References to a group of letters to identify the fad du jour of sexual license are rather ubiquitous. But they are not uniform. As many times as someone writes LGBT another writes GLBT. I am sure that at times, depending upon the particular flavor of the writer's predilections, BLGT or TLBG was the preferred order. I doubt that BLTG is ever used because of the confusion it would cause at the deli.
Lately, another, esteemed, letter has made the scene: Q. I don't think there has been any official action of approval by the official body who governs this particular part of our society, but there does not seem to be any real push against the introduction of this new letter. Moreover, there is no official meaning attributed to it as there is for all the other letters. There are two primary possibilities, Queer or Questioning. Likely it is the latter for I have heard that used at least once in a videotaping of a conversation of a professor in one of the southern universities in which he stated "I identify as bisexual and questioning." I suppose there is a third possibility: Questionable, meaning either that the person believes his or her gender is questionable or the whole idea of gender is questionable, which would introduce quite a philosophical thread into the whole Alphabet of Sexual License. In other words, while the pilgrim letters of L and G and B and the late comer T refer solely and exclusively to a certain physicality of sex, a Questionable member of this group would question whether gender, and therefore sex, has any meaning at all or whether it is merely a construct based on current and past social needs, e.g., the need to reproduce or more recently the need to authenticate a particular license in society at large.
One might question where the Alphabet will end. If the underlying reason for grouping these quite different predilections is the rejection of the notion of sexual morality, then presumably you will have as many new letters as you will individuals who claim new sexual identities. For example, it is entirely possible that there are individuals who consider incestual attraction to be a part of their identity. Therefore "I" should be able to make a case that it stands with the venerable L, G and B. There are also individuals that find their identity in a multiplicity of simultaneous sexual relationships, sometimes called polyamorists. Thus "P" might also have a claim. And how about individuals who believe that there sexual identity is found with regard to animals? Wait, you say, this is really going too far and that is downright disgusting, and B is already taken, moreover, in probably all cases it is a form of animal cruelty because the animal is not expressing consent. Ok, maybe that is a fair point, and the element of consent would then appear to be the other requisite for entry into the Alphabet. There are perhaps other sexual proclivities and permutations yet to be discovered and so the Alphabet seems endlessly open.
Which returns to my original question -- where does the Alphabet end? I would venture this as the answer: it ends with the rejection of gender and the language of gender as having any objective meaning. This is both a startling and unstartling proposition. Unstartling because at the core of homosexuality is the rejection of the original meaning of the genitalia and gender. A transgendered person takes this view to the extreme of destroying his or her body in order to conform to their spiritual gender. Bisexuals essentially are indifferent to the particular orifice that is at hand. In each case, each person rejects the original meaning of their genitalia and to that extent their gender. How is this a startling proposition? I think that is quite self-evident. Such a proposition shakes centuries upon centuries of societal structures and the traditional relationships associated with those structures. If that is correct then basic ideas we use today to communicate will become nonsensical. I am reminded of C.S. Lewis's colorful portrayal of such a state of affairs in That Hideous Strength where those who were in favor of weening humans off their bodies were stricken with the inability to communicate, whilst Nature ran its course. Thus, the Alphabet of Sexual License leads to more license and from there to the meaningless of life, for where there is no gender, there is no human life.
