“Language is dynamic; it grows, changes and develops. This is particularly true with the language of diversity and the terms (labels) we use to identify ourselves. As respectful individuals in a civil society, we should strive to be sure that our language does not demean, exclude, or offend. We must allow others to self identify, for definitions of terms will vary for everyone. These definitions provide a starting point for discussion and understanding.”
Outfront Minnesota: www.outfront.org/library/definitions.html

Terms
Ally: A non-lesbian, gay man or bisexual whose attitudes and behaviour are anti-heterosexist in perspective and who works towards combating homophobia and heterosexism, both on a personal and institutional level.
Asexual: In usage, may refer to a person who is not sexually active, or not sexually attracted to other people.

Bias: Prejudice; an inclination or preference, especially one that interferes with impartial judgment.

Biphobia: Intolerance of people who are bisexual.

Bisexual: Bisexual men and women have sexual and romantic attractions to both men and women. Depending upon the person, his or her attraction may be stronger to women or to men, or they may be approximately equal. Bisexuals are also referred to as “bi”.

Butch/Femme: Adjectives used to describe one’s gender performance. A masculine person (of either gender) can be described as butch; a feminine person can be described as femme.

Closeted/In the Closet: Refers to individuals that are not out. This is done for many reasons; to keep family, friends, employment, housing, security. Often, LGBTTTIQ people are out in some aspects of their lives and closeted in others. The closet is meant to refer to the feeling of hiding, of being confined, of never fully being able to express yourself. Being in or out is contextually specific, not as hierarchical definition.

Come Out: Coming out is not a single event, but instead, a lifelong process. To declare to oneself and/or publicly affirm one’s sexual or gender identity, sometimes to one person in conversation, sometimes by an act that places one in the public eye. In each new situation, a LBGTTTIQ person must decide whether or not to come out.

CD: Short for Crossdresser, someone who dresses occasionally in the clothing of the “opposite” gender.

Discrimination: For the purpose here, the act of showing partiality or prejudice; a prejudicial act.

Dominant culture: The cultural values, beliefs, and practices that are assumed to be the most common and influential within a given society.

Drag Queen/King: The act of dressing in gendered clothing as part of a performance. Drag Queens perform in highly iconic feminine attire. Drag Kings perform in highly iconic masculine attire. Drag may be performed as a political comment on gender, as parody, or simply as entertainment. Drag performance does not indicate sexuality, gender identity, or sex identity. Often very glamorous or outrageous in appearance.

Dyke: The term was originally used in a negative context to stereotype and oppress lesbians as masculine women. The term has been reclaimed by many (but not all) lesbians as a positive label in describing self-confidence and independence in a woman. E.g.: Dykes on Bikes.

Fag/Faggot: The word faggot originally comes from Latin, meaning a bundle of sticks. Throughout history, when witches were burned this was done with faggots. During the inquisition, the term came to be applied to the bodies of GLBTTTIQ people that were used as kindling and burned along with witches. Overall, the term fag or faggots is used derogatorily as a slur against gay men, however, many men within the gay community have reclaimed the term as a word of pride and affection towards other gay men.

Family: Colloquial term used to identify other LGBTTTIQ community members. For example, an LGBTTTIQ person saying, “that person is family” often means that the person they are referring to is LGBTTTIQ as well.

Family of choice (chosen family): Persons or group of people an individual sees as significant in his or her life. It may include none, all, or some members of his or her family or origin. In addition, it may include individuals such as significant others, domestic partners, friends, and coworkers.

FTM or F2M: Female-to-Male, refers to someone born female who identifies as male.

Gay: A gay man is a man whose primary sexual and romantic attraction is to other men. “Gay” is also used as an inclusive term encompassing gay men, lesbians, and bisexual people. In the last 20 years, this has become less and less common and “gay” is usually used currently to refer only to gay men. The term is still often used in the broader sense in spoken shorthand, as in “The Gay Pride Parade is at the end of June”.

Gaydar: The ability of one homosexual person to distinguish other homosexuals or bisexuals from heterosexuals. A sixth sense or intuition that is based upon the observation of physical and personality traits to make an inference about another’s sexual preference. An intuitive sense that enables someone to identify whether another person is gay.

