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There's long been a debate about the acronym for the Rainbow Brigade community. Psychologists, psychiatrists, and social workers in particular often seek the long form acronym for the community, as they find it necessary in their work to include as much of the various sexualities and genders therein due to what their work involves. Within the community itself, it often degenerates into a fight as people feel excluded or feel that there's to much focus on inclusion; while I've always felt we should err on the side of inclusion, not everyone feels that way, which is odd considering that everyone in our community should know what it's like to be excluded and stigmatised. Overall, LGBTQQIP2SAA has largely been declared as the current "official" acronym, but it still gets pared down all over the place because of how unwieldy it is.
In reverse, there's a lot of people in the community who get wholly upset when someone who claims to be an ally doesn't know this whole acronym. I agree with those who think that flipping out at someone for not knowing this long ass acronym aren't helping the Rainbow Brigade's case any; we should be educating allies on the full acronym, not losing our cool about them not knowing it.
As for the acronym itself, here's a quick rundown of the letters:
Lesbian (homosexual female)
Gay (generally a term used for a homosexual male, however some women use it)
Bisexual (is attracted to both genders)
Transgender (identifying as a gender that is different from your biological one){personal note: this is a huge umbrella}
Queer (also gay, however some people prefer to identify as queer because the like the word and/or use it to empower themselves and ‘take it back from the bullies’)
Questioning (people who are unsure about their gender identity/sexuality)
Intersex (people with two sets of genitalia or various chromosomal differences)
Pansexual (potential attraction to people of all gender identities and expressions, but does not mean being attracted to everyone, and does not mean polysexuality, polyamory or polygamy; check out this article for broader explanation)
2-Spirit (a tradition in many First Nations that considers sexual minorities to have both male and female spirits)
Asexual (people who are not sexually attracted to anyone, and don’t identify with any orientation. other than this one, obviously.)
Allies (Loving supporters of the community, though not necessarily ’part’ of it. [fully supportive straight people are here, as well as supportive members of the community])
There's the rundown. Of course, each of these have broader explanations that can be looked up on the Gender Wiki, for a start. Specific questions can be directed to myself, or Turk Kalahai, our super Ab-tastic Morale Officer.
Credits:
LGBTQQIP2SAA is the Correct Acronym!
GSA and LGBTQQIP2SAA rant, extended version
What the Hell is Pansexuality, Anyway?
What’s in an acronym? Parsing the LGBTQQIP2SAA community
