My first exposure to Dr. Meg-John Barker was through their graphic novel Queer: A Graphic History in one of my queer theory college classes. Their creative approach to outlining the complicated history of queer people and their fight for justice drew me in, and their works have been some of the most foundational for recognizing my own identity as a queer woman. In an article on best counseling practices, Dr. Barker explains a new term to replace LGBTQ+ in the counseling field: Gender, Sexual, and Relationship Diversity (GSRD). GSRD serves to replace the term LBGTQ+ for a number of reasons as outlined in their article, most significantly to reexamine the foundation for how we view gender and sexual identity.
First, the relationships between sexuality and gender identity are built on antiquated ideas of what each is. Only in recent decades have we created terminology to address the lived experiences of many individuals, and much of our lexicon is still behind. One issue with sexuality terms such as “lesbian” and “gay” is that they rely on gender identity to apply to relationships. For example, the term “lesbian” necessitates that the person is women-identifying and attracted to other women-identifying people. This definition does not take into account biology, but we do know that people may experience different attractions based on sex organs as well, regardless of the gender identity of that person.
To simplify this example, we have evolved a much too diverse network of gender identities and sexualities to any longer be encompassed in the term LGBTQ+, no matter how many more letters are added. As it stands, this term creates specific and exclusionary categories for identities and lumps all others into the Q+ section. Dr. Barker also notes that this term only encapsulates a white, Western idea of how gender and sexuality function, discounting the experiences of the many.
Taking a step back, there are three distinct yet overlapping identity factors that the use of LGBTQ+ struggles to quantify: biological sex, gender identity and expression, and sexuality. Biological sex includes hormones, internal and external organs, and chromosomes, and is usually determined at birth, though it can be medically and surgically altered later in life. Gender identity describes the way in which individuals categorize their own gender, which can be related to femininity and masculinity but can also include gender-free and gender-fluid identities. Sexuality refers to who and what individuals are attracted to, and this too can change throughout one’s life. While some are attracted to certain bodies, others are attracted to identities themselves. Beyond this, some are attracted to people regardless of sex or gender, or not attracted to anyone at all. Sexual preference and kink can also fall into this category, although it is not typically considered in the LGBTQ+ model.
While LGBTQ+ attempts to categorize individual attraction using these three categories, the term GSRD acknowledges their expansiveness and opens up to interpretation. GSRD also includes everyone, not just gender and sexual minorities, because heterosexual and cisgender people may also be psychologically impacted by their identities. Further, this terminology reduces the marginalization of those who fit into the LGBTQ+ label by creating one term in which every person falls under, whether inside or outside what is considered the normative.
Despite this, it is so important not to forget the power that the term LGBTQ+ and the community behind it hold, and its place in the history of activism and the fight for human rights. LGBTQ+ should always be a term that those who desire to use it should be able to, even if it is replaced in a structural setting. This shift is not designed to demonize the term LBTQ+, but rather to show societal growth away from reliance on this acronym and onto a more expansive categorization of identity.
Personally, I have had a complicated relationship with this acronym. Growing up, I desperately wanted to “pick a letter” to figure out where I belonged. As an adult, I am starting to embrace the Q+ as a place of ambiguity and fluidity, but at the same time, I feel comfortable identifying as bisexual. This term has given many of us the gift of knowing there is a community for us and being able to find it, especially in the Internet age where a quick search can provide you with so much information and connection. While this continues to be incredibly important, it is also important to look past categorization as we move into higher and broader demands of identity-based academia.
The shift in language as described shouldn’t only occur in counseling practices, it should be included in the education system and beyond. Many universities such as my own have centers for Gender and Sexual Diversity rather than LGBTQ+ centers. GSRD as a concept should be taught to adolescents as a way to contextualize their own identities and experiences.
By Sydney Sullivan