Gender: 1) A socially constructed system of classification that ascribes qualities of masculinity and femininity to people. Gender characteristics can change over time and are different between cultures. Words that refer to gender include: man, woman, transgender, masculine, feminine, and gender queer. 2) One’s sense of self as masculine or feminine regardless of external genitalia. Gender is often confused with sex. This is inaccurate because sex refers to bodies and gender refers to personality characteristics.

Gender Assignment: Takes place in Euro-American culture universally in infancy; all people are subject to gender assignment. For the intersexed such assignment is perceived to ground and necessitate genital surgery and other medical invasions in infancy. Surgical enforcement of gender assignment is highly controversial.

Gender Blenders, Gender Benders: Individuals who merge the characteristics of both sexes in ways subtle or shocking.
Gender Conformity: When your gender identity and sex “match” (i.e. fit social norms). For example, a male who is masculine and identifies as a man.

Gender Fuck: Is the deliberate flaunting of gender norms with a goal of shocking others.

Gender Identity: One’s initial and psychological sense of oneself as female, male, both or neither. At birth, we are assigned one of two genders, usually based on our visible genitals. For many people this gender assignment fits and feels comfortable. Others do not feel as comfortable in the assigned gender, either because they find the two-gender system too limiting or because they feel more identification with the gender opposite that to which they were assigned at birth. Gender identity does not cause sexual orientation. For example, a masculine woman is not necessarily a lesbian; a feminine man is not necessarily gay.

Gender-neutral: Non-discriminatory language to describe relationships – e.g. “spouse” and “partner” and gender-neutral alternatives to the gender-specific words “husband”, “wife”, “boyfriend”, and “girlfriend”.

Gender Queer (or Genderqueer): A person who redefines or plays with gender, or who refuses gender altogether. A chosen label for people who bend/break the rules of gender and blur the boundaries.

Gender Role: How “masculine” or “feminine” an individual acts. Societies commonly have norms regarding how males and females should behave, expecting people to have personality characteristics and/or act a certain way based on biological sex.

Gender-variant / Gender non-conforming: Displaying gender traits that are not normatively associated with biological sex. “Feminine” behaviour or appearance in a male is gender-variant as is “masculine” behaviour or appearance in a female. Gender-variant behaviour is culturally specific.

GRS: Gender Reassignment Surgery is a misnomer but is used to refer to the ‘sex-change’ operation, sometimes knows as SRS (Sexual Reassignment Surgery).

Getting Read: Having someone identify that an individual is transgendered. Getting read can be dangerous in some circumstances. Also known as getting ‘clocked’.

Hate Crime: Hate crime legislation often defines a hate crime as a crime motivated by the actual or perceived race, colour, religion, national origin, ethnicity, gender, disability, or sexual orientation of any person.

Heterosexual: A heterosexual man or woman’s primary sexual and romantic attraction is to people of the other sex. She or he may or may not have had sex with another person, but still realizes that his/her sexual attraction is mainly to people of the other sex. Some people who consider themselves heterosexual have or have had sexual contact with people of the same sex. Heterosexual people are also referred to as “straight”.

Heterosexism: Assuming every person to be heterosexual thereby marginalizing persons who do not identify as heterosexual. Heterosexist beliefs may include the assumption that everyone should be heterosexual; that everyone is heterosexual, unless known to be otherwise; and that non-heterosexuals are unnatural or abnormal. Heterosexism can be overt or covert; and intentional or unintentional. Heterosexism includes the belief that heterosexuality is superior to homosexuality and all other sexual orientations. Heterosexism includes the promotion by individuals and /or institutions or the superiority of heterosexuality over same-sex relationships. Like other forms of discrimination, it is often invisible to those who are not its targets. Examples of heterosexism include, are not limited to: name calling, derogatory remarks, exclusion, bias in employment or academic decisions, discrimination in the provision of goods and services, physical and sexual assaults.

