Today, there is the pronounds. When I was in college, the learning curve was to say woman instead of girl, or better yet, Womyn.

Today, there is the talk about pronouns. When I was in college, in the 1970s, I knew a few transgender people, though the pronoun issue wasn't evident. Back then, it seemed like the learning curve was about not calling women "girls." When someone called a person over 18 a girl, they would often be corrected. She's a woman. Feminism was evident back then.

There was also a new spelling for woman. It was better to write "Womyn."

Looking this up in AI, I just learned that there is both singular and plural for women. "Woman" is singular. "Women" is plural. I've never been good at spelling. For Womyn, AI says, "Womyn" (plural), "womyn" (singular).

As for other LGBTQ people, Western Washington University was quite progressive for its day. It had a "Gay People's Alliance" office in the Viking Union.

Before I graduated, they changed that name to the more inclusive "Sexual Minorities Center," but for first year of the change, it was called, "Union of Sexual Minorities Center." I think this was so the acronym could be "USMC," like the "US Marine Corps." It was for humor and folks joked that "we are looking for a few good men and women."

While being gay, I haven't had the desire for actual sexual intercourse, so I thought I was celibate back then. The organization included celibacy as a sexual minority. Today, these many things are talked about as spectrums. The concept of spectrums brings back sexuality me.

I was thinking about spectrums, even back then, as the Kinsey Scale is actually a "spectrum." The Kinsey Scale said that most people fall somewhere on the "gay to straight" spectrum, rather than being all "gay" or all "straight."

I also thought about other spectrums of personality on a graph making things more complex.

I remember thinking that the human personality is too complex for any label. It takes quite a bit of time to get to know someone.

I even think that starting meetings by giving one's name and pronouns is somewhat of a waste of time. In a discussion group, learning what someone thinks about the discussion topic seems more useful.

I'm pretty bad at even remembering names until I've had a chance to get to know someone over time. There seems to be no substitute for taking the time.

From a self published brochure I did in 1975.