What's in your QUILTBAG?

The world is full of acronyms. Some of them make our lives easier and some don't.

I'm here to try to sell you on one that's not very well known, but that I think everyone should be using:

QUILTBAG

Unless you live under a rock, you've seen the many variations on the acronym that began as LGBT. In order to be more inclusive, eventually we got LGBTI/GLBTI, LGBTQ, LGBTQA, LGBTQIA, and any number of variations with asterisks and plus signs after them.

You know what? It drives me nuts trying to remember how to write those correctly. I'm always afraid I'll leave out a letter and thus "negate" a portion of the community (and yes, I'm a part of the community: I'm nonbinary and bi/pan).

So how about we switch to a nifty acronym that's an actual word, easy to remember and easy to spell. It's pretty inclusive, too. It stands for Queer/Questioning, Undecided, Intersex, Lesbian, Trans (Transgender/Transsexual), Bisexual, Asexual/Aromantic/Agender, Gay/Genderqueer.

I like the imagery that QUILTBAG conjures for me: a patchwork quilt made of many different and varying pieces that create a beautiful whole. I think that's a marvelous metaphor for community.

I'm also old enough that the term makes me think of the AIDS Memorial Quilt that was first displayed on the National Mall in Washington, DC in 1987. It's still around, BTW - the link in the previous sentence will give you all the details.

So that's my pitch for switching to QUILTBAG. Easy to remember, easy to spell, inclusive. Will you join my tiny crusade to make this acronym more popular?

**UPDATE (October 2024) These days, I write QUILTBAG2S with the 2S standing for Two-Spirit, so the Native American queer community is also represented.