‘LGBTQ+ and YOU’ a write up of talk by Stephanie Wagner BSN, RNC, IBCLC, RLC
As an adult, words have always mattered to me. I have become sensitive to correct use and I hear mistakes all of the time that I would like to correct. I was exposed as a young child to correct grammar. My father was an ESL teacher in the South Bronx for 30+ years. He would correct my use of grammar when I was learning and even into my teens he would correct the use of nuanced words that so many people confuse. For example, it is better to say I speak English well, rather than I speak good English.
Language is fluid and changes over time to match society’s needs and evolution, says Stephanie Wagner BSN, RNC, IBCLC, RLC. At this year’s Lactation Consultant in Private Practice conference, I was schooled on some new to me words that have been in use for years. I was so grateful for Stephanie’s talk on Dispelling Myths, Understanding Terms, & Sharing Cases to Create an Inclusive Environment For ALL Families to Optimize Our Care! I am excited to share with you what I learned!
I am a part of the L.G.B.T.Q.Q.I.P.2S.A.A. community. At this time in my life I am proud to be a straight, cisgender female Ally. An Ally is a person who is not LGBTQ+ but uses their “privilege” to support LGBTQ+ people and promote equality. The “+” is a symbol for everything on the gender/sexuality spectrum that words and letters can’t describe or there is no known word for (yet!). The Gay Liberation Movement began with gay and lesbians, then to LGBT and then to LGBTQ+. My dad would take me to the gay pride parades in NYC. Just like language, human connections are fluid and change over time to match society’s needs and evolution. I feel included in a community to which one time I felt disconnected. Now I have many opportunities to connect within this movement. My responsibility to help babies and their families as an ally means I offer myself as an Inclusive Healthcare Practitioner/IBCLC, that I proudly work with the LGBTQ+ community and I am open to helping ALL families on the LGBTQ+ Spectrum.
Her talk was one of the day’s highlights for me. I appreciated her transparency and quick wit. As a lesbian cis-gender female lactation consultant, Stephanie works within the LGBQT+ community in the NYC area. She talked about her work in various ‘gay-bor-hoods’. Love that. The experience of assisting two chest-feeding men to latch their baby was fascinating. She describes the definition of chest-feeding as “Term used for either anatomical, psychological, sexual, or gender reasons for any person who considers their nipples (or lack thereof) to be part of a chest and not a breast and uses that part of their body to comfort and/or nourish a baby.”
I appreciated being informed about the language to use because many people in this community are going to have children and it would benefit providers, like me, to know which terms would be most appropriate to them. You can listen to the entire podcast from her case study here.
When millennials were asked in a study ‘what is gender’ some answers were ‘not given, changing or doesn’t exist”. Here is some clarification on some of the new terms that have evolved over the last decade to describe gender identity and sexual orientation.
Gender identity is one’s concept of self as male, female or neither.
Genderqueer is outside the strict female/male binary. People may exhibit both qualities of male and female or a combination of male and female.
Gender expression is how we express our gender identity; clothing, hairstyle, language (body & verbal), etc.
Gender nonconforming (G.N.C.) means to express gender outside traditional norms associated with masculinity and femininity; Not all G.N.C. are Transgender
Gender neutral prefers not to be described by a specific gender; Prefers “they” as a singular pronoun
Gender reassignment is confirmation of new gender by taking medical steps such as hormonal therapy and/or surgery to change their body to match their gender; Transexual
When you consider each person has their own individual journey and even though they may appear to be male or female, it may not be how they identify. Gender has always existed in language BUT in the binary, says Stephanie. Female/Male/She/Her/He/Him are pretty limiting, she continues. We are to remember the importance of pronouns such as They/Them/Their/Thon. All new language is an attempt “to solve the challenge of describing yourself or another person who identifies as neither male or female.”
Here is a review of the meaning of the letters L.G.B.T.Q.Q.I.P.2S.A.A.
Lesbian= Attracted to female
Gay= Male mostly unless you talk about the group
Bisexual= Attracted to both male and female
Transgender= A transman= woman at birth changes to man, transwoman=man at birth changes to a woman (700,00 people across the country)
Queer or Questioning=An individual who is unsure of and/or exploring their gender identity and/or sexual orientation.
Intersex= They are born with one sex but raised as another (they are 1.7 of the population but we really don’t know exactly. )
Pansexual= Attracted to a person or a soul and the packaging doesn’t matter to me
Two Spirit (2S): Umbrella term of unifying various gender identities and expressions of Native American/First Nations/Indigenous individuals • Predates LGBTQ+ terminology; Two Spirit culture went underground to avoid detection and prosecution
Asexual = Agender or aromantic
Ally= A person who is welcome in the community who are straight allies!
The American Dialect Society (ADS) decides what trends are happening in the linguistic world. The society “is dedicated to the study of the English language in North America, and of other languages, or dialects of other languages, influencing it or influenced by it.” They study the most used new term each year. In 2015 it was Mx. This is a substitute for Mr., Mrs., Ms. and Dr. Some words to insert rather than mother or father are parent, patient, person or people AND they, them, their and thon. Her way of remembering these are to think of using your “P’s and T’s” or as she likes to think of it, please and thank you’s. Others are Ze, E, Ey (3rd person pronoun), Hir, Xe, Hen, Ve, Ne and Per. Stephanie urged us to leave out the word “preferred” on our intake forms. “They are not preferred, they are.” You might consider including multiple parent options too so that a single parent may not feel that she/he/they are missing half of themselves by limiting your options to two. It would also be more inclusive to polyamorous families.
The take home is to simply meet a person/client where they are at and use the terms that works for them. Ask them, don’t assume! In the spirit of my father, correct others language because it will help raise the consciousness. Challenge homophobia every day in every way. For an even more thorough article on this topic, please click here.