One flag should not unite us all (Picture: Daniel Becerril/Reuters)

I hate the term LGBT.

It’s the confusion the term causes.

Lesbian, gay and bisexual are all sexualities, so you’d be forgiven for thinking transgender is as well.

Forms ask you if you’re heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual or transgender.


But it’s not a sexuality. It’s a gender. It makes no more sense being included with LGB than if you were to add ‘female’ in there.

I am transgender. That means I was born with female genitalia and socialised as a woman. My brain had other ideas.

Before I came out, I was attracted to women. Being ‘female’ that made me a lesbian.



Now I’m transitioning to male, I’m still attracted to women, so that makes me heterosexual.

If I was attracted to men, I’d be gay.

See how that works? See how you can be transgender and gay, or lesbian, or straight, or bisexual? One does not equal the other.

Sexuality and gender and not the same thing and are independent of one another.

Add that to the fact that a lot of people in the LGB circles aren’t that tolerant of the T and you start to wonder just why we insist on being included.

An umbrella term that shouldn’t catch-all (Picture: AP/David Goldman)

I get why it was included in the first place. Sort of.

An inclusion measure for marginalised people, many of whom had their roots in the LGB communities.

But when talking about issues that concern sexuality why is transgender included?

Yes, the fight for equality for LGB people is still ongoing but the transgender fight is completely different and is only just beginning.

It’s time we stopped pretending otherwise.

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