LGBTQIA Penn Students Pushing For Even More Letters

Every few years, a new letter gets tacked on to what was once just LGBT: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender. Lately, Q, for “queer” or “questioning” has arrived. Same with “I” for intersex (someone without strictly male or female anatomy), and “A”, for “asexual” or “ally” of the movement. For a group of Penn freshman, even that acronym doesn’t quite do them justice.

Sure, Penn already had some two dozen gay student groups, including Queer People of Color, Lambda Alliance and J-Bagel, which bills itself as the university’s “Jewish L.G.B.T.Q.I.A. Community.” But none focused on gender identity (the closest, Trans Penn, mostly catered to faculty members and graduate students).

Said 18-year-old Penn student Richard Parsons, “a garrulous freshman with close-cropped hair, wire-framed glasses and preppy clothes…’This is the L.G.B.T. Center, and it’s all gay guys.'” [New York Times]