Gender

Definitions

• Ally: A term used to describe someone who is actively supportive of LGBTQ+ people. It encompasses straight and cisgender allies, as well as those within the LGBTQ+ community who support each other (e.g., a lesbian who is an ally to the bisexual community).
• Agender: Someone who identifies as without gender. This experience is similar to and overlaps with that of being gender-neutral.
• Asexual: Often called “ace” for short, asexual refers to a complete or partial lack of sexual attraction or lack of interest in sexual activity with others. Asexuality exists on a spectrum, and asexual people may experience no, little, or conditional sexual attraction.
• Assigned Sex Assigned at Birth: The sex (male, female, or intersex) that a doctor or midwife uses to describe a child at birth based on their external anatomy:
• Assigned female at birth (AFAB): a person who was assigned a female sex – referred to as FtM (female to male) in older nomenclature.
• Assigned male at birth (AMAB): a person who was assigned a male sex – also referred to as MtF (male to female) in older nomenclature.
• Bisexual: A person emotionally, romantically, or sexually attracted to more than one sex, gender, or gender identity though not necessarily simultaneously, in the same way or to the same degree. Sometimes used interchangeably with pansexual.
• Cisgender: A term used to describe a person whose gender identity aligns with those typically associated with the sex assigned to them at birth.
• Coming Out: The process in which a person first acknowledges, accepts, and appreciates their sexual orientation or gender identity and begins to share that with others.
• Cross-dressing: Wearing clothing and adopting gender role presentation that is more typical of the other sex. This should not be confused with tranvestism.
• Drag Queen/King: A theatrical performance of one or multiple genders.
• Gay: A person who is emotionally, romantically, or sexually attracted to members of the same gender. Men, women, and non-binary people may use this term to describe themselves.
• Gender Binary: A system in which gender is constructed into two strict categories of male or female. Gender identity is expected to align with the sex assigned at birth and gender expressions and roles fit traditional expectations.
• Gender Dysphoria: Clinically significant distress caused when a person’s assigned birth gender is different from the one with which they identify. Older nomenclature for this was gender identity disorder.
• Gender-expansive: A person with a wider, more flexible range of gender identity and/or expression than typically associated with the binary gender system. Often used as an umbrella term when referring to young people still exploring the possibilities of their gender expression and/or gender identity.
• Gender Expression: External appearance of one’s gender identity, usually expressed through behavior, clothing, haircut and/or voice, and which may or may not conform to socially defined behaviors and characteristics typically associated with being masculine or feminine.
• Gender-fluid: A person who does not identify with a single fixed gender; of or relating to a person having or expressing a fluid or unfixed gender identity.
• Gender Identity: One’s innermost concept of self as male, female, a blend of both or neither – how individuals perceive themselves and what they call themselves. One’s gender identity can be the same or different from their sex assigned at birth.
• Gender Incongruence: The mismatch between one’s experienced/expressed gender and their gender assigned at birth.
• Gender Queer: Genderqueer people typically reject notions of static categories of gender and embrace a fluidity of gender identity and often, though not always, sexual orientation. People who identify as “genderqueer” may see themselves as being both male and female, neither male nor female or as falling completely outside these categories.
• Gender Confirmation/Affirming Surgery: A surgery to make one’s external appearance more in line with one’s internal gender identity. Older nomenclature “sex reassignment surgery” or “sex change” are no longer used.
• Homophobia: The fear and hatred of or discomfort with people who are attracted to members of the same sex.
• Intersex: Intersex people are born with a variety of differences in their sex traits and reproductive anatomy. There is a wide variety of difference among intersex variations, including differences in genitalia, chromosomes, gonads, internal sex organs, hormone production, hormone response, and/or secondary sex traits.
• Lesbian: A woman who is emotionally, romantically, or sexually attracted to other women. Women and non-binary people may use this term to describe themselves.
• Legal Sex: The gender marker that is documented on a person’s government-issued documents. This does not always match the lived experience or identity of the individual.
• LGBTQ+: Acronym for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer with a “+” sign to recognize the limitless sexual orientations and gender identities used by members of the community.
• Non-binary: An adjective describing a person who does not identify exclusively as a man or a woman. Non-binary people may identify as being both a man and a woman, somewhere in between, or as falling completely outside these categories. While many also identify as transgender, not all non-binary people do. Non-binary can also be used as an umbrella term encompassing identities such as agender, bigender, genderqueer or gender-fluid.
• Outing: Exposing someone’s lesbian, gay, bisexual transgender, or gender non-binary identity to others without their permission. Outing someone can have serious repercussions on employment, economic stability, personal safety or religious or family situations.
• Pansexual: Describes someone who has the potential for emotional, romantic, or sexual attraction to people of any gender though not necessarily simultaneously, in the same way or to the same degree. Sometimes used interchangeably with bisexual.
• Preferred Pronoun: Pronoun a person used in their day-to-day life, which others should respect and use when talking to or about the person (he/him, she/her, they/them, ze/zir).
• Queer: Term often used to express a spectrum of identities and orientations that are counter to the mainstream. Queer is often used as a catch-all to include many people, including those who do not identify as exclusively straight and/or who have non-binary or gender-expansive identities. Previously used as a slur, the term has been reclaimed by many parts of the LGBTQ+ movement.
• Questioning: A term used to describe people who are in the process of exploring their sexual orientation or gender identity.
• Same-gender Loving: A term some prefer to use instead of lesbian, gay, or bisexual to express attraction to and love of people of the same gender.
• Sexual Orientation: An inherent or immutable enduring emotional, romantic, or sexual attraction to other people. Note: an individual’s sexual orientation is independent of their gender identity.
• Transgender: An umbrella term for people whose gender identity and/or expression is different from cultural expectations based on the sex they were assigned at birth. Being transgender does not imply any specific sexual orientation. Therefore, transgender people may identify as straight, gay, lesbian, bisexual, etc.
• Transgender Man (transman/transmasculine person): Person with a gender identity on the masculine spectrum who was assigned a female sex at birth (see assigned sex at birth)
• Transgender Woman (transwoman/transfeminine person): Person with a gender identity on the feminine spectrum who was assigned a male sex at birth (see assigned sex at birth).
• Transitioning: A series of processes that some transgender people may undergo in order to live more fully as their true gender. This typically includes social transition, such as changing name and pronouns, medical transition, which may include hormone therapy or surgeries, and legal transition, which may include changing legal name and sex on government identity documents. TGD people may choose to undergo some, all, or none of these processes.
• Transvestism: Involves recurrent intense sexual arousal from cross-dressing. This a paraphilic disorder that should not be confused or associated with TGD identities (DSM V).