Planned Parenthood

whatsyourlabel:

At one point, Santiago, a curly-haired freshman from Colombia, stood before the crowd. He and a friend had been pondering the limits of what he calls “L.G.B.T.Q. plus.”

“Why do only certain letters get to be in the full acronym?” he asked.

Then he rattled off a list of gender identities, many culled from Wikipedia. “We have our lesbians, our gays,” he said, before adding, “bisexual, transsexual, queer, homosexual, asexual.” He took a breath and continued. “Pansexual. Omnisexual. Trisexual. Agender. Bi-gender. Third gender. Transgender. Transvestite. Intersexual. Two-spirit. Hijra. Polyamorous.”

By now, the list had turned into free verse. He ended: “Undecided. Questioning. Other. Human.”

The room burst into applause.

Today’s youth are challenging existing sexual and gender identity labels. How do you feel about this? How do you define yourself? What’s YOUR label?

Check out this new project on labels and identity: What is Your Label?