LBGTSGL....abcdefg

I met with an associate last week who was arranging the gay-themed exhibit she was curating. As she walked me through it, giving me her vision and informing me of the history behind each piece I couldn't help but notice how many different words she had for "gay". At one point, she corrected herself for mistakingly referring to someone as "lesbian" opting instead to say "queer" and I can't help but wonder what all these politically correct words we use nowadays mean really.

queer
gay
intersex
gender-queer
two-spirited
same gender loving
etc. etc. etc.

I've never cared enough to investigate the meaning behind any of these words since I know once I get a firm enough grasp on any of them it'll be time to embrace a new term. Plus I don't find power in words, I never have, I find power in actions.

When I was 21, a white woman in West Hollywood called me "nigger", she yelled it out of her car window while pulling away and flipping me the bird. I was sick with grief for two weeks. I couldn't look white people in the eye because even though I knew the word existed, I had never been attacked with it and knowing that white people had this secret weapon that could break me down to my core, paralyzed me. It kept me up nights. I cried, I felt alone, yadda yadda yadda. A friend of mine chastised me, telling me to get over it but when I asked her if she'd ever been called the word, she admitted she hadn't. I told her that prior to the incident, I would have given the same advice she had but after having been smacked in the face with it, I felt differently.

I pulled myself out of my two-week slump by taking back my own power. I realized I couldn't let any one person or group of people make me feel this way because they could not regulate my joy or my power. I realized that that woman had not taken my power, I had given it away and I had to reclaim it to be whole again. Now, I could be called the n-word every day of the week and blow the culprit a kiss. I still hate the word and would challenge anybody - black or white - who used it but it doesn't debillitate me now.

Perhaps if I hadn't had that experience I'd still be caught up in words...maybe. Because I have and I have detached words and power I could care less if you call me queer or gay or lesbian or dyke (personally I like queer because it's such a goofy little word). Queer doesn't resonate for most black people, same gender loving is to long, I have no clue what the heck intersex is or gender-queer (is that someone who fills transgendered but hasn't had the surgery so while they're still their original gender and are attracted to the same sex, they're "gender queer"??) I don't know where these words come from and I think they do little to empower gay people as they just isolate and confuse straight people.

I don't find power in words. I find power in being able to hold hands with my girlfriend (when I get one of those) in public; attend a friend's same-sex wedding and have it be legals or when I don't have to rally or protest to get basic rights. I'll feel powerful when I don't hear any more disparaging gay jokes or watch a "comedy" where getting hit on by a gay man or woman is a punchline.

There's a college whose gay alliance uses the acronym LBGTQQBDSMIA (I may be a little off but it's very close to that), what the heck is all that, I stopped singing the alphabet song when I was in kindergarten. It's difficult to get past something that long and it distracts from what you're trying to get across when everytime you want to say "gay" you have to insert a 15 letter acronym, it really comes across as ridiculous.

But hey! I'm not putting anyone down who finds power in words, I'm just saying it's not for me and I think it does little to empower us or help us in our quest for equal rights especially when we're not all on the same page (the first time I saw "SGL" for "same gender loving" I thought it meant "single" HA!). I would appreciate it so much more if the people who thought up these new politically correct words refocused their efforts into politicizing our gay youth, educating gay couples who can't legally marry on the rights and privileges they ARE afforded and how to work around the ones they aren't and bridging the gap between the white and of-color gay communities. THAT is where we find our power, not through manipulating the alphabet.