LGBT? GLBT? LGBTQIA?

I have a page on my site called LGBT Law. LGBT stands for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgendered. The standard term was, up to a couple of years ago, GLBT, but then someone realized “ladies first!” and you now see more LGBT than GLBT around. (Google GLBT and you get 4 million results, while LGBT gets 12 million.) I briefly used the term LGBTQ, and that found its way onto the current incarnation of my business cards. But I think I will probably go back to LGBT on the next version of my cards because that seems to confuse people less. The “Q” is for Questioning, and you often see this in the context of teenagers, so you’ll see LGBTQ clubs in high schools and colleges. My favorite version is LGBTQIA. “I” for Intersex and “A” for Allies. Maybe that will go down on my next business cards instead of plain old LGBT. Intersex issues are super-fascinating. Another blog post on that sometime in the future…