What Does Acronym LGBTQIA+ Stand For? Why Is It Incomplete? Origin And Concept Of Terms

Who do you identify yourself as? What is your gender identity? Has it changed over the years or remained the same? How do you express your gender to others?

If you haven't thought about these while considering your gender, then pause right away to understand yourself and the others around you better! These questions are valuable because it gives a lot of clarity in terms of gender.

What Is Gender?

Gender refers to the characteristics of women, men, girls and boys that are socially constructed. Gender refers to the characteristics of women, men, girls and boys that are socially constructed. As a social construct, gender varies from society to society and can change over time, says World Health Organisation (WHO).

However, then gender is not inclusive and becomes hierarchical, it nurtures inequalities that can be social as well as economic. Discrimination when it comes to gender can happen on numerous levels and it can be based on sexual orientation, disability, socioeconomic status, geographic location, and age, among others. This can also be defined as intersectionality.

As a result, a lot of non-binary, trans people experience distress, anxiety and unhappiness due to a mismatch between their gender identities and essential elements of their bodies (voice chest or genitals). This is what we now call gender dysphoria. Often it has been seen these people are treated wrongly by a dominant culture, humiliated socially, and sometimes people use wrong pronouns to identify their gender.

What's Gender Identity?

Gender identity describes the inner experience of your own gender - whether you feel like a man, woman, genderqueer, agender, nonbinary, or another identity. When it comes to gender identity. However, be it a woman, a man or a nonbinary person, there are no right and wrong ways to look at them.

What Does The Acronym LGBTQIA+ Stand For?

The acronym LGBTQIA+ stands for a lot of gender and sexual identities such as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, intersex, asexual, and people collectively and the (+) is added to hold space for the expanding and new understanding.

In India, the LGBTQIA+ community celebrates Pride Month in June to increase support and visibility and support.

How a person sees or experiences their own gender can be a unique experience. However, due to a lack of knowledge and awareness, some people believe that there are only two genders- man and woman. This can also be termed as gender binary. When one's gender identity doesn't fit into the gender binary, one identifies themselves as nonbinary.

When it comes to gender and sexuality, some do prefer a 'fluid' or 'no label' approach as well. However, other terms associated with LGBTQIA+ and other labels are extremely essential as it gives validity to their existence, adds a sense of belonging and help them to articulate their identity.

Lesbian

A lesbian is referred to as a homosexual girl or a woman which means who is physically and emotionally attracted towards the primary members of the same gender. Women who are lesbian refer themselves to as 'gay woman' or 'gay'.

The term 'Lesbian' comes from the Greek Island 'Lesbos' where an ancient Greek woman Sappho was born whose work included writing poems on homosexual themes. Numerous reports suggest that the term 'sapphic' is named for this poet and it also refers to female homosexuality.

GAY

This is actually actually a backronym for gay and it means 'Good As You'. and it is referred to someone who has sexual desire or behaviour towards a person or persons from the same sex. It is typically associated with men.

The term 'gay' arrived in English in the 12th century. According to the Oxford dictionary, it originated from an Old French term 'gai', But, Merriam Webster takes it further back and refers to a Germaic origin "akin to the Old High German Gahi" which means 'quick or sudden'. Not many people know that the word's primary meaning was merry, joyful, showy' careful, and bright and had a common usage in terms of literature and in speech.

Bisexual

Bisexual means attracted to not one but multiple genders- men and women. And pansexual means attracted to all genders. At times, these terms overlap for many belonging to the LGBTQ community. Others may identify as bisexual and yet have an attraction to all genders. Also, in this case, it is possible that they are not sexually attracted to both genders at the same time or in the same way or degree.

It was Robert Bentley, an anatomist who used this term in 1859 and it refers to the possession of 'female' and 'male' characteristics in the same body. Today, it is also termed as intersex.

Transgender

The umbrella term that is related or denoted to a person whose gender identity doesn't congruent with the sex registered for them at birth. It also means someone whose gender doesn't find validity in dominant cultures.

