Quiz

Glossary

  • Asexual

    A person who does not experience sexual attraction. Someone can also be aromantic, meaning they do not experience romantic attraction.

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  • Assigned Sex

    Assigned sex is a label that you’re given at birth based on medical factors, including your hormones, chromosomes, and genitals. Most people are assigned male or female, and this is what’s put on their birth certificates.

    Shorthand such as AFAB (assigned female at birth) and AMAB (assigned male at birth) are frequently used.

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  • Cisgender

    Someone whose gender is on the same side as their birth-assigned sex, in contrast to which a transgender person's gender is on the other side (trans-) of their sex assigned at birth.

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  • Cishet

    Refers to someone who is both cisgender and heterosexual — someone who identifies as their birth sex and are attracted to the opposite sex.

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  • Gender Binary

    References the idea that there are only two genders. Binary means “having two parts” (i.e. male and female).

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  • Gender Expression

    External manifestations of gender, expressed through a person's name, pronouns, clothing, haircut, behavior, voice, and/or body characteristics.

    Typically, transgender people seek to align their gender expression with their gender identity, rather than the sex they were assigned at birth.

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  • Gender Identity

    A person's internal, deeply held sense of their gender. For transgender people, their own internal gender identity does not match the sex they were assigned at birth.

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  • Gender Non-conforming

    A term used to describe some people whose gender expression is different from conventional expectations of masculinity and femininity.

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  • Genderqueer

    A “queer” gender may fall outside of, fall in between, or fluctuate among the binary gender categories of man and woman. People who are genderqueer often experience their gender as fluid, meaning it can shift and change at any given time.

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  • Intersex

    An umbrella term describing people born with reproductive or sexual anatomy and/or a chromosome pattern that can't be classified as typically male or female.

    While some people can have an intersex condition and also identify as transgender, the two are separate and should not be conflated.

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  • Non-binary

    The term "non-binary" can mean different things to different people. At its core, it’s used to describe someone whose gender identity isn’t exclusively male or female.

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  • Pansexual

    The prefix “pan-” means “all.” Similarly, pansexuality means that you’re attracted to people of all genders.

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  • Queer

    An adjective used by some people, particularly younger people, whose sexual orientation is not exclusively heterosexual (e.g. queer person, queer woman). Typically, for those who identify as queer, the terms lesbian, gay, and bisexual are perceived to be too limiting and/or fraught with cultural connotations they feel don't apply to them.

    Once considered a pejorative term, queer has been reclaimed by some LGBT people to describe themselves.

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  • Sex

    The classification of a person as male or female. At birth, infants are assigned a sex, usually based on the appearance of their external anatomy. (This is what is written on the birth certificate.) A person's sex, however, is actually a combination of bodily characteristics including: chromosomes, hormones, internal and external reproductive organs, and secondary sex characteristics.

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  • Sexual Orientation

    Describes a person's enduring physical, romantic, and/or emotional attraction to another person. Gender identity and sexual orientation are not the same.

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  • Transgender

    An umbrella term for people whose gender identity and/or gender expression differs from what is typically associated with the sex they were assigned at birth.

    A transgender identity is not dependent upon physical appearance or medical procedures.

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  • Transition

    Transition can include some or all of the following personal, medical, and legal steps: telling one's family and friends; using a different name and new pronouns; dressing differently; changing one's name and/or sex on legal documents; hormone therapy; and possibly (though not always) one or more types of surgery.

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