Are We BGLTQSI?
Posted at: 2009-01-01 06:29:00.0
Author: Francis X. Clooney, S.J.
http://www.americamagazine.org/blog/entry.cfm?blog_id=2&id=91F78473-1438-5036-4FE2463B80C8A069 (http://www.americamagazine.org/blog/entry.cfm?blog_id=2&id=91F78473-1438-5036-4FE2463B80C8A069)
Cambridge, MA. As you know, I contribute one of these reflections just about every two weeks. I try to be regular in doing so, and for that purpose, also try to write the reflection, edit it, check it, and post it, all within one hour's time. (Readers posting comments, mostly kind, are adept at picking up points at which a little more time might have been spent in editing or research. I plead guilty.) In any case, this particular reflection has taken a bit longer, since I decided that I needed to decipher the acronym in this notice posted in the student activities' section of the Harvard Divinity School website: "Faith for All is the campus BGLTQSI student group. We endeavor to bring together students, staff, and faculty in regard to issues of sex, orientation, and gender by hosting and running events in the HDS and wider Harvard communities, thus raising the comfort and awareness of all, regardless of faith-based background. The steering committee invites all interested members of the community to get involved with campus and Greater Boston community events and to feel free to contact the steering committee members with any questions, concerns, or recommendations for events."
What does BGLTQSI stand for? I used my own memory (rather out of date, it seems) and consulted several students and staff, and Wikipedia too, to come up with this decipherment: B — bisexual; G — gay; L — lesbian; T — transgender ("Transgender is the state of one's 'gender identity' [self-identification as woman, man, or neither] not matching one's 'assigned sex'"); Q — questioning, or queer; S — straight, or searching, or supportive; I — intersex ("a general term used for a variety of conditions in which a person is born with a reproductive or sexual anatomy that doesn't seem to fit the typical definitions of female or male") The inclusion of "supportive" under "S" suggests the hope at least that heterosexuals might come and support their friends and colleagues in conversation and faith sharing.