The Southeast LGBT Resource Center will be hosting Alphabet Soup to educate attendees on the meaning of the letters associated with the acronym, "LGBTQQIAA2."

The event may become a regularly scheduled program depending on the success of the premiere on April 8.

Megan Murray, the coordinator for leadership development at the Student Resource Center, said that the event will feature soup, sandwiches and a presentation organized by her graduate assistant Regina Wareing.

"The LGBT alphabet soup event, we titled it that because a lot of times people call the LGBT acronym 'alphabet soup' because there are so many letters," Murray said. "Because it's 'LGBTQQIAA2,' and for a lot of people there are a lot more letters in there. So, a lot of people just call it 'alphabet soup.'"

Wareing said that the event will start with some information about herself and the Student Resource Center, and afterward, she will lead into what it means to be two-spirit, pansexual, queer, questioning, asexual and an ally.

"It's kind of like a trial and error thing here," Wareing said. "I have a lot of personal stories, too, that tie into this, and I think that that's really interesting coming from an ally."

Wareing said that the presentation will include a story about her 12-year-old son who wanted to try on a dress as well as a video by Lacey Green, entitled 'Transgender Adventure.'

"I've been an ally since I was little, didn't even know what an ally was then, but I was," Wareing said. "I really love doing this stuff and learning all about it, and I don't have all of the answers. I don't think anybody does, but I'm learning with everyone else."

Wareing said that the event will be approximately 45 minutes long, and it will leave time for questions and interaction. Murray and Wareing have been researching the topic specifically for the discussion.

Murray said that people can reserve a seat by emailing Wareing at rklain1s@semo.edu since there are only 25 seats available. However, reserving a seat is not necessary, and it will be on a first-come, first-served basis otherwise.

The event begins at 6 p.m. in the Heritage Room of the UC located on the fourth floor.

Murray also brought the Safe Zone training to Southeast Missouri State University which educates faculty, staff, community members and students on the LGBT community and teaches how to be a resource for LGBT community members.

The work through Safe Zone inspired Alphabet Soup by showing a need for more information on different sexual orientations as well as gender identities.

"They said they wanted more information about those other letters because we just don't have time to cover all those different identity groups within the three-hour training," Murray said. "So we are kind of basic in that training to help the most people possible."

Murray also said that Safe Zone does not devote more time to the identities outside lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender because they far outnumber the LGBT portion of the groups outside the majority.

The acronym, "LGBTQQIAA2" stands for, "Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Questioning, Intersex, Asexual, Ally, and Two-spirit."

"It's pretty long, a lot of times people shorten it to just LGBTQ or LGBT, and a lot of times those other identities are forgotten about because they're not as prevalent," Murray said. "Because once you get into point zero percent and lower than that, you don't have as many people, so you don't often talk about those smaller populations."

Murray said that the goal of the presentation is just to make people more comfortable and familiar with the topic. She said conversations are less difficult with some "like terminology."

"As long as people are trying to be respectful, and they're trying to be nice and helpful, the terminology is not the sticking point," Murray said. "People can tell if it's just a terminology mistake versus being hateful, and really that's the biggest thing."

Murray and Wareing said that the use of these terms often depend on an individual's preference. Murray said that many of the terms are similar and easily confused.

"One of the big things that we like to talk about in Safe Zone is people will identify themselves how they best fit because I have talked to women who are technically lesbian, but they prefer to use the term 'gay,'" Murray said. "They don't call themselves 'lesbians.' They say that they're gay."

Both Murray and Waring said that the term "queer," although it may be used in a derogatory way, is an "umbrella term."

Murray said that the program will also discuss terms such as "pansexual" that other people want to include in this acronym.

"That's another one in there that should be in the long, long acronym: pansexual, polysexual, demisexual," Murray said. "All of those in there and a couple different identities that we're going to talk about as well kind of get pushed under the rug because you only think LGBT and the people in the acronym, and forget about the other identities because there are quite a few."