Gay Diversity: Matters of Character

A cautionary note: take nothing I say below as informed. Look it all up for yourself. That is the only way to be sure that you know exactly what LGBTIA stands for and are not at risk of appearing gauche among trendsetters.

I was taken unawares when an ‘I’ was appended to LGBT. Before then I was only unsure about the ‘T’. I thought it stood for transgender but was not at all sure where transsexuals, transvestites or hermaphrodites fitted in. And I admit to mixing up transgender people and transsexuals in the sense of occasionally looking up the difference and then letting it slip from my mind. Intersex, now that is an intriguing one. ‘Into sex’ I understood (or used to in more youthful years), but intersex, what the heck could it mean? I now know that it is an encompassing term for those born with some biological makeup of both sexes and so includes hermaphrodites. Moreover for the moment I also know that transsexuals have had reassignment surgery whereas transgender…