It is October, and aside from non-stop marathons of Hocus Pocus and early fears of the upcoming election results, it is LGBT History Month. Earlier in the week, I sat down to write a basic “Things and Terms to Know” about the LGBT community in honor of the month. It was going to be a brief overview of lingo that is preferable and better to use than other outdated phrases.

It was 1,390 words. And I hadn’t finished yet.

But I gained three helpful insights from that:

The first is that I was able to use this to brainstorm and split up different sections to write more articles about LGBT things to know.

The second is that I have a basic starting point for an article.

The third is that I realized that the LGBT community is incredibly large and immersive. As a result, it can be intimidating. It can be a daunting task to define terms to people who might not know them. Imagine what it’s like for someone new to the community, or someone on the outside who wants to know how to help but doesn’t even know what is seen as “acceptable” for them to say.

I want to stress to everyone reading this that it is okay to ask questions. Asking questions is how we get answers. It’s how we learn. It’s how we destroy ignorance, and it’s taking willful ignorance and chasing it away.

Of course, people are not obligated to answer your questions. Don’t impose yourself onto other people. Just because someone is LGBT does not mean you should expect them to be constantly able to answer any and all questions; they are not your real-life Google. Just be polite, in both your question and the way you are asking.

It’s also important to know that you don’t need to get definitions, answers and explanations for the questions you have directly from people. You can use different LGBT websites; googling things is also always an okay option. These websites and search browsers exist to answer people’s questions and to learn more. Just because it’s LGBT doesn’t mean it’s not like learning about other topics.

That’s not to say I’m not planning on compiling an “LGBT 101” series. Over the summer I had tried to do something similarly, and ended up stopping, getting too frustrated with how much information had to be in one article in order to answer all of the questions people would have. There are so many terms and definitions and almost every identity requires rethinking the way we view ourselves and the people around us. Some of the information brought up in the articles might even be shocking to hear about.

That’s why I also want to stress that people have an open mind with reading these articles. If you are curious or want more information, aside from the sources I will be referencing and citing in the articles, you can Google search for more information.