The problem, as I see it, is that other minorities have history and consensus. "Black history month" is a recounting of hundreds of years of overlooked contributions and suffering of a recognized minority. If you're Jewish you've got thousands of years of history and folklore. If you're homosexual you can go back to the ancient Greeks and beyond. You are this, not that, you are this, and that.

The LGBT community has to be an umbrella of inclusiveness of everyone who isn't into straight sex with their original genitals. The LGB part? That shit's sorted. Everything else?

i like using GSM (for gender and sexual minorities) because it seems like nobody could have a problem with it, and the letter-adding politics of LGBT-etc (aka legbutts) is something to be avoided given that it's one of the things that every two-bit culture warrior brings up to talk about how shit we are - i have no problems with anybody using any kind of acronym or whatever because i'm not an asshole, and like i said, water off the back or whatever bullshit i actually did say

That's your perspective, and I thank you for it, and I guarantee that if I assume the next trans person I meet shares it I'm fucked. Because everyone who's active in the community has an opinion and there isn't a lot of folklore or tradition to lean on.

My wife welcomed and was sought out by the LGBT community in Los Angeles; she helped a lot of same-sex couples have babies. In Seattle she's in with a couple-three prominent LGBT educators and we ran the webpage through the Decoder Ring so that we used completely bias-free language. And I know what passes in LA wouldn't pass in Seattle, and I know what passes in Seattle doesn't pass in LA, and I know that the experience of an outsider attempting to reconcile everyone's chosen pronouns and acronyms is to be a punching bag for getting it wrong always.

We got some paperwork that used "LGBTQQIAAP!" and I had to ask what the "!" meant. I was informed it referred to two-spirit individuals (but not third gender. Then I had to ask what two-spirit individuals were. Then I was told that two-spirit individuals are Native Americans who fulfill a third gender role in life or in certain ceremonial capacities. I said "oh, you mean bardaches" because fuckin' hell we studied Navajo gender fluidity in 8th grade because mine was a progressive school.

You'd think I said "you mean faggots." No bonus points whatsoever for being familiar with Navajo culture as it pertains to transgender individuals. Because I'd used the term my teacher taught me 20 years ago in an attempt to be diverse, I was an unalloyed racist homophobe all of a sudden.

I honestly believe that the homophobes have an easier time dealing with transgender issues because they just grit their teeth and pretend transgender people are sick and can therefore be disregarded. Those of us who try to get the terminology right are the ones who get lambasted for trying because if you can brow-beat someone into agreeing with your interpretation you've made it stronger than your rivals'.

I put a social worker through grad school about 20 years ago. She got tested on transgender vs. transsexual... after being informed that whatever their preconceptions were, they were wrong by default because they weren't transgendered. Now? Now Facebook has 51 gender options. It's one thing to correctly address A or B. It's quite another when the alphabet doesn't contain your options. And I know not everyone insists on that much granularity, but if you assume that not everyone insists on that much granularity...

...you're a bigot.

Especially if you're a straight white male.