Welcome students to your third lecture in Finishing School with Ms. Mhari. Given that it is pride month we’re going to talk orientations. First a couple of clarifying points:
I use the acronym QUILTBAG. Because I am a textile artist so it amuses me. We’ll go letter by letter and explain what each stands for.
Q
Q is for Queer. Queer is a general use ‘not straight, not cis’ word. That being said, it has been used, and in some places IS used as a slur. It is ok to claim queer for yourself, I identify as a queer woman, but it is Not Ok to use it to describe someone else unles they have specifically told you it is ok with them. Not everyone is comfortable with or willing or able to reclaim this particular word used as a weapon against them.
U
U is for Unsure. This is perfectly fine! Maybe the word doesn’t exist, maybe you don’t know it, maybe you just had a Life Experience that altered how you thought about yourself. That’s OK. You are allowed to experiment, to explore, and to not be sure where you’ll end up.
I
Intersex. These folks are people born with a physical body somewhere between male and female. It’s hard to tell exactly how common intersex babies are since it is still a disgustingly common practice for doctors to surgically assign either male or female to a baby born inbetween. If you’re pregnant or planning on becoming pregnant, please make sure your birth plan includes Not doing this if your baby is born intersex. There are serious mental and phycial health implications later in life, and we’re just starting to research them.
L
Lesbian. People who identify as women, who are attracted to other people who identify as women. Notice how I said people who identify as women, not just women. Transwomen are women. Full stop. Finishing School has no place for transphobia or Trans Exclusionary Reactionary Feminism. If your view is that a woman who happens to have or have had a penis is not a woman, then this is not the school for you, kindly pack your belongings and vacate your desk. You are no longer welcome.
T
T is for Trans. Trans is not an orientation, and yet it appears here so we’re talking about with orientations, we’ll discuss gender identity in a differed lecture and we’ll go more in depth. But for now, Trans is identifying as a gender different than the sex you were assigned at birth. So if you were Assigned Male At Birth (AMAB) but are a woman, you are trans. Same if you were Assigned Female At Birth (AFAB) and are a man. And, and this is important as there’s some uncalled for debate on this, you are still entitled to call yourself trans if you were assigned either male or female at birth and are non-bionary (enby). Enby is not a sex assigned at birth, ergo identifying as enby by default means you are a different gender than you’re assigned birth sex. Also the creator of the trans pride flag has openly stated the white stripe in the very center is for enby folks.
B
B is for Bisexual. Here’s where I have a failing in my Quiltbag useage. There’s no P for Pan anywhere. The argument made is that Bi and Pan are the same or interchangeable. They are not. Bi is the attraction to two gender expressions, Pan is attraction regardless of gender expression. So someone only attracted to women and enby folks would be Bi, whereas someone attracted to every gender expression would be pan. Full disclosure, I am Bi not Pan. No it’s none of your business which two genders I find attractive.
A
A is for Asexual/Aromantic (Ace/Aro). Not Ally. Asexual is not finding anyone sexually attractive, no matter their gender. They may be attractive to look at, but that does not evoke sexual desire. Some folks who are asexual may experience sexual desire, but rarely enough that it is the exception to the rule. And even then they may have no wish to act on sexual attraction. Aromantic folks are people with no desire to have romantic attachments. They may have sex, but don’t feel the need to engage in any other romantic relationship markers like dates, or cohabbing, ect. Demisexuality also falls in this spectrum. Which is finding someone sexually attractive only after you know them as a person or friend. So you may think, for example, that the person in that cafe you go to is super pretty, but they’re pretty like a pot of daisies. They brighten the room, you like being near them, but you don’t want to have sex with them. That may change after you talk to them a while, or it may not.
G
G is for Gay. Gay is identifying as male and being attracted to other people who identify as man. Same rant on transmen being men that I gave on transwomen being women under my explination of lesbian applies here.
Ok, so I’d be remiss if I didn’t talk about it. So We’re going to talk about hetrosexuality, or Straight.
Straight is hard to talk about when you firmly believe the gender binary is bullshit because straight depends on it existing to some extent. Straight is when someone who identifies as male is only sexually and romantically attracted to someone who identifies as female and vice versa. Some folks take it further and insist they are only attracted to cismen or ciswomen and that people who are attracted to transfolks as well are not actually straight. Personally I have Questions about how they know someone is trans or cis or enby by just looking at them.
That’s your basic introduction to sexual orientations. As I mentioned in the beginning of today’s lecture you can have multiple orientations! You can be bisexual but panromantic. You can be hetrosensual but demisexual, there are almost endless combinations when you factor in the five major categories of attraction (Sexual, Romantic, Platonic, Familial, and Sensual.)
Sexual orientation is just who you want to have sex with. It doesn’t have to line up with who you want a romantic relationship with, or who you naturally gravitate towards for friends, or who you consider family, or who you want to snuggle up with. Your orientations are also only one fascet of who you are. They are catagories, not definitions. You are a person first, a whatever your orientations are second or third.
That’s it for today’s lecture. Happy pride Class, I’ll see you next time. Until then have fun, stay safe, and enjoy.