2SLGBTQI+ terminology and acronyms are continuously evolving. In 2016, the Government of Canada began using the term ‘LGBTQ2.’ The term was applied to the name of the LGBTQ2 Secretariat, the LGBTQ2 Community Capacity Fund, and LGBTQ2 Projects Fund, among other initiatives. LGBTI is often used in an international context. 2SLGBTQQIA+ is the acronym adopted by the 2SLGBTQQIA+ Committee, which contributed to the 2021 Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and the 2SLGBTQQIA+ People National Action Plan.During the engagement process, 2SLGBTQI+ communities in Canada called for the acronym used by the Government of Canada to be updated. The Government of Canada will adopt and encourage the use of 2SLGBTQI+ as a more inclusive term. This includes changing the name of the LGBTQ2 Secretariat to the 2SLGBTQI+ Secretariat, which is the title used throughout this Action Plan.
The military also loves acronyms, and frequently reshuffles and/or reuses them. The intelligence community, likewise (and probably because its largest component is the Defense Intelligence Agency). There can be confusion when members of different branches or levels of organization meet and find that a simple acronym means different things to different people. There has been a longstanding joint process to try to resolve this as much as possible, but especially at working levels easy acronyms just get reused: CAB, for example, has 38 possible meanings in the military context according to this acronym finder. Several of them are very commonly employed, like "Combat Aviation Brigade," "Civil Affairs Battalion" (the finder lists 'brigade' there too, which is a further confusion possible here) and "Combat Action Badge." And those are all from the Army!
No one is probably ever going to reuse 2SLGBTQI+, at least. But good luck remembering it, especially if it's going to change every few years. Inclusivity as a goal has to be balanced with the needs of concise communication. Very quickly this kind of thing makes communication impossible. Ultimately the most inclusive thing would be to include absolutely everyone, so instead of an acronym we should just mention everyone we want to talk about by name -- and, since names can also be repeated, add their street address. By the time you finished doing that, you'd have forgotten what you wanted to say about them.
12 comments:
I thought the reference to a 2SLGBTQI+ community was humorous. Is not the very length of the acronym testament to the fact that whatever else it is, it's not a community?
AVI: Besides, there's doublethink between the LGB and the T.
I don't know if Col Kurt was prescient or just observant when he assumed that the People's Republic flag would be constantly revised in his Kelly Turnbull novels.
The endless churning out of new names reminded me of this:
"And in that sense the Landlord has made the black hole. He has put into the world a Worst Thing. But evil of itself would never reach a worst; for evil is fissiparous and could never in a thousand eternities find any way to arrest its own reproduction. If it could, it would no longer be evil; for Form and Limit belong to the good. The walls of the black hole are the tourniquet on the wound through which the lost soul else would bleed to a death she never reached. It is the Landlord's last service to those who will let him do nothing better for him."
Pilgrim's Regress, C.S. Lewis
Queer, Undecided, Intersexed, Lesbian, Transexual, Bi-Sexual, Asexual, Gay, and Situationally-Oriented ... QUILTBAGS
For anyone interested, Matt Walsh's documentary "What Is a Woman" is free on Twitter for the weekend.
https://twitter.com/MattWalshBlog
Usually, when I see the name of some group being "re-imagined", it's because the "current" name has picked up the negative connotations that the group has acquired. So, "disabled" becomes "handicapped" becomes "differently abled", for example.
But in this case, what I think it is, is rather, a signaling effort: you have to be monitoring the command channel on the radio continuously and carefully, to catch that the acronym has changed, and then you need to ostentatiously use it so that HQs knows you were listening and will obey. Likewise, it gives HQs a current view on how far its loyal troops have spread around. These are the same troops that are available to, say, mob a wrong-thinker on social media; which is useful info for HQs to have, to judge when "muscle" might be needed.
Janet
@ Janet - exactly. These are social, not intellectual expressions. You have to show that you know what colors are in this year to keep the Mean Girls from destroying you.
I was too old for that when I was young.
"Very quickly this kind of thing makes communication impossible."
Quite sure they see that as a feature, not a bug.
Restaurants should be selling LGBT sandwiches -- lettuce, guacamole, bacon and tomato. If you want to, you can Q for queso.
That sounds like a good sandwich.
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