gender.
T is for Transgender/Trans: a person whose innate gender identity does not align with the gender that was assigned to them at birth. Newborns are typically called “male” or “female” based on the appearance of their genitals at birth. Anyone who continues to identify with their assigned gender is cisgender. Anyone who does not, including transmen, transwomen, and those identifying as agender, gender-fluid, and nonbinary (like myself) fall under the trans umbrella. I typically get the most questions from parents/caregivers when their child comes out as trans. This is because parents/caregivers often deal with grief over lost/changed expectations for their child. There is also usually fear around making the “right” decisions for their child in regards to social, legal, and medical aspects of transitioning.
2 is for Two-Spirit: a modern English term for a nonbinary gender identity that can be held by North-American Indigenous persons. Gender-variance and/or the idea of a third gender was extremely important in many Indigenous nations before colonization. The modern term was designed to help unify Indigenous nations in reclaiming their traditional diverse gender identities.
Q is for Queer and/or Questioning: some will use the term “Queer” instead of “LGBTQ2IA+” to describe this community. “Queer” can be used as an umbrella term or as an individual identity for anyone who is not both heterosexual and cisgender. Since this word is a reclaimed slur, some members of the community will naturally feel uncomfortable with it because of their own history with the word. People outside of the community should not use it unless they’re very sure that it won’t be hurtful. For example, when a person has already identified themselves as “queer”. We can also use the “Q” in the acronym to make room in the community for those who are questioning.
I is for Intersex: a person whose genitals and/or sex chromosomes do not fit either “male” or “female” sex. Biological sex is different from one’s gender identity. A person may identify as both intersex and with other terms related to gender that have already been discussed in this post.
A is for Asexual and/or Aromantic: both of these terms relate to a spectrum of experience. They may mean different things to different people. Asexuality refers, generally, to a lack of sexual attraction and/or desire. It is important to remember that there is a great deal of variation within this spectrum. A person may feel repulsion to sex or they may still enjoy aspects of sexual intimacy. Another may never experience sexual attraction or they may experience it less frequently than someone who is not asexual. Aromantism is a very similar spectrum but refers to romantic attraction and/or feelings. There are also many specific identities within these spectrums. “Demisexual,” which refers to someone who experiences sexual attraction and/or desire only after forming a strong emotional bond.
+ is very important: there are many other identities that are part of the LGBT2QIA+ community. If each had a letter in the acronym it would get impractically long. This is why several of the included letters are umbrella terms and/or spectrums of identity as well as terms to describe a person’s individual identity. The “+” exists to ensure that there is no gatekeeping or suggestion that someone has to identify a specific way to be a member of this community. It also makes room for those of us who do not like to use labels at all; labels can be empowering for some, and help us to understand ourselves and find community, but are restrictive for others.
It is accurate for someone to say “LGBT+” instead of spelling out the whole acronym. One can even say “queer community” (as long as they are mindful of the word’s history), or even “gay community” as umbrella terms instead of any kind of acronym—because the inclusive “+” makes this possible. In fact, some sources would argue that I have not use the full acronym, and it can be much longer. This further demonstrates the importance of the “+.” In my personal life. I do not typically use the full acronym, but I choose to in this series for educational purposes. There are other variations to “LGBTQ2IA+,” including “GSM,” which means “Gender and Sexual Minorities,”. For educational purposes, and to highlight the ongoing history of the LGBTQ2IA+ community in working towards inclusivity, I will continue to use this acronym in this series.
I look forward to addressing our first parent/caregiver question next month!