Thread by @Openly

🤔 Have you heard of #LGBTQQIP2SAA?

🔤 Far from being just a string of letters, this abbreviation can tell us the story of the modern #LGBTQ+ rights movement.

🌈 From 'homosexual' to 'GLB' and beyond, here's a brief history of queer initialism. 🧵

🌍 While LGBTQ+ people have always existed, the concepts of sexual and gender identities we are familiar with today are relatively new.

✒️ It was not until 1869 that the term 'homosexual' was created by Károly Mária Kertbeny – the first neutral word for same-sex desire.

🤫 'Gay' – a 12th-century word meaning 'carefree' – became an underground word for being homosexual in the early 20th century, and picked up pace in the 1950s and ‘60s.

✊ The all-encompassing term was embraced by the community and used by the gay rights movement.

🇬🇷 With the rise of second-wave feminism in 1960s and ‘70s, gay women wanted their own identification and took to use 'lesbian' – from the Greek island of Lesbos.

👭 Now, the broader queer community was no longer defined by just one word.

🏳️‍🌈 As the term bisexuality also gained visibility in the 1970s, the first queer initialism was born not long after.

🆕 GLB – Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual – became the inclusive term of the time to talk about a range of identities.

📈 Even though terms like GLB were becoming more popular, 'gay' still remained the most common word to describe the community until the 1990s.

🏳️‍⚧️ However, initialisms started to stick by the end of the decade as the bisexual and trans movements became increasingly visible.

🎉 By the turn of the millennium, the LGBT initials had been born.

❗️ Some were against the inclusion of the T, wanting the term to be used exclusively for sexual orientation and not gender identity.

🟢 But as the movement became ever-more fluid, #LGBT became the common term.

🔴 The next addition was controversial for many – Q.

🗣️ 'Queer' was historically a derogatory word for gay people – meaning 'odd' or ‘peculiar’ – but many started reclaiming it as an inclusive umbrella term.

❓ Some also see the Q as 'questioning'.

🌈 Since the 2000s onwards, many different versions of LGBTQ+ initialism have been used.

👨‍❤️‍👨 As our understanding of sexuality and gender has expanded, so has the initialism itself. More letters are being added to reflect a more nuanced view of the community.

✒️ One of the longest versions that's used today is LGBTQQIP2SAA, meaning:

⭕️ Lesbian
⭕️ Gay
⭕️ Bisexual
⭕️ Transgender
⭕️ Queer
⭕️ Questioning
⭕️ Intersex
⭕️ Pansexual
⭕️ Two-spirit
⭕️ Asexual
⭕️ Ally

➕ + is often added to reflect those not represented.

🇬🇧 This is just the English version.

🌍 Other languages have their own initialisms for the LGBTQ+ community, as @enriqueanarte explains.

🤔 Which one do you use?

👇 Share with us below!