LGBT... what next?

For half a century we've wrestled with what to call people who are, errr, non-white. That adjective encompasses a range of hues, from "tanned" through yellow and red to brown and finally black. So we called black folks "black", and that was a problem because of "shadeism" which placed octaroons above quadroons above mulattos and so on. (In fact you don't hear any of those words any more.)

Besides, there was something pejorative about "black", or "dark-complected", not to mention "darkie" (as in toothpaste) or the N-word. So some genius came up with "African-American", which for most black Americans was as ridiculous as calling us white folks "European-Americans". And so we went back to "persons of colour", which sounds a lot like "coloured" to me. I don't know which term is politically correct now, and I don't care.

The same nomenclatural problem exists with people we used to call "queers". Not so long ago, that was pejorative term, right up there with "fairies", "faggots" and other quaint expressions we used -- yes, I admit it -- to describe homosexuals. But then the homos embraced the Q-word, as in "We're here! We're queer! Get used to it!" And so Q was added to LGBT, as in "the LGBTQ community", referring to the alleged 10% of us who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual, and/or otherwise queer.

But apparently five terms isn't enough for the proponents of aggressive gender ideology. The concept of "gender fluidity" -- today I'm a guy but tomorrow I might feel like a girl, or vice versa -- led to the addition of "2S", which stands for "two-spirited". It's not your physical gender, you see, but how you feel about it! Don't be surprised if Barack Hussein Obama stretches his pro-LGBT bathroom laws to include those who feel like "the other sex"... at the moment.

Would LGBTQ2S be the end of it? As recently as this January, I thought so, but I was wrong. (Lifetime pct .984.) Now the PC police have told us we can drop the "Q2S" -- perhaps because "queer" is still a loaded word and "2S" is just stupid -- but add an "I", which stands for "intersex". Seriously...

"Intersex" is how the Australian Department of Health refers to people whose sexual characteristics don't fit neatly into the "male" or "female" categories. Wikipedia tells us such people "do not fit typical binary notions of male or female bodies. Such variations may involve genital ambiguity, and combinations of chromosomal genotype and sexual phenotype other than XY-male and XX-female. Intersex people were previously referred to as hermaphrodites, but the term has fallen out of favor as it is considered to be misleading and stigmatizing. Since 2006, intersex traits have controversially [sic] been described by medicine as disorders of sex development."

So there you have it, folks. "LGBTI" is the latest politically correct term for people we used to call "queers". Remember that as your city/state/province/country/whatever celebrates Gay Pride Day/Week/Month/Year/Whatever.

Further reading: "Cardinal Wuerl decries 'aggressive gender ideology'", Catholic World News, 2/6/16.