LGBTQIPA et al.

I'd really like to see people start using NSP instead of LGBTQIPA etc. NSP - for non-straight people, it seems to me, would cover it all, and be a lot more manageable.

I'm old enough - 53 - to remember a time before anyone ever used LGB, much less the loger version(s). I'm working off memory here, so feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, and I realize too that different things may have been happening in different places. Anyway, what I recall is that back in the 70s, people were talking about Gay rights a lot. Then I remember lesbians wanting to be mentioned separately and not assumed to be included in "Gay" rights, very likely partially as a result of the feminist movement. Then the press etc. started referring to Lesbian and Gay rights - most likely "Lesbian" came first because if it came second it would upset feminist.

Eventually,bisexuals said, "hey, what about us?" As it got lengthy to say Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual rights the press started using LGB rights. A little later, not much, the trans world chimed in as well, and LGBT was born.

It was - I believe - some years later, that I saw a Q added. At that time Q was for queer to cover mainly, I understood, people who either didn't want to be labeled, or didn't feel they quite fit any of the labels. I'm not sure how people now define queer, but at the time queer, which had been earlier derogatory for homosexual, was taken on as an umbrella term to mean "not straight as an arrow." Now, I've seen Q in LGBTQ refereed to as specifically, "Questioning."

Back when I fist heard the word bisexual, 1974 or so, I'm pretty sure no one had yet coined the term pansexual. The whole pan verses bisexual will be another blog post for me soon. But yeah, self-defined pansexuals consider themselves not the same as bisexual and so a P had to be thrown into the lot. 

Inter-sexed people is another whole group that is ignored, bashed, and discriminated against, so the I was added too, I think much more recently.

In an earlier blog post The Superpower of Bi-invisibility, I offhandedly used "LGBQT" to lead readers to a related link. One such reader was kind enough to comment that I should also add "A" on the list to include asexuals. I believe everyone needs recognition and respect and equal rights, so I agreed. However, this made me all the more aware of something that I'd long thought about and intend to write a blog about soon - the extent to which, as the list grows longer, we (meaning all of those included on the list) have our individual group's issues, problems, joys, legalities, etc, watered down. Further, bundling ourselves like this, I believe, has been the cause of some in-fighting. Stay tuned for my future blog about that if you want to hear more.

Meanwhile, when we do all want to stand together, or be refereed to together, in regards to common issues, can we just start using NSP? I think this way we are less likely to leave anyone else out too. Or perhaps, NTHP - for non-traditionally heterosexual people?