-- GUEST WRITER --

This is a wonderful blog written by my very good friend, she has written a very enjoyable, funny and factfilled guest post for my blog after a comment she made on one of my earlier posts that I thought was a wonderful topic that is very important, and who better to write about it than than someone who knows first hand. :) I hope you enjoy and learn something that you didnt know yesterday.
-- EM

Did You Know The Difference?? LGBTQALPHABET

It was such an honour for Emily to ask me to be her guest writer, and with such a huge, huge, (like, really huge) topic to cover, I thought I’d focus on three things I don’t really see talked about a whole heap, rather than an argument that has been said a million times before by much cleverer folks than I.

In a nutshell, these are things I didn’t always know, and would never have learnt had I not began to pay closer attention to Drew Barrymore’s butt all those years ago.

This is going to be about:

-          Labels, because there’s more than three, and sometimes none.

-          Heterosexism, because the first step to stopping something is realizing that you’re doing it

-          Gender Identity, because everyone needs to know this

Please remember that this is a guest post. If something here makes you angry, please don’t take it out on Emily, because she didn’t write it!

Also, this topic is so dense that I could not hope to cover everything in one readable post. If absolutely anything here peaks your interest, please don’t be afraid to click around the net for it.

“Labels”, how they’re fluid and don’t always apply.

 

 

 

Gay, straight, and bisexual are usually the terms we’re most familiar with when talking about sexuality, and male and female is what is considered the norm. But there’s some terms a lot of us have never heard of before, and a few things that, with an open mind, aren’t hard to wrap your head around. Here are some of them, but please remember that everyone thinks of their sexuality and gender in a different way.

Transgender – This is used to cover a whole range of people whose gender doesn’t conform with the male/female “norm”, however some people might not feel confortable using this term.

Transexual – Falling under the Trans* umbrella, this refers to people who identify as a gender different to the one they were assigned at birth, and may sometimes choose to have re-assignment surgery.

Cisgender – These are people whose gender matches their sex, and is used to describe people who are not transgender

Pansexual/omnisexual – This refers to people who have romantic or sexual feelings towards all genders, but is different to bisexuality as they assert that there is more than one gender

Queer – This is often used to describe the whole LGBTQ community, and may be used as a self-identifying term for someone who may still be exploring their sexuality, or prefer not to have a label.

Asexual – I’ve saved this one for last because there’s a lot of difference in opinion for the definition of Asexuality, and I sort of have a long-winded-but-not explanation as to how it works. Basically, people who identify as asexual often have little or no interest in sex. This doesn’t mean they’re not attracted to people, and it doesn’t mean they’re not interested in a relationship!! This is because there are different types of attraction that have nothing to do with sex at all whatsoever.

Sexual attraction is when you want to have sex with someone. Boom.
Romantic attraction is when you sit there and stare out the window and think about how awesome it would be if Henry took you to that fancy restaurant you love and sang Michael Buble to you in the candlelight with a string quartet.

Aesthetic attraction is when you sit down and watch Iron Man 2 and Scarlett Johanson comes onscreen and you can’t stop staring at her butt and lips because dayumm guurrrl.

Sensual attraction is when you see someone and want to kiss and hug them and play with their hair and suck their fingers and give them eskimo kisses, but you don’t want sex.

A squish is when you meet someone and want to be their best friend because they’re just so much fun and make you smile.

Sexuality is a fluid thing. When you’re 14, you might identify as straight, only to come out as gay when you’re 19, and then realise you’re pansexual or queer when you get older. However, this usually isn’t the case with gender, but what is the most important thing to remember, and if you take anything away from this, it would be that absolutely every single person is different.

Heterosexism

Heterosexism is something we live with every day, sometimes without realizing it.

“Heterosexism is the attitude or belief that heterosexuality is more 'normal' or superior to other kinds of sexualities. It is heterosexist to assume that people are straight unless otherwise specified, or that you can 'tell' if someone is gay. Heterosexism is also used to include 'cissexism': to assume only two sexes exist and that gender always correlates to our assigned sex”
-Freedom.org.au

Furthermore, sex education is taught to teens on the assumption that they’ll be having male-female sex. We’re taught how to put the condom on the cucumber, what contraceptives are, and don’t have sex because you will get pregnant and die.

LGBTQ same-sex techniques are not taught in schools for the most part (I say most part, because it would be wonderful if there’s an awesome sex-ed teacher out there enlightening the future masses). Girls aren’t taught how to make dental dam’s out of condoms and why they should do so, and boys aren’t told about the importance of lube. Both of these are so, so incredibly important for STI and AIDS prevention, and yet as far as I know, it’s completely neglected in classrooms.

The reason I gave the classroom example (and there are plenty more!) is because it’s so super important to understand that heterosexism in a child’s classroom and childhood can potentially lead to homophobic tendencies once they’re adults.

Gender Identity

Have you ever filled in a document that’s asked you for your sex? Did you know that what they are actually asking you for is your gender? Did you know that there’s a big difference?

If you didn’t, that’s totally okay, because I’m about to smack down the facts for you right here.

Gender Identity is the label or name someone picks in regards to whether they’re male, female, or somewhere in the middle. It’s their masculinity or femininity.

Basically, gender is what makes up your biology, how many chromosomes you have, and what bits you have, but it may not conform with a person’s gender identity.

This explanation is so simplified and imperfect it’s ridiculous, but stay with me:

Let’s take a coke can, for example. Looking at the coke can, you’re going to assume that it’s coke. But if you take a drink and there’s lemonade inside the can, you’re not going to keep thinking its coke. If there’s coke and lemonade mixed together, then what? What if there’s coke and lemonade inside a fanta can? Gender is not black and white. In fact it’s beautifully grey. The phrase, “it’s what’s in the inside that counts” has never been so accurate, but more to the point, what a person identifies as is what is most important.

In a nutshell, these are the three big changes I would like to see:

-Better education in schools, not only with sex ed, but how people think in general. Knowledge about the people in our community is the first step to not being huge offensive buttholes.

-A focus on gender identity, and for this to be more widely known in the community.

-The elimination of heterosexism and cissexism in the community

Most of all, I would really like for all of this to not be an issue anymore. Once upon a time, interracial marriages were not tolerated, and the thought of a woman CEO was completely preposterous. I would love to live in a world where multiple genders is not something most people might find weird, and same-sex couples can be treated with the equality we deserve. I’d really like to walk up the isle one day, or see my fiancée walk up the isle to me. I’d really love to tell people that’s she’s my wife, and that we’re married, not that she’s my partner and we have a civil union.

We’re not asking for any special treatment, we just want the same, but to quote Tina Fey, “Rejection from society is what created the X-Men.”

Basically, let us get married or Magneto will kick your butt

(Sorry. That was a terrible joke)

Written by Jessica