It may be used to refer to anyone who is non-heterosexual or non-cisgender, instead of exclusively to people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender. The initialism LGBT is intended to emphasize a diversity of sexuality and gender identity-based cultures. The term is used also in some other countries, particularly those which languages use the initialism, such as Argentina, France, and Turkey.
The initialism has become mainstream as a self-designation it has been adopted by the majority of sexuality and gender identity-based community centers and media in the United States, as well as some other English-speaking countries. Activists believed that the term gay community did not accurately represent all those to whom it referred. In use since the 1990s, the term is an adaptation of the initialism LGB, which was used to replace the term gay in reference to the LGBT community beginning in the mid-to-late 1980s. LGBT, or GLBT, is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender.
