'Gender And Sexual Diversities,' Or GSD, Should Replace 'LGBT,' Say London Therapists

[RKP5637]

To me, it should stay LGBT. Mainstream American is used to this term, rebranding LGBT to something else will take the a long time to brandname for the general pubic IMO.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/25/gender-and-sexual-diversities-gsd-lgbt-label-_n_2758908.html?ir=gay-voices&utm_campaign=022513&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Alert-gay-voices&utm_content=Photo

Could "LGBT" one day become "GSD"? A London-based advocacy group certainly hopes so.

Pink Therapy director Dominic Davies and fellow therapist Pamela Gawler-Wright suggested GSD, or "Gender and Sexual Diversities," as a more inclusive community term in a new video posted on the group's Facebook page.

In the clip, Davies noted that the term LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) still excluded "a whole batch of people who didn’t feel able to go to mainstream counseling organizations and also wouldn’t necessarily be welcome at LGBT counseling organizations," including asexual people and those in otherwise non-traditional relationships, such as swingers.

Added Gawler-Wright: "Now we're allowing more of a spectrum...people need wider language, people need better language to have that conversation ... We exist at this time in a different way of thinking collectively and inclusively."

Officials on the group's Facebook page echoed those sentiments. "The point we're trying to make is not that our community shouldn't be called LGBT, it' that actually our community is SO much BIGGER than simply LGBT," they noted.

What do you think?

Poll is at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/25/gender-and-sexual-diversities-gsd-lgbt-label-_n_2758908.html?ir=gay-voices&utm_campaign=022513&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Alert-gay-voices&utm_content=Photo

[Warpy]

1. Why not let people self identify?

And why the hell would therapists care? LGBT people aren't sick and in need of their services.

[RKP5637]

2. Exactly!!! n/t

[Neoma]

3. I guess, unless you've been abused for it.

[Tien1985]

4. I wouldn't mind

We're getting so many letters now, I wouldn't mind shortening it up a bit.

Around here (mid Maine organizations) we've started joking "lgbtqai-M.O.U.S.E!" Whenever we're discussing the community.

[Smarmie Doofus]

5. I've long favored "sexual minorities" to LGBT, etc., but have to concede that it doesn't....

... include the realm of gender . So I'm CLOSE to favoring the above but the word "diversities" is sticking in my craw.

In the first place, it seems to me while not strictly ungrammatical ( it's a well-worn and legit noun in the singular form) I've never heard it applied to a group of PEOPLE... or even a group of THINGS before. Put simply: it's awkward as hell.

I'll meet 'em halfway: " gender and sexual *minorities*".

Or better still: "sexual minorities" and "gender minorities". One can always revert to the original terminology ,( e.g. "lesbian", "transgendered&quot when one wishes to be *specific*.... just as we do now.

[HillWilliam]

6. To me and millions of other folks who love their furkids, "GSD" will always be

German Shepherd Dog. I may have been a "dawg" in my youth, but I'm not a dog. "Gay" I was born and "gay" I will die.

I'm with the other posters -- let folks self-identify. Isn't that the point?

[Fearless]

7. Ehh

Isn't the whole point to allow people to be who they are?

I can clear this mess up very quickly.

If you don't know what someone wants to be associated as, you probably don't know them well enough to be associating them as anything. Call them by their name or ask them. If you do know them well enough, then there is no problem, you already know how to associate them.

In terms of clinical definitions see the above.

In terms of dictionary definitions see the above.

[joeybee12]

8. GSD sounds like GSP...

That was the first thing that came to mind...that said, LGBT is more of a word itself these days as opposed to an acronym, doesn't really just mean Lesbian Gay Bi Transgendered but as a separate word already means everyone.

[RKP5637]

9. That's pretty much what I think too ... why rock the boat with new terminology ... seems

silly to me. Also, as time goes forward, it will probably become a blur anyway, than the 'me Tarzan' 'you Jane' ideology that's been forced on everyone.

BTW - silly me - what does GSP mean?

http://www.abbreviations.com/GSP

[joeybee12]

10. Sorry, I mean GPS...

How embarrassing!

[RKP5637]

11. Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh ... OK ...

I had these definitions running in my mind and thought it meant something like Gay Sexual Perversions. Like something out of the American Family Association handbook.

Glad I asked.

[Fearless]

12. Was definitely thinking Garden State Parkway myself

Followed quickly by several violent bouts of vomiting.

[RKP5637]

13. LOL

I remember the GSP well!

[backscatter712]

14. Being an asexual, I agree with this sentiment.

The acronym I've heard being used is GSRM: Gender, Sexual and Romantic Minorities.