Students and staff at a private Pennsylvania liberal arts school are staying abreast of cultural-lingo updates.

Swarthmore College was founded in 1864, but it’s far from stuck in the past. In fact, the institution keeps an online log of the most current “LGBTQ+” terms.

If you’ve wondered how to refer to individuals at school, work, or church, Swarthmore’s site makes for a brilliant bookmark.

We’re living in an age of identity; the modern man and woman — plus all the other types — love labels.

For those longing to learn, here are some basics:

• Man: Gender identity label for someone who associates their understanding of self with masculinity; includes cisgender and transgender men.
• Woman: Gender identity label for someone who associates their understanding of self with femininity; includes cisgender and transgender women.
• Sex Assigned at Birth: Based on genitals, label of male or female given by an adult or authority figure upon birth.

Now beyond the binary:

• Allosexual: Identity or descriptor for someone who experiences sexual desire and/or engages in sexual acts.
• Cisnormativity: Cultural system, repeated and reinforced over time, of being cisgender as the default, typical, and expected gender identity of all individuals that affects many aspects of society and structures.
• Cishet: Shortening of cisgender and heterosexual; refers to people who identify as both.
• Demisexual: Sexual orientation label, included under the asexual umbrella, for someone who only experiences sexual attraction after establishing an emotional connection.
• Greysexual: Sexual orientation label, included under the asexual umbrella, for someone who experiences various degrees of sexual attraction and/or desire but does not identify as allosexual.
• Latinx/Latiné: Gender-inclusive attempts at describing people of Latin American cultural or ethnic identity.
• Masculine of Center: Gender identity label for a queer person, typically assigned female at birth but not always, who presents masculinely; most often utilized by queer women of Color.
• Pangender: Gender identity label, included under the transgender umbrella, for someone who embodies all of the various gender identities.
• Panromantic: Romantic orientation label for someone who is romantically, or emotionally, attracted to anyone regardless of gender identity.
• Stealth: Term sometimes used by transgender people seeking to be viewed by others as cisgender in the gender with which they identify, not as visibly transgender; can be controversial in that it implies sneaking and/or deception.

On to top-shelf sophistication:

• Boi: Sexual orientation and gender label used within queer communities of Color among people assigned female at birth; often refers to queer women who present with masculinity.
• Stud/AG/Aggressive: Gender identity label for Black, masculine women or non-binary people; often similar to masculine of center identity.
• Two-Spirit: Indigenous-specific umbrella term that can be related to gender identity and/or sexual orientation that is associated with the overlapping complexity of gender roles, spirituality, and sexuality.
• CAFAB/CAMAB: Acronyms for Coercively Assigned Female at Birth and Coercively Assigned Male at Birth; used to clarify the labeling or assignment done to newborns who present as intersex and have ambiguous genitals; often involves surgery to modify the genitals and subsequent socialization of the child as the sex and gender assigned.
• Transmisogynoir: Cultural and interpersonal systems of oppression affecting and against Black, transgender women.

And something cute:

• BIQTPOC: Acronym for Black and Indigenous Queer and Transgender People of Color; pronounced “bye cutie pock.”

The catalog also calls to “neopronouns,” which “refer to someone in the third person sometimes without connection to gender” and are “typically created by” that person.

Identities are modern-day decoration, and it’s Christmas all year ’round. In a plethora of ways, society has become unprecedentedly adorned:

Cartoon Network Schools Kids on Pronouns: They Define You and Make You Feel Safe

Student Protests University’s ‘Inclusive’ Pronoun Rules, a Petition Demands He Be Kicked out of School

In the Atmosphere of Identity, the Sky’s the Limit: Swoon to the Sweet Song of ‘Bird Gender’

Wokedom’s Newest Confection Takes the Cake: Introducing ‘Cake Gender’

Students Decry College’s Paltry Pronoun Provisions — There’s Not Even a ‘Mushroomself’

Nebraska Eyes Teaching Kindergarteners Gender Identity While Eleven-Year-Olds Study Pansexuality and Demigenderism

Swarthmore is helping usher in a new age, and not just where crotchety categorization is concerned:

College Op-Ed Asks if White People Should Be Kicked out of Parties

LGBT Ecologists Ogle Racist Parks, Nonbinary Frogs, and the Importance of Public Places for Gay Sex

As our cultural complication increases, one must become marvelously mindful. A sentence such as “Carl grabbed his jacket and Bonnie got her coat, and they left for their son’s tactical paintball tournament — he’s a fun guy” now feasibly becomes “Carl grabbed cakeself’s jacket and Bonnie got birdself’s coat, and they left for their pangender allosexual coercively-assigned-male-at-birth child’s heteronormative activity — mushroomself’s a fungi.”

See a more advanced scenario here.

So goes America’s evolution. It’s a new world; try and keep up.

-ALEX

See more content from me:

Ivy League University Ditches Standardized Testing, Will Judge an Applicant’s ‘Background’ and ‘Voice’

Doctors Say Black People Have Headaches and Insomnia From Whiteness-Induced PTSD

Smithsonian’s Planned ‘American Women’s History Museum’ Will Spotlight Biological Males

Find all my RedState work here.

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