- [Shajira] Hello, I am Shajira Brown, the Director of Equity Inclusion at the National Disability Institute, also known as NDI. I'm happy to be your presenter for the LGBTQIA+ Inclusive Engagement training. It is my sincere hope that at the end of this training, you will take away something valuable and discover something new about the LGBTQIA+ community, so let's begin. Please relax, practice grace and understanding, but most importantly, enjoy. Today, we'll be learning about LGBTQIA+ languages and concepts and furthermore, look into why LGBTQIA+ inclusivity is relevant to NDI's projects, but also in the world. Audre Lorde once said, "It is our differences that divides us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences." Audre Lorde was an American writer also a womanist, radical feminist, professor, and civil rights activist. She was also quoted by, self-describing herself, as a black, lesbian mother, warrior, poet, who dedicated both her life and her creative talent to confronting and addressing injustices of racism, sexism, classism, and what brought us all here today, homophobia. Right now, consider that the LGBTQIA+ community includes a variety of people across the gender and sexuality spectrum who do not conform to gender and/or heterosexual norms. The individuals in this community come from all walks of life, including people of all races, ethnicities, nationalities, ages, disabilities, and let's not forget all socioeconomic statuses and all religions and spiritualities. The LGBTQIA+ community is banded together by their shared history, culture, and lived experiences. Let's be honest, we all heard it that the LGBTQIA+ acronym is long and has evolved a lot over the years and it's kind of hard to keep up with. All of those statements are true for those within the community and also for those outside of it, but that's more of a reason why it's important for us to practice and have basic understandings so that we can embrace all of its significance and all of the differences. Also, it shows how massive this community is and why this training is imperative for our work. You can look forward to me covering each of the letters of the LGBTQIA+ acronym in detail as we continue through this session, but first, let's turn our attention to the binary gender system. The term binary gender system is referred to often throughout the training and it warrants a bit of explanation. The binary gender system refers to a belief system that there is only two distinct genders, male and female, and where gender is interchangeable with sex. This belief means that if I am born male, I automatically consider myself a boy and will grow into a man, and I'll align myself with everything that has been constructed for males in society and the same is true for females. If I'm born female, I automatically consider myself a girl and will grow into a woman and will live up to society's expectations. The concept of binary gender system is flawed, but it is also very real. It is real in the sense that it shapes our policies and practices, creating real impacts on our day-to-day lives. The binary gender system shows up everywhere. It can be seen in health research, healthcare, in marketing campaigns, designing of clothing, and let's not forget, government identification, or something as simple as the toys our children play with or the books that they read. They are designated in categories of either boy or girl sections. In today's society, we're realizing that this binary system is etched into everything and it leaves out a host of people who do not identify as strictly male or female. Now, that we see how the binary system is flawed, let's turn our attention to the Genderbread Person. The Genderbread Person is a learning tool originally created by youth activists at the Sexual Minority Youth Resource Center in 1996 in Portland, Oregon. This was originally used with healthcare providers to help them understand how to respectfully interact with LGBTQIA+ patients. Activists have since promoted its very wide use by anyone because of its many benefits. The Genderbread Person is made up of gender identity, gender attraction, sex, and expressions. The Genderbread Person mimics very closely to a gingerbread cookie, however, it is not the same at all. The word identity point to the brain of the Genderbread Person, the word attraction point to the heart of the Genderbread Person, the sex word is pointing to the genitalia area of the Genderbread Person, and then the word expression is pointing to a waving hand on the Genderbread Person. The first concept on the Genderbread Person diagram is gender identity, which is the word identity pointing to the brain of the Genderbread Person. Gender identity is one's understanding of themselves in relation to concepts like man, woman, trans, genderqueer, non-binary, and many others. Simply put, it's how the person identifies themselves. The second concept on this diagram is gender expression. Again, it's pointed to the friendly wave of the Genderbread Person. So gender expression is behaviors that express or can be interpreted as expressing something about gender such as mannerisms, clothing, and many others. The third concept is biological sex. Again, that's the word sex pointing to the genitalia area of the Genderbread Person. Biological sex includes genotypes, internal and external sex organs, hormone levels, secondary sex characteristics, et cetera. Assigned sex, category assigned on IDs and documents. The fourth concept of the Genderbread Person diagram is sexual orientation and/or sexual attraction. Again, the diagram has the word attraction pointing to the most important part of us all, our heart. Sexual orientation describes one's pattern of romantic and/or sexual attraction in terms of gender. For example, someone may be attracted to people of the same gender as themselves to people of a particular other gender or to people of all genders. Sexual orientation is not, again, let me repeat, sexual orientation is not the same as gender identity. People of any gender may have any sexual orientation. On this slide, I brought everything together in regards to the