IDAHOBIT 2022

Today is IDAHOBIT, which stands for International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia. Last year, as I mentioned on this blog, it was suggested that Lesbophobia should be explicitly included in the acronym. Nevertheless, unfortunately, I've only seen one reference to IDAHOBLIT this year. A fantastic suggestion this year is that Interphobia (suffered by Intersex people) should be included in the acronym. This is easy to include because the letter I is already in the acronym, originally attached to the B to spell bi for Biphobia. Despite this, I haven't seen many people this year refer to Interphobia when explaining the acronym, even when splitting the B and I by incorporating the L. 🤔 

I think genderphobia would also be an excellent addition, because it encompasses anyone who is not simply cis gender and those who have one or more gender expressions that differ from social expectations of gender roles. I'm not sure where I'd place the extra G though, unless it became IDAHOBIGLIT. 

It's tricky making sure everyone is explicitly included in acronyms, which is why LGBT+ has expanded so much in recent years and continues to do so. Yet LGBTQIAPD2S+ still is not comprehensive, for instance, it doesn't even have enby or nb within it for non-binary people, the G is thought of as only referring to being gay but not other identities beginning with G, such as genderflux and genderfluid, and there's still many LGBT+ cultures that are currently only implied in the + symbol too. Having said that, the spirit of IDAHOBIT Day has come to be all inclusive and the acronym wishes to implicitly include speaking out against any phobias against anyone in the LGBTQIAPD2S+ community, which of course includes those who are not explicitly referred to in this acronym either, such as non-binary people. 

The 17th of May was chosen for IDAHOBIT to mark the day that the World Health Organisation (WHO) finally declassified homosexuality from being referred to as a disease in 1992! So much for WHO! Gives me zero confidence in them. 1992! And not even adopted by member states until two years after that. I was already on this planet albeit an extremely young child. It's difficult for me to imagine that same-sex attraction was ever considered to be a disease / pathology / mental illness by many medical and psychology professionals. So much for academic qualifications! So much for medicine, psychology and science! Clearly overrated. 

The theme for 2022 is 'Our Body, Our Lives, Our Rights'. I think it's a great theme. Gay people are human beings and deserve to have the same rights and respect as every human being in the world. They also have the right to love whomever and to express that love physically through their body. We all only have one life, so it's high time bigots are stopped from ruining the lives of people that don't fit a narrow political, religious, ideological model. That of extreme binary strong muscular male/ weak, feeble female who are cis, white and Christian! History isn't linear but Anne Lister lived as a successful business woman and an openly gay one. Why is it that in 2022 society is still so backward? We are still trying to ban conversion 'therapy' outright with minimal success despite religious leaders agreeing that it's barbaric. So why isn't the government listening to these religious leaders? Clearly religion isn't the real reason. So what is?