Magnus Hirschfeld (1868-1935) the famous German Sexologist coined the words transvestites and transsexuals at the beginning of the 20th Century. And, Virginia Prince coined the word transgenderism, which is a blanket term for both transsexualism and transvestism. However, "transgender" was coined and defined by Psychiatrist John F. Oliven in the 1960s.

Queer

This is derogatory slang used by many who reject gender and sexual binaries. It is related to people who do not conform to the established ideas of sexuality and gender, especially heterosexual norms and is also used as a political identity in protest against oppressive societal conditions.

The noun "queer" was first used to mean homosexual by the Marquess of Queensbury, in 1894. The 1949 printing of Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary lists just one slang usage for "queer": "Counterfeit money," mentions The Oxford English Dictionary. This term is also listed as a noun and adjective, as slang (not offensive slang) for homosexuals in the 1965 printing of Webster's New World Dictionary, College Edition.

Intersex

When a person is born with a combination of female and male biological traits, then they are known as intersex. It can be anything related to sex characteristics such as chromosome patterns, gonads, or genitals. They do not fit into the male and female binary sex classification. The traits may be apparent when a person is born, but may or may not appear during adulthood and puberty.

Earlier being intersex was seen as a disorder of sex development (DSD), but gynaecological sciences and multiple wartime military medical examinations prove that it is not a disorder, condition or disease.

German-Jewish geneticist Richard Benedict Goldschmidt coined the term intersexuality in the 1917 paper Intersexuality and the endocrine aspect of sex. This includes norms, behaviours and roles associated with being a woman, man, girl or boy, as well as relationships with each other.

Asexual

When a person has a low or lack of sexual attraction or desire, or interest in sexual activities with others, they are termed as Asexual. It can also mean the absence of sexual orientation for some and for others, they consider asexuality to be their sexual orientation.

The term asexual comes from the prefix 'a-' and means 'not' or 'without and 'sexual' refers to sex. The term was first used in the late 1700s and was originally used in biology to refer to organisms, especially plants, that had no sex organs.

Plus (+)-

The sign is actually a symbol that has been added to the acronym to make it more gender-fluid, represent more sexual identities and also represent people who do not like any labels. It stands for and denotes members whose gender identities have not been added to the acronym LGBTQIA.

Identities That Are Yet To Be Included In The Acronym LGBTQIA

Non-Binary (GenderQueer)

This is an umbrella term used for various gender-nonconforming identities and is most often used by those who do not strictly identify as "male" and "female." One's gender identity is also considered non-binary if they are both a man and a woman or in between. They identify themselves as an intermediate or separate third gender.

The term genderqueer originated in queer zines of the 1980s as a precursor to the term non-binary. Androgynous (also androgyne) is frequently used as a descriptive term for people in this category.

Pansexual

This means someone who is attracted to all genders either emotionally, physically or both. This can include agender, cisgender, transgender and gender nonconforming individuals as well. Their attraction towards others is based on personality and not gender.

The prefix of this word has a Greek root 'pan' which means all. The origin of the term is generally attributed to 'pansexualism,' and it can be dated back to the early 1900s. It was popularized by Sigmund Freud.

Cisgender

This term is used to denote someone whose sense of personal identity and gender corresponds to his or her sex at birth and is contrasted with 'transgender'. This umbrella term is an antonym for transgender as well. They usually belong to a group whose gender is validated by any dominant culture or society.

It is in 2015, that the Oxford English Dictionary added the word 'cisgender'. This comes from the Latin meaning 'on this side,' as opposed to 'trans' which means 'on the other side of' or 'beyond.'

Gender Fluid

The term Gender fluid refers to change over time in a person's gender expression or gender identity, or both and they are not fixed and can change over time. They may compass one gender, multiple genders or no gender.

Around the 1980s, the term gender fluid emerged and it came into use with adjacent terms such as transgender(1970s) and genderqueer (1990s).