Working in the IT industry is great for stimulating our minds and following technological innovations. And living in such extraordinary times, we see a lot of advances in various fields of technology. Most of these are usually welcomed with enthusiasm, some with reluctance, but everyone admits technological change is a thing that must be embraced at some point. In the meantime, humans and societies evolve as well. But these changes aren’t always as welcomed as their technological counterparts. In this regard, the LGBTQIA+ community might seem like a niche community, full of buzzwords, drastically different from the heteronormative world, and potentially difficult to navigate considering all the nomenclature and rules that revolve around it. In my humble opinion, this feeling is mostly due to a lack of information.
What is the Pride Flag? What does it represent?
The LGBTQIA+ community is full of symbolism. The most well-known being the rainbow flag. It was designed in the 70s to be a symbol of hope and happiness for this community in troubled times. It was made of eight colours in the original design but came down to six colours since it became rapidly produced and some pigments were quite hard to find in copious quantities.
The six rainbow colours also each have a meaning:
- Red for blood, and life
- Orange for healing
- Yellow for innovation and progress
- Green for nature, prosperity, and growth
- Blue for calm and serenity
- Purple for pride
This flag has evolved since this original version to include more elements related to the LGBTQIA+ community. Because this community is more like a gathering of diverse groups sharing values but still being quite different in essence. Each community has its own dedicated flag, and some wanted to see the classic rainbow flag evolve to be explicitly more inclusive of sub-communities.
This led to the Progress Pride flag. It is also fairly common in LGBTQIA+ events and representation since the start of the Black Lives Matter movement. This version of the flag includes an arrow-shaped design, representing progress, pointing to the right and being made of light blue, white and pink colours, for the transgender people, brown and black colours, for people of colour who also experience discrimination, and a yellow triangle with a purple circle, for the intersex community.
Thus, the LGBTQIA+ is an alliance of communities and groups revolving around a centre of common values, experiencing some levels of discrimination and violence against their own existence, and looking to the future with hope despite the repressions that affected and still affect the LGBTQIA+ community.
Another perspective on gender
Understanding gender as a social construct
Why are there so many sub-groups though? To understand this, you need to take another perspective on gender.
Gender is a social construct. It means that it is real, since it has a direct impact on your life: it will dictate, depending on your culture and social context, a lot of things related to your rights, obligations, and interdictions. But all of this has been set by human societies. They can and do change depending on the epoch and place you live in. Gender impacts many aspects of your life, but it isn’t an absolute truth.
A common parallel for a social construct is money. Money has no absolute value. It impacts many aspects of your life, making it depend on it, but it was based on gold for many practical reasons and still makes sense to our societies. But it could have been based on other elements, such as Platinum, and would have a different meaning. If massive quantities of gold flooded the world market, basing money on gold wouldn’t make sense anymore. A new standard would be needed.
In short, a social construct is a concept set by humans, so it can be discussed in rational ways and changed if needed. And gender is a social construct.
The genderbread person
A cool tool for taking another perspective is the genderbread person. It is meant to suit each of us and help us refine our own definition of gender.
The genderbread person has four axes:
- Gender identity: which refers to your very own perception of your gender, at an introspection level. It includes traits that are associated with masculinity and femininity, and is usually a combination of both.
- Gender expression: refers to how you want to act, perceive yourself and be perceived by others. It includes your clothing, style, mannerisms, expressions, and hobbies for example. It is also linked to cultural standards related to masculinity or femininity.
- Biology: which not only refers to your anatomical sex, but also to your hormone levels, chromosomes, and secondary sex characteristics such as pilosity, breast, fat distribution, and voice pitch. In this regard, you can be male, female, or intersex.
- Attraction: either romantic, sexual or both. It relates to which combination of the above you feel attracted to.
According to those, you have a wide range of possible combinations once you realise that usual standards for masculinity and femininity are only extremes of a much more nuanced spectrum. It is also worth noticing that it can change with time, depending on your very own life experiences.
With this perspective, you will find that gender is a very private and unique thing. And that is how you define yourself at a certain point and time is always valid. It doesn’t mean it should be appreciated or depreciated by anyone; it simply makes sense to you so it should be respected as it is.
L-G-B-T-Q-I-A +
The genderbread person helps us understand the meaning of each letter in the LGBTQIA+ community.
- L – lesbian, someone identifying as a woman attracted to women or femininity
- G – gay, someone identifying as a a man attracted to men or masculinity. “Gay” also serves as a more general term for anyone with not straight relationships
- B – bisexual, anyone attracted to both men, masculinity and women, femininity. It can be specific to some archetypes and not others in these categories
- T – trans, an umbrella term for anyone who identifies with a gender that differs from the one they were assigned at birth. Transgender refers to having a different gender is the standard for anyone like me. The term transsexual is no longer used, as it has a negative connotation and implies a change in genitals, which isn’t systematic. A drag queen is out of this category since it is reserved for disguise, show and roleplaying purposes.
- Q – queer, or also for questioning. People who are unsure about their identity, but it also serve a broader term for any member of the community. It used to be a slur word btw
- I – intersex. People who are born with biology, so either sex, hormone levels, or chromosomes that differ from male or female
- A – agender, asexual. People who identify with no gender or aren’t attracted or interested in sexual relationships.
- The “plus” sign indicates that more combinations are possible, as we saw.
Pronouns & genderless language
Now that we know how diverse gender can be and how it makes sense to everyone at a private level, it seems logical that pronouns also make sense. Pronouns are important in this context since they carry gender. If you say to someone “He is nice”. For this person, it means “Everything they associated with a man is nice”.
Pronouns are also important because they replace your name. And the same way you would not want people to mispronounce your name, you would not want them to misgender you.
Finally, let us remember that pronouns are not necessary. You can always use names instead; it will simply sound a little more repetitive.
In the spirit, you can use genderless language when addressing people so that you do not assume anything about their private feelings or lives. Or do not make them feel bad for not being “out” about some aspects of their life. Examples of genderless language include saying “hello folks” instead of “hi guys”, using “partner” instead of husband or wife.
Lastly
Humans are diverse. As a society, there will always be some need for normalisation to facilitate communication and tasks. But this normalisation comes too often with the cost of erasing personalities or leading to persecution, violence, or death.
Most haters of the LGBTQIA+ still come with the argument “It’s not natural”. Remember there are more than 1.500+ species that have been reported with a kind of queer-related behaviour, sometimes much more than we will ever be.
So, nature is diverse, and so are humans. People aren’t standardisable, evolve with time, with culture, with experience, and might take some paths through their lives that you cannot understand but should respect if they do not harm others. People make mistakes, and so will you. So don’t take it too dramatically, respect each other, enjoy the journey, and keep learning.
Special credits to Cécile Deprez for her strong contribution to this blog.
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