Gender and Sexuality

Whether you’re new to the LGBTQ+ community, a long time member, or questioning your identity, labels can be confusing. There’s a lot of them, and it can be a bit overwhelming at first.

Here’s the deal: labels are only helpful as long as you find them helpful. Some people find a label that is perfect for them and that’s great! Some people prefer avoiding labels altogether! Either is fine as long as it makes you happy. Either way, it can be helpful to familiarize yourself with different labels to see if any are the perfect fit for you.

Just remember to be respectful of whatever labels or lack of labels a person uses to identify themselves by. Also, many terms can be used in countless different ways, so these definitions are simply just one way that they are seem as.


Let’s start with the acronym. LGBT, LGBTQ, LGBTQ+, LGBTQQIAP, and so on. Lots of acronyms with lots of different letters. There are many varying identities when it comes to gender and sexuality, many of which have only been given names in recent years.

As people work to be more inclusive, new acronyms have developed from the basic LGBT to include different identities that need to be recognized. Many people have their own preference, but this site will be using LGBTQ+ because the plus includes the increasingly large number of different identities of gender and sexuality that would be difficult to list out in an acronym.


Under the LGBTQ+ communities, there are different categories, which can be explained by the Genderbread Person below.

There are multiple categories of identity depicted in the graphic. Most of these identities are depicted on a spectrum, which allows for people to identify at various points along the spectrum.


https://www.genderbread.org/resource/genderbread-person-v4-0