There is a certain taboo around the word LGBTQIA+ . Even today, many people, both inside and outside the community, seem to prefer that it remain somewhere in the background, covered by a cloak of silence. People may acknowledge that it exists, but they do not necessarily want to discuss what it means, where these differences come from, or why society responds to them in the way it does. There are many ways to approach the subject. This is only one of them. The first thing that becomes apparent when looking beyond the label is that the people within the LGBTQIA+ community are not fundamentally different from anyone else. They have insecurities, confidence, affection, ambitions, fears, humour and contradictions. Yet there can also be a peculiar self-consciousness in people who have spent a significant part of their lives knowing that some aspect of them does not fit comfortably into what society considers ordinary. That observation raises a more fundamental question: what exactly i...