Genderbread Person. I would really encourage you to share this within your networks, but also if you can, save it or print it for your own use. Gender identity, again, that's the word identity pointing to the brain of the person, it's pretty much how they see themselves, right? Then you have gender expression pointing to the wave of the person, this is how they show the world who they are, right? Through mannerisms and clothing, that's more outward facing, then you have the biological sex, which is the word sex point into the genitalia, which includes, you know, the sex organs, the hormones, but then you also have the assigned sex, which is categorized in documents or government IDs, and then last, but not least, we have sexual orientation, which is more aligned to the attraction which is the word attraction pointing to the heart where that just points to who this particular person is actually attracted to. Now, that we've had the opportunity to review the differences of gender identity, expression, biological sex, assigned sex, sexual orientation, and attraction, let's turn our attention to the evolution of that acronym, LGBTQIA+. The LGBTQIA+ community has used various acronyms over the years to best reflect the community and to be as inclusive as possible. You will probably encounter different variations of the acronym depending on who is using it, as well as written material depending on when it was written. It is generally a best practice to use the most recent version and doing so, will show that you respect the struggles, experiences of the entire community. In the '80s and before, there truly was no term for the community outside of the word gay, but it was then learned that this one word was excluding the females, so it morphed into GLB, gay, lesbian, and bisexual, and then, again, to adding a T to include the transgender community. In the '90s, the letter stayed the same, but the order changed, and here's why. In the late 1990s, the stages or the late stages of the AIDS epidemic were in full swing and the community that was hit the hardest of all within the whole world was the gay community. The GLBT community leaned in on one another to help out, but the lesbian community helped the most, pretty much tremendously. They made sure to organize food, housing, and clothing services for their counterparts who were, you know, unfortunately dying. In recognition of the care that many lesbian women showed to those who were suffering with AIDS, they decided to change the acronym to move the L to the beginning and it stays that way to this day. In the 2000s, they added the Q for queer or questioning, and then added a + sign, making the acronym LGBTQ+. In the 2010s, IA+ was added for intersex and asexual. So now, the term is LGBTQIA+ and it's trying to morph, again, to LGBTQIA2S+. For NDI purposes, we decided to stay with LGBTQIA+ because it is becoming more recognizable and until it morphs into something else that is as mainstream, we decided this is where we would stay for now. We have now reached to the point where we could talk about inside of the acronym, LGBTQIA+, we are gonna be reviewing what each letter stands for, but also what it means to those within the community. So let's start off with lesbian. It describes women whose primary romantic and erotic attraction is to other women. Now, we're gonna move into gay. Gay doesn't have one meaning, it actually has two. Historically, gay has described men whose primary romantic and erotic attraction is to other men, but nowadays, gay describes men and women whose primary romantic erotic attraction is to people of the same gender. For example, men who are attracted to men and women who are attracted to women. Lastly, on this slide, we have bisexual, where it describes people who are attracted to both men and women or people who are attracted to those of the same gender as their own and those of a different gender. All right, we've already covered L, G, and B, now, it's time for T, transgender, often refers specifically to people who have an experience of transitioning either socially, legally, and/or medically from living as one gender to living as another gender. The next letter is Q, which actually has two meanings. It can stand for queer or it can stand for questioning. Before I move forward with our discussion, I wanted to provide a very small disclaimer that I am only mentioning the term queer because it's a part of the acronym and it is not, in any way, being used negatively or to degrade anyone. Q, queer, an umbrella term describing a wide range of people who do not conform to heterosexual and/or gender norms. The other meaning for queer is a derogatory slur reclaimed to unite people who are marginalized based on nonconformance to norm of cisgender identity and/or heterosexuality. Here's a helpful tip. Because of its history as a slur, the term queer, if it is used, it should be used thoughtfully and only about people who want to be referred to this way, meaning you have their permission to use the term. What is not acceptable and extremely offensive is if someone uses the word queer to describe a person or group of people to bring shame to them. The next Q that we have here is questioning. It refers to someone who is questioning their sexual orientation or their gender identity. Now, we're gonna turn our attention to the I, the A, and the +, these are the newer additions to the acronym. I, intersex, it describes someone who's anatomy or physiology is not easily categorized as simple as male or female. This may be apparent at birth or may become apparent at puberty. Some intersex people are also trans and many are not, it is their decision. Then we have asexual or aromantic, someone who experiences little or no sexual desire, but may desire non-sexual romantic connections, meaning that they may not want to have a sexual relationship with their partner, but still 100% is committed to who they're with. Last, but not least, +. The + reminds us that the LGBTQIA+ community is expansive and includes any identity that does not conform to heterosexual and/or gender norms. Some are pansexuals, demisexuals, polyamorous, and many more.