Clueless People

So, I'm in a LGBT Families class. What we discuss is pretty obvious from the title. I think it should be a class that requires at least one other LGBT class as a prerequsite. There are some people (most people) in there, that have no clue about current LGBTQ issues (and for those who don't know, the Q stands for Queer).

"Homosexual"
I really don't like this word. There are so many things wrong with it. For one, its totally old school. No one in the LGBT community uses the word anymore. It has such a bad history. Homosexuality use to be a disease and thats when the term homosexuality first came about, when it was actually put in the big book of diseases. Homosexuality signifies there is something to cure. Whenever you read an article about gay rights, you can always tell what way the publication leans by whether they say gay rights or homosexual rights.

A group of my classmates were giving a presentation today. There were four people, three of them used homosexual every time they were talking about someone who was gay. I couldn't help but cringe every single time I heard them utter that word.

"Sexual Orientation" vs "Sexual Preference"
I don't think that even my professor realizes the differences between these two phrases. She mentioned them today, but did not explain. The biggest difference is kind of like the example I mentioned about with homosexuality. People who use orientation, usually believe that being gay is NOT a choice, that you are born gay. People who use preference, are the ones who believe being gay is a choice.

There was one girl who tried to say if a person was transexual, they were attracted to people who are transgendered. Really? Are you that dense? Transexual means kind of the same thing as transgendered, just it usually refers to epople who have or are planning to have SRS (Sex reassignment surgery).

Politically Correct
There are a lot of people in my class who don't understand that the terminology has changed over the years. It is no longer correct to call someone a hermaphrodite, they are intersexed. I actually had someone ask me what intersex meant. You learn this in Introduction to LGBT Studies. That class should definitely be a prereq to this class.

Some Good Notes
So, a few good things did happen in class. Obviously the above bad things were corrected, so people were educated. Also, some new terms were brought up that I know none of these people had heard before, but aren't commonly used anyway. Pansexual was mentioned (being attracted to any and all people), as well androgynous. Both terms needed to be explained, but at least these poeple who are completely clueless, learned something new. Also, because of the reading, people learned why there is sch a stigma on AIDS/HIV. There were a couple people who freely admitted that they had not known AIDS use to be called GRIDS (gay-related immune deficiency syndrome).

I would like to say, that not knowing any of these things is not a totally bad thing. What I am saying is, if you are going to take a LGBT studies class, especially an advanced class that is a 400 level, than you should do a little research and get some background information on the subject. You know, maybe just learn a few key phrases, especially things that you should NOT say.