Yet another variation on the initialism: LGBTQIASB+
I've been pleased recently to start hearing and seeing another variation on the "LGBT" initialism here in Australia: LGBTQIASB+
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Lesbian
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Gay
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Bisexual
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Transgender
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Queer
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Intersex
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Asexual
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Sistergirl
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Brotherboy
The latter two terms, "sistergirl" and "brotherboy", are Aboriginal Australian words for people who are gender non-conforming. This includes transgender people as we westerners understand "transgender", but the terms are more inclusive than that. This article explains it better than I possibly could.
The reason I'm so pleased to see this new variation on the LGBT initialism is because the only other variation which includes First Peoples I've seen is the American one that uses "2S" for these (from "two-spirit"). The first time I saw that (and every other time, to be honest), I felt this was highly parochial and exclusive - which is the opposite of what the initialism should be. So now I'm glad there's a Down Under version, which includes the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
Are there any other local variations like this?
As a member of the community, I really dislike all the additional letters. It really makes the entire system seem like an unfunny joke, and really demeans all of us. I've always been particularly more of an advocate for GSM (Gender and Sexual Minorities) that just encompasses all of them in a nice and simple acronym.
Personally, I prefer "rainbow community", as it's inclusive without being academic. It's friendly and easy to use.
But I don't get to decide what terms are used by the majority of people.
Some people like it, others don't. I think having variations at time can be nice, but I basically always refer to the community as simply 'queer' or LGBTQ+ depending on the context of who I'm speaking with.
Is the placement of the '+' something that is ever contentious? For e.g. intersex people who might want LGBTQI+ as the preferred term or is acronym representation not something people actually worry about?
You will find people on both sides of this issue. If someone has a strong opinion I'm happy to adjust, but at some point it's a lot of letters to say in order to refer to something that less syllables can refer to
Perhaps a tad problematic.
How is that problematic?
I think he just meant potentially confusing. But I doubt that many people know about that organization, as opposed to about the term GSM in the LGBT sense.
Yep.
I'm a gay Asian-American. I've been wary of the recent surge of international queer-mainstream interest in indigenous cultural gender constructs.
A lot of information around these constructs appear to be propagated by non-indigenous people, so I'm skeptical of their veracity. I get the vague sense that this is the 2020s equivalent to getting Asian character tattoos, where the international queer community is drawn to a cool, exotic cultural phenomenon.
The constructs don't appear to be universally or contemporarily shared by indigenous cultures. From what I can learn, those cultures utilized these constructs primarily for hierarchal or religious roles, similar to how the ancient-to-late-imperial Chinese used eunuchs as quasi-non-binary "non-men" to fulfill certain political roles. The elevation of tribe-specific constructs to the superethnic level seems (to me) akin to asserting that fengshui is very important to Asians.
And I also wonder — do these culture-specific constructs even have meaning or utility outside of their original cultural contexts? I think that their cultures have the necessary structures to give these constructs meaning and utility. But when they are non-contextualized in outside cultures they are meaningless. Even with awareness, they are merely definitions and facts — but ultimately cultural constructs without cultural import outside of their native cultures.
I get where you're coming from in being wary of appropriation and misuse, but it's worth noting that, at least here in North America, using "two-spirit" as an umbrella term was first proposed at the third annual Intertribal Native American, First Nations, Gay and Lesbian American Conference. And AFAIK it's not "non-indigenous people" that have been responsible for "propagating" it either, but Indigenous LGBTQ+ organizations themselves who have since adopted the term and continued to push for its wider use.
Source: https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/two-spirit
And for some background on Albert McLeod:
The article I linked in my post was written by an indigenous person who identifies as a brotherboy. I made sure to check that this article wasn't written from an outsider's point of view when I was deciding whether to include it in my post.
Which is why we have different initialisms for different countries: the American version includes a phrase used by Native Americans, and the Australian version includes terms used by indigenous Australians.
Do they have to have meaning outside those cultural contexts? They're specific to the cultures they come from, and that's fine. Including brotherboys and sistergirls in the Australian version of the LGBT+ initialism doesn't mean that all Aussies can claim to be brotherboys or sistergirls; it just means we recognise them in our rainbow community. Importantly, it recognises that the western definition of "transgender", which is already recognised in the initialism "LGBT", does not include all brotherboys and sistergirls.