The ultimate guide to understanding LGBT Pride Month

June is LGBT Pride Month. It is a month to celebrate the tremendous strides the LGBT community has made.  

To help you join in the celebration of LGBT pride, we’ve put together the ultimate guide to understanding LGBT concepts, acronyms and flags.  

First, it is important to understand the difference between sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression: 

• Sexual Orientation: This defines who you are romantically, emotionally, and sexually attracted to. This includes being lesbian, gay, bisexual, heterosexual, asexual and pansexual. 

• Gender identity: This defines how each individual perceives themselves regarding their gender (man, woman, both or neither). 

• Gender Expression: This defines how each individual expresses their gender through behavior, clothing, or appearance. 

There are three basic concepts within LGBT that also must be defined: 

• Biological sex: Based on genes, hormones, and body parts (such as genitals). People are born as male, female, or intersex. 

• Sexuality: Sexual behaviors, relationships and intimacy. 

• Gender: Set of ideas, beliefs and social attributions, which are built in each culture and historical moment. There is the masculine and feminine gender. 

What does the acronym LGBTTT+ stand for? 

• Lesbian: Women who are emotionally and sexually attracted to another woman. 

• Gay: Men who are emotionally and sexually attracted to another man. 

• Bisexual: People who are attracted to both women and men. 

• Transsexual: People who have transitioned to the opposite sex to the one they were born with through medical intervention. 

• Transgender: People who do not identify with the sex they were born with. 

• Transvestite: People who dress and act like the opposite gender. 

Outside of LGBTT, there is also the “+”, which includes: 

• Intersex: Those who are born with a reproductive or sexual anatomy that does not conform to either the masculine or the feminine or have a mixture of both. 

• Queer: This is a term taken from English that is defined as "unusual" and is used by people who do not feel included in the traditional way in which sexual or gender identity is defined. 

• Asexual: Those who have no or minimal sexual attraction. 

• Pansexual: Those who are attracted to another person regardless of their gender, orientation, expression, or identity. 

• Fluid gender: People who do not have a fixed gender identity. 

Understanding the LGBT+ flag 

The first rainbow flag was designed by artist Gilbert Baker in 1978, driven by the need to show the world a symbol that represented the entire community. The first time this flag was seen was during that same year in San Francisco. 

The rainbow flag was designed with a specific purpose, with each color representing something different: 

• Red: sexuality and life 

• Orange: health 

• Yellow: sunlight 

• Green: nature 

• Blue: serenity and art 

• Purple: the spirit 

Why does LGBT+ pride month exist? 

The main objective of LGBT+ pride month is to make their presence visible in society and to combat the discrimination that the community constantly faces. The origin of pride month is that no person should be ashamed of their sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression. 

This month was born to claim the right of expression that all people have.  

Sexual diversity is as wide as the number of human beings in the world. Respecting, educating and increasing visibility are the best weapons to fight discrimination.