/Just/ Say Plus

It's time for everyone to stop pretending referencing LGBTQIA2S+ as "Alphabet Mafia" is said in good faith. Most of the time, it carries a tinge of distaste. There are too many identities to list everyone as part of the nomenclature in this way. That's what the + is for at the end. Ok. It's just not possible to account for everyone and then there are whole swathes of those who don't want to be named anyway. So, let's just go by the Plus community. Keep it simple.

New symbol for Pride Community. The Plus.

I have never been a fan of 'queer' either because it means odd, or atypical. For those of us who didn't pick up that same-gender romance was atypical until the girls they asked to kiss in middle school were suddenly shocked and horrified, the word queer doesn't feel ideal. For some generations, and we must always remember those who build the scaffolding on which we stand, it was always an intentional derogatory term.

So, queer is out, too. Don't it sound pleasant to say you are Plus? Open & inclusive, short and delicate and ready to move on to describe parts of yourself actually under your control. No one needs to ask further but they can, no one needs to cover their old tattoos. Everything is cumulative. All experiences, compounding. It's not that we are 'just' doing this or that, but instead of getting increasingly flusterated by the length of the label, the bell curve of chance someone will invalidate someone else by ignorance exclusion, /just/ call us Plus. Keep up with the times. Just say Plus.

Let's include everyone. All the new and old, the historical terms and newly defined, from everywhere and in all directions, whoever wants to be part of the Community can, whether you have changed gender or orientation eight times and end up in an opposite sex relationship in the end or the beginning or stag for the rest of your marvelous life. Welcome. You only add to our magical full-spectrum rainbow. Even those colors we some of us can't see. It don't matter. Welcome.

Get on in here. Only positive vibes & sweet sensations. Keep your flags and black & brown folks representation! Let's use this handy dandy sign. It may look like many other signs but this one is ours. Scrawl it on notebooks and over urinals, screenprint tees and posters, embroider it onto your sleeves like the hearts you've stolen along your sojourn to join the march, salute it if the mood strikes you, dance over floors with it inlaid in recycled panels. Take it and run off into the dark corners of your creative soul to flourish and mutate. Always add to the sign. Always welcome newcomers, hasbins, questioners, and allies. It's all ok as long as it's all consensual.

Spread the word.

Let me know how it goes.