#or is it meant to refer to anyone who falls under the nonbinary umbrella regardless of pronouns?

[peach-pot]

I genuinely am curious what the thought process behind “they/thems” as a noun is and who is meant to be included in that group, but I’m not sure if anyone following me uses they/them as a noun. and if anyone does I might’ve scared them off by being angry about it… sorry friends pspspsps come back I have a question

[waterfoxy]

A little guide to some lgbtq+ identities

(Disclaimer: I take the knowledge and definitions of these identities from my own experience because I either currently identify or once identified with them. If anyone has any problem with how I define an identity please contact me and we can figure something out. But if you simply "don't believe" in these identities or think that they are "made up" you can keep your opinion to yourself. This is a post meant to inform, not to start any discourse.)

Asexual: feeling no sexual attraction. It's a spectrum with different subidentities to better describe where people fall on the asexual sprctrum. Often used as an umbrella term alongside with acespec for the ace spectrum.

Ace: short version of asexual

Aceflux: an identity on the asexual spectrum that fluctuates. It is an identity for people whose attraction changes but always stays on the ace spectrum or fluctuates between asexual and allosexual (allosexual = not asexual or on the asexual spectrum)

Demigirl: also known as demiwoman/demifemale. A nonbinary gender identity that describes someone who feels partially as a girl and partially as something else. This something else can be no gender (agender) or another gender but they feel more connected to womanhood/femininity and therefore prefer to identify as demigirl. Everyone regardless of agab can identify as demigirl if they feel it fits their experience.

Polysexual: a sexual identity refering to people who are attracted to three or more genders. It is part of the multiple gender attraction specrtum, also known as mspec, alongside some better known sexualities, bi and pan. Polysexuality is not the same as polyamory. Polyamory = being in a relationship with multiple consenting people at the same time. The shortened version of polysexual is ply not poly.

Nonbinary: a gender identity and umbrella term for all genders that fall in between the gender binary (like demigirl), outside of the gender binary (like agender) or a changing gender identity (like genderfluid).

Genderflux: a gender identity that falls under the nonbinary umbrella. It describes a person whose gender fluctuates in intensity. Unlike genderfluid or bigender this person doesn't "jump" from one gender identity to another (for example female on one day, boy the other) but instead shifts in how intense the person is experiencing their gender (for example: one day they align very intensely with a gender, the next only half way and the day after not at all). But they always shift between different genders.

Girlflux: this is a form of genderflux where the person's gender identity fluctuates in intensity between female and agender.

Pansexual: a sexual orientation. Unlike with bisexuality or with polysexuality, where you are attracted to multiple but not necessarily all genders, pansexuality means attraction to all genders, without exceptions. Some people also add to their definition of pansexuality that it is attraction regardless of gender, meaning their attraction is the same towards all genders. Other people argue though that pansexuals can still have a preference for (a) certain gender(s). It always deepends on how each person defines their own sexuality.

[saltycharacters]

This might sound stupid I know... But... Can you explain and describe me all those sexuality. I know straight, lesbians, gays, bi but I never knew what were the others...

I’m assuming you mean the sexualities I’ve been featuring in my pride character uploads, right?

But regardless, not a stupid question at all! Assuming that all you know is the sexualities you described (bi, straight, gay), I’m gonna teach you more about the lgbt+ community than you ever knew and hopefully clear up some of your questions! This goes out to all my other curious followers too. I hope this isn’t too long of a read.

Yes, straight/lesbian/gay/bi are what most people recognize/understand as your typical lgbt+ identities. After all, they’re the main part of the acronym! But it’s actually much more complex and numerous than you may have expected, and it goes beyond what you were taught. It may seem overwhelming, confusing, and hard to memorize- and that’s understandable! You don’t need to know every identity there, is as there are a lot of people on this planet with many different experiences that simply cannot be summarized by “gay, bi, lesbian, or straight.” All you need to do is keep an open mind, and ask questions if something confuses you. And don’t use your confusion as an excuse to brush it off as fake. Just learn, like you’ve been doing since you were little, and accept that you may not know everything.

I will explain to you the ones I know, and I hope that expands your horizons just a lil. Again, no one requires you to memorize all of these- just be respectful of them!

I will also note that it’s possible you’ve never heard of these because some involve the concept of nonbinary genders- genders outside of just female and male. Since as far back as the Egyptians, there’s been people who identified with something other than boy/girl, and once you begin to understand that you can begin to understand these sexualities/romantics.

(Difference between sexual/romantic: _____romantic talks about romantic attraction, _____sexual talks about sexual attraction. It’s good to distinguish them for people who experience sexual and romantic attraction differently. For example, a person may be asexual (lacks sexual attraction to anyone) but homoromantic (romantic attraction to same gender), and any combination can also work.)

Pansexual/Panromantic- Attraction regardless of gender. A pan person could be interested in someone no matter what their gender identity is, and might focus more on personality or etc. Sometimes called “genderblind”, for reasons I just described, and not the same as bisexuality as bisexuality is limited to two+ genders and pansexuality is not.

Polysexual/Polyromantic- attraction to multiple, but not all, genders. This goes beyond bisexuality as it has a much wider range of attraction, but is not quite pansexuality as it still has some limits. For example, bisexuals might say, “I like oranges and apples”, pansexuals may say “I like all fruits”, and polysexuals say “I like a lot of fruits except for pears, strawberries, and bannanas.” or “I like oranges, bananas, grapefruit, starfruit, blueberries and grapes.”

Omnisexual/Omniromantic- Very similar to pansexuality, and it took me a while to figure out the difference, but while pansexuality is an attraction REGARDLESS of gender (they don’t care), omnisexuals actually care about the gender of the people they’re attracted to, but they are attracted to all of them. It might be difficult to grasp so maybe do some more research on it later? I’m not sure how to explain it better, I’m sorry :^(

Ceterosexual/Ceteromantic- Attraction to nonbinary genders. Female/Male may not be of interest to them, but genders outside of the binary are.

The Ace Spectrum- Then there’s a special set of sexualities/romantics that all fall under the Ace spectrum, which is a series of identities that graduate towards asexuality/aromantic, which is the lack of sexual/romantic attraction.

Demisexual/Demiromantic- sexual attraction ONLY after forming an emotional bond with the person. They wouldn’t find strangers, celebrities, or people they don’t know well appealing. Most don’t feel attraction very often for this reason. Only after a while of getting to know the person would they actually find them hot/romantically appealing. It could take months or years for them to be interested in someone.

Greysexua/Greyromantic- Experiencing attraction but very rarely, or under certain circumstances. Not quite asexual/aromantic as they still do feel attraction, but not often enough to be alloromantic/allosexual (term used for people that aren’t under the ace spectrum). This is also an umbrella term for any other identity under the ace umbrella that doesn’t quite fit any other label.

Asexual/Aromantic- No attraction, to anyone (romantically/sexually). Asexuals are also referred as “ace” (idk why) but it might make more sense if you’ve seen that word but didn’t know what it meant.

Polyamourus- Not as much of a sexuality as it is a lifestyle, but this is when someone (with consent from all parties) participates in a relationship with more than one person. Someone that has more than one partner.

Hope this was insightful!! Tell me if I explained/wrote something wrong, I will fix it as soon as I can!