Category: lgbtq+

#160 LGBTQ&
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My parents were told that I was mentally retarded.

I don’t know if it was the fam­i­ly doc­tor or the school coun­selor, but they def­i­nite­ly said I was men­tal­ly retard­ed (back when that term was acceptable).

I walked retarded-​like, as if I was going to fall over & I did not like play­ing sports (I was even afraid of the dodge ball) & I doo­dled & stared out the win­dow in class.

My dad would not stand for what he was told! He demand­ed a sec­ond opinion.

That expert said that I walked fun­ny because I was born with a sway back. He got me doing some exer­cis­es to cor­rect it. (I still don’t have the best pos­ture but peo­ple don’t laugh at me any­more.) He said I sim­ply don’t like sports. I’d rather be think­ing and draw­ing, which is why I stared out the win­dow and doo­dled. (Lat­er on that doo­dling turned into let­ter­ing & graph­ic design, but I do still over­think my lay­outs and logos…or maybe not.)

Point is, I know how it feels to be con­sid­ered dif­fer­ent. I was ridiculed, always picked last for sports (did­n’t mind that one bit), and was con­sid­ered the school nerd. I was dif­fer­ent and knew it. I had to deal with it. 

That’s why I am empa­thet­ic to any­one who is dif­fer­ent and has to deal with it. Among oth­ers, that includes the LGBTQ& com­mu­ni­ty which cel­e­brates their “dif­fer­ent­ness” every June — with pride.

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June is LGBTQ& Pride Month 

That’s LGBTQ& for amper­sand fans. For every­one else it’s LGBTQ+ but it means the same exact thing. The plus sign is a just a sim­pli­fied amper­sand — see?

This Amper­Art piece was orig­i­nal­ly cre­at­ed in May or June 2020, but I got so involved in select­ing & posi­tion­ing the let­ters of the acronym, & then spend­ing lots of time research­ing the ori­gin of the flag & oth­er his­to­ry about LGBTQ&, along with relat­ed ter­mi­nol­o­gy, facts & feel­ings, that I told myself “to be con­tin­ued next year.” 

Then in 2021 I dis­cov­ered all sorts of new acronyms (includ­ing LGBTQIA& which is com­mon today, but also extend­ed ver­sions such as LGBTIQCAPGNGFNBA+) & a whole slew of gen­der icons (take a look at the back­ground of the art­work), think­ing I need­ed to start over with design. But I liked my orig­i­nal art­work, how every­thing fit, & the fact it was a spec­trum of exact­ly six col­ors, same as the cur­rent LGBTQ& flag. So what to do? After heavy con­sid­er­a­tion I had the “aha” idea: Leave the main art­work alone, but add the var­i­ous gen­der icons to the back­ground. (I chose from what appeared to be an author­i­ta­tive source. If any­one wants to sug­gest more or dif­fer­ent icons I’ll glad­ly con­sid­er mod­i­fy­ing the back­ground pat­tern. I feel it’s impor­tant to be rep­re­sent­ed accu­rate­ly & respect­ful­ly. Just leave a comment.) 

Well, you guessed it: it took awhile to make those revi­sions, then to write about them & what each sym­bol means, so half-​way into June 2021 I once again shelved this piece until this month, LGBTQ& Pride Month 2022. I got back to work on the edi­to­r­i­al in mid-​May so it could be released as my May 2022 Amper­Art (which it was, today the 30th). Prob­lem was I still had the sto­ry to write & a ton of ref­er­ence mate­r­i­al to sort through, and that would take days.

History of the Flag

Picture now & 1000 words later

A pic­ture is worth a thou­sand words, they say, so I’ve decid­ed to post the pic­ture now — the final Amper­Art design #160 LGBTQ& — & con­tin­ue adding to this sto­ry as I write about each topic:

• (post­ed 5/​30/​22) My empa­thy with those who are “not main­stream,” because I’ve always been a lit­tle dif­fer­ent than my peers (even diag­nosed as men­tal­ly retard­ed, when that term was polit­i­cal­ly cor­rect). I’m straight, but I have a lot of gay (& oth­er gen­ders, I’m sure) friends & tru­ly enjoy their com­pa­ny. I under­stand what it’s like to be con­sid­ered “dif­fer­ent.”
• (post­ed 6/​15/​22) The his­to­ry of the first Rain­bow Flag, which is inter­est­ing & a bit amus­ing why it had to be changed slightly. 
• The grad­ual accep­tance lead­ing up to — final­ly — the Supreme Court “affirm­ing that every human being should be treat­ed with respect & dignity.”
• A look at the oth­er sexual-​orientation terms & icons.
• Final­ly, my one & only rant against the LGBTQ& com­mu­ni­ty, which has to do with my spe­cial­ty, brand identity.

I can’t promise when I’ll get to these top­ics — this June or Pride Month next June, or some­where in between. But the issue & the peo­ple are impor­tant to me, so I will keep adding to the arti­cle right here. I will also send out a newslet­ter at the con­clu­sion of each topic.

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Chaz DeS­i­mone, design­er & typog­ra­ph­er, is the cre­ator of Amper­Art & own­er of Des­i­mone Design. He was adding ser­ifs to let­ters when he was just a lit­tle brat scrib­bling on walls. Now he’s a big brat & his entire career is design, so long as each project requires the most sophis­ti­cat­ed, log­i­cal, cap­ti­vat­ing results. Con­tact him at chaz@​desimonedesign.​com.

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