The Alphabet Soup of Sexual Identity

In My Opinion:

The Alphabet Soup of Sexual Identity

By Trevor K. McNeil

Too Far

It might be time to come up with a single word expression to replace the alphabet soup of letters & symbols currently in use

One of the most common subjects of mockery, especially on the right is the ever-expanding series of letter & symbols used to identify humans with non-standard sexual identity.

Times have changed as they tend to do. With that change comes discomfort and usually backlash. Look no further than the political corners of YouTube and Reddit for examples of this.   LGBTTQQIAAP has become a subject of mockery. Especially on the right. The the ever-expanding series of letters used to quickly identify humans who have non-standard sexual identity has lost its practicality. There are now up to as many as eleven letters in its longest form. It is becoming obvious that they have a point. Things have gone slightly off the rails in terms understandable and honorable attempts at representation. Though it is also fair to ask where this all started and how things got to this point.

A Good Idea At The Time

For many years the existence of non-heterosexual sexual identity was generally not acknowledged by mainstream society. This changed in the late 1960’s with events such as the Stonewall Riots in 1969 and the first performance of the openly gay play “The Boys in the Band” on Broadway a year earlier in 1968. In 1973 the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from its list of mental illnesses. The term “Gay Community” came into use as a non-derogatory way to refer in general to men and women who were not heterosexual.

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