LGBT in GirlGuiding
If you didn't know June is Pride Month for the LGBT community. What this means is people who are Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, Queer, Questioning, Intersex, Asexual, Allies e.t.c celebrate who they are. They are proud of who they are and bring awareness to the inequality and discrimination that is still taking place. Sadly people are still treated horribly for who they love and who they are. People get kicked out of their own homes because their parents don't agree with who they are. People are beat up for who they are and love. People still can't get married or even have a relationship with who they want to because their country has made it illegal. Governments create laws against LGBT people, one of the most shocking is in america where you can get away with murdering an LGBT person under the LGBT Panic Clause. This is horrifying, they are justifying murdering someone based on who they are and love because it 'can cause panic and distress'. We can't choose who we are, who we love, our gender identity, it's just who we are and it should be respected and nobody should ever be discriminated against.
In Girlguiding we accept and love everyone no matter who they are or love. Trans People are welcome with open arms, GirlGuiding is about empowering people who identify as female. At Pride Parades Girls in GirlGuiding march and celebrate who they are because we all deserve to express who we truly are. It's important for everyone in GirlGuiding to accept each other because we are like one big family.
I know that most likely most of my younger readers might not understand all the terms in the LGBT community so I'm going to define a few terms that people usually misunderstand or haven't heard of. It's important to educate yourself so you can understand yourself and others better.
Your Sex : Your sex is who you are genetical. You will have two X chromosomes if you are a girl and an X and Y chromosome if you are a boy. This codes your body to look like a girl or boy.
Your Gender : Gender is stereotypical characteristics, roles, behaviours that a society considers to be feminine or masculine. People usually get gender and sex mixed up but they are different. There are more than two genders, people like to disagree with this but there is, it is scientifically proven. Scientists describe gender as a spectrum, some people feel more feminine than others. Some people, one day, feel feminine and the next they feel more masculine. Some people don't identify as either and therefore are Non-Binary. If your gender corresponds with your birth sex then you are cis-gender
Aesexual : When you like someone you can have a sexual attraction to them (at a young age you most likely will not feel this yet). However some people don't feel sexually attracted to anyone and that's ok. Most people who feel like this identify themself as aesexual.
Trans : Trans is quite a big umbrella term for different identities. I will go through a few of the terms. A transgender person is someone who feels like their sex doesn't match their gender identity. For example, someone is born with the body parts of a girl but they feel like a boy, they feel happier expressing their gender as a boy so they do. This person is transgender. A Transsexual person is someone who undergoes surgery and hormones so that their sex now represents their gender permanently.These people have a Binary identity. Furthermore in the Trans umbrella you have another umbrella for Non-Binary people. A Non-Binary person is someone who doesn't feel 100% masculine and 100% feminine. They don't recognise as a gender. In the Non-Binary umbrella you have the terms Genderfluid, Genderqueer, Demiboy, Demigirl, Agender, Bigender, Neutrois e.t.c. I'm not going to explain all of them but please do some research into them so you can understand people better.
Sexual identity : Your sexual identity is who you are attracted to sexually or romantically. The ones that people are more familiar with are Gay and Lesbian. However there are so many, I will quickly go through a few. Someone that is Bisexual is someone who is attracted to two genders. A Pansexual is attracted to all genders this means they are attracted to Non-Binary people and Trans people as well as Males and Females. Aesexual can come under sexual identiy. Androsexual is someone that is attracted to anyone that identifies as a man even if their anatomy isn't male. Being attracted to someone who identifies as a female is called Gynesexual. A Demisexual is someone who only experiences sexual attraction under certain circumstances for example they have to know the person really well to be sexually attracted. A Sapiosexual is someone who experiences attraction based on intelligence rather than sex or gender. A Skoliosexual is someone who is attracted to non-cisgender people. That's all I am going through on sexual identity because there are so many terms but once again please research more.
I really believe it's important to try to understand every identity in the LGBT community because who people identify as and are attracted to is big to a lot of people. People are proud of who they are and we should all celebrate that but also do as much as we can to try and stop the discrimination and the misunderstanding that people have of the community.
Love is Love and everyone should be proud of their identity.
GirlGuiding welcomes everyone and so should you.
Please feel free to discuss in the comments and share the love. If you have any questions I will try to answer them. I am of course not an expert but I want to help people understand more.
Thank you for reading and make sure you keep safe and keep on Guiding!
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