Can The P in LGBTQIP Stand for Parrot?

By Michael Brown, Op-ed Contributor Sunday, October 25, 2015

Michael Brown holds a Ph.D. in Near Eastern Languages and Literatures from New York University and has served as a professor at a number of seminaries. He is the author of 25 books and hosts the nationally syndicated, daily talk radio show, the Line of Fire.

We've all seen the abbreviation of LGBTQ – and sometimes I and P and more – standing for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer (or, questioning), intersex, and pansexual. But is it possible that the P could also stand for parrot?

Before you write me off as crazy or disrespectful, give me a moment to explain.

The editor of the Huffington Post's Gay Voices, Noah Michelson, recently wrote an article titled, "What's A Skoliosexual?," with the subtitle reading, "There's a lot more out there beyond 'hetero,' 'homo' and 'bi.'"

In the article, he listed "12 terms related to sexual and romantic identities that are beginning to receive more attention in the media but that are still regularly absent or erased from conversations currently taking place in popular culture."

These terms were asexual, aromantic, graysexual, demisexual, demiromantic, lithromantic, pansexual, polysexual, skoliosexual, queerplatonic relationships, and zucchini (yes, zucchini!), defined as, "The name for a partner who is involved in a queerplatonic relationship, as in 'he's my zucchini.'" (Michelson's article is not a satire; it is intended to be taken seriously, and its author is quite serious about these issues.)

As for skoliosexual, the article states that, "According to Genderqueerid.com, skoliosexual refers to "sexual attraction to non-binary identified individuals" [meaning those who don't identify simply as male or female] or those who do not identify as cisgender. The site also notes that "this does not generally describe an attraction to specific genitalia or birth assignments [meaning, saying you are a boy or girl at birth] but rather is an inclusive term."

But we're just getting started (and yes, I'll come back to the "parrot" issue in a moment; trust me, you're in for a shock).

In the LGBTQIP abbreviation, the T does not refer to one's perceived sexual orientation but to one's perceived gender identity, which opens up a whole new realm of possibilities.

As listed on the NonBinary.org website (under Multigender), these are the primary categories of people who believe they have multiple gender identities: ambigender; bigender; blurgender; collgender; conflictgender; cosmicgender; crystagender; deliciagender; duragender; demiflux; domgender; fissgender; gemelgender; gendercluster; genderfluid; gendersea; genderfuzz; genderfractal; genderspiral; genderswirl; gendervex; gyaragender; libragender; ogligender; pangender; polygender; and trigender.

And what, pray tell, do some of these bizarre words means? The term genderfluid "is a gender identity that changes from one time to the next. For example, a genderfluid person could be both a boy and a girl one day, and then genderless the next."

As for trigender, that "is an identity with three gender identities. This word can mean all three at once, or moving between three genders. Note that if a person has three to five genders, inclusive, they can also call themself ogligender ...."

(At this point I should insert the mandatory phrase: "I'm not making this up!")

Michael Brown is the host of the nationally syndicated talk radio show The Line of Fire and is the president of FIRE School of Ministry. His newest book (September, 2015) is Outlasting the Gay Revolution: Where Homosexual Activism Is Really Going and How to Turn the Tide. Connect with him on Facebook at AskDrBrown or on Twitter at drmichaellbrown.