Media Releases

Why some in LGBTQ community choose not to be referred by acronym

June 30, 2016

Canadian Press | June. 29, 2016

For some, it’s best not to refer to the LGBTQ com­mu­ni­ty at all. The acronym, that is. Long­time activist David Ray­side prefers the term “sex­u­al diver­si­ty” in his aca­d­e­m­ic writ­ings. It’s one way he avoids the com­pli­ca­tions of what he calls the “infi­nite­ly expand­ing alpha­bet.” “You’re inevitably caught up with the fact that sex­u­al­i­ty has many colours, many forms, many ambi­gu­i­ties, so it becomes a chal­lenge,” says Ray­side, an asso­ciate and for­mer direc­tor of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toronto’s Mark S. Bon­ham Cen­tre for sex­u­al diver­si­ty stud­ies. Read more.