Psychologists specialized in the LGBT community
LGBT or LGTB is the acronym made up of the initials of the words Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans (transvestites, transsexuals and transgender).
Strictly speaking, it groups people with the sexual orientations and gender identities related to those four words, as well as the communities formed by them.
The expression had its origin in the English language in the 1990s, but these initials coincide in several languages, including Spanish.
The term has been the result of an evolution in which letters were added in order to include various communities discriminated against because of their sexual identity.
Initially the expression «homosexual» or «gay» was used, but some organizations of lesbian and bisexual people
they questioned it as insufficient, giving way to the creation of the acronym «LGB».
Later, transsexual people made a similar criticism, giving rise to the acronym «LGBT».5 The order of the letters within the acronym may vary according to the use of each community or each country.6
In recent years, new extensions of the acronym have emerged in order to include other communities,
such as intersex people (LGBTI),7 queer (LGBTQ),89 asexual (LGBTA) and kink, giving rise to the acronym LGBTQIAK,1011 among others.
Community
The transsexual and transgender communities have also argued that it is not appropriate to merge them into a single letter, writing the acronym with a double T (LGBTT).
This tendency to add letters to include new communities and dissidences has also led to the use of the plus sign after the acronym (LGBT +).14
Within this progressive trend, the acronym «LGBT» has acquired a broad meaning, also encompassing communities not included in those four letters,
emphasizing the diversity of sexual and gender identities, including people who have a sex, sexual orientation or gender not accepted by the traditional heteronorm and binarism,
instead of applying it exclusively to people who define themselves as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender.5151617
The word «diversity» has also begun to be used to refer to all sexual orientations,
types of erotic relationship and gender identities, freely adopted and legally or morally discriminated
, not limited to those referred to by the letters of the acronym, such as BDSM and kink, swinger practices,
the different fetishisms, leather aesthetics, bears, pansexuality, polyamory, consented unilateral infidelity (cuckolding), etc.181920101121
Psychologists specialized in the LGBT community
The acronym has become established as an expression of collective self-identification and has been adopted by the majority of LGBT communities and media in many countries around the world.
2223 However, some people and communities literally encompassed by the LGBT acronym or its extensions have expressed their disagreement with it.
24 Some individuals in one group may feel unrelated to individuals in other encompassed groups and find persistent comparisons offensive.
25 Some argue that the causes of transsexual and transgender people cannot be grouped under the same name as those of homosexual and bisexual people.
26 This finds its expression in the current of «gay and lesbian separatism»,
which maintains that lesbians and gays should form a distinctive community and be separated from the other groups that are normally included.
2527 Other people, still viewing the term favorably, because it includes different identities and
orientations, as well as the fact that it is widely used, they think that it is not perfect and that it is «politically correct».28