Heterosexual Privilege: Benefits derived automatically by being (or being perceived as) heterosexual that are denied to LGBTTTIQ persons.
Homophobia: The irrational fear and intolerance of people who are homosexual or of homosexual feelings within one’s self. This assumes that heterosexuality is superior.

Homosexual: A homosexual man or woman’s primary sexual and romantic attraction is to people of the same sex. She or he may or may not have had sex with another person, but still realizes that his/her sexual attraction is mainly to people of the same sex. Some people who consider themselves homosexual have or have had sexual contact with people of the opposite sex.

The term “homosexual” was first coined in the 1800’s in Central Europe to differentiate those who participated in same-gender sexual activity from those who participated in opposite-gender sexual activity, and over the years has been associated with sin, deviance, criminal behaviour, uncleanliness, and mental illness – all of which serve to place lesbians and gay men in the subordinate role of being categorized as societally deviant individuals who are marginalized by mainstream society.

Although “homosexuality” was removed from the DSM in 1973 as a specific mental illness, it was not until 1987, with the publication of the DSM-III-R, that all references to lesbian/gay/bisexual (LGB) sexual orientation were removed.

Dean Pierce (2001) has suggested that using the term “homosexual” is one way that the majority group perpetuates their power by creating what he calls “the rule of symbolic opposites”. He suggests that the term “heterosexual” is used to describe the more powerful majority group and that the term “homosexual” is then the more negative hierarchical opposite, and is even seen by some as the “enemy” of “heterosexuality”.

Institutional Oppression (or Systemic Oppression): Arrangement of a society used to benefit one group at the expense of another through the use of language, media education, religion, economics, etc.

Internalized Oppression: The process by which an oppressed person comes to believe, accept, or live out the inaccurate stereotypes and misinformation about their group.

Intersexed: A medical diagnosis that describes a person who is born with physical and/or chromosomal features in which sex characteristics usually considered to belong to distinctly male or female bodies are combined in a single body. Intersexed persons are often subjected to surgical intervention at birth (with or without parental knowledge or consent). The term intersexed is often encompassed under ‘transgendered’. However, while there are some areas of overlap with intersexed and transgendered issues, there are also many areas of distinction.

Invisible Minority: A group whose minority status is not always immediately visible, such as some disabled people and LGBTTTIQ people. This lack of visibility may make organizing for rights difficult.
Lesbian: A lesbian is a woman whose primary sexual and romantic attractions are to other women. “Lesbian” is one of the oldest and most positive terms for gay women. Derived from the Greek Isle of Lesbos where the lesbian poet, Sappho, had a school in 400 B.C.

LGBTTTIQ: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transsexual, Transgender, Two-Spirited, Intersexed and Queer.

Marginalized: Excluded, ignored, or relegated to the outer edge of a group/society/community.

Men who have sex with men (MSM): Men who engage in same-sex behaviour but who may not necessarily self-identify as gay.

MTF or M2F: Male-to-Female, refers to someone born male who identifies as female.

Non-Op: Short for Non-Operative, refers to someone who for medical reasons or personal choice does not plan to undergo GRS.

Outing: The public exposure of someone’s sexuality without their knowledge or permission. May be accidental (unaware that person odes not wish their sexuality to be known), or intentional (a form of harassment).

Pansexual: A term of choice for people who do not self-identify as bisexual, finding themselves attracted to people across a spectrum of genders.

Passing: Being taken as ones preferred gander without question or incident by others.

Pre-Op: Short for Pre-Operative, refers to someone who has not yet had GRS, but who intends to undergo such surgery.

Post-Op: Short for Post-Operative, refers to someone who has undergone GRS.

Queer:

1. A political statement, as well as a sexual orientation, which advocates breaking binary thinking and seeing both sexual orientation and gender identity as potentially fluid. Many of those who use the term feel it is more inclusive, allowing for the diversity of race, class, ability and gender that is represented by the LGBTTIQ communities.
2. A simple label to explain a complex set of sexual behaviours and desires. For example, a person who is attracted to multiple genders may identify as queer.
3. Used by some to refer to themselves, the LGBTTTIQ community, a person who is LGBTTTIQ, or even someone who is supportive of the LGBTTTIQ communities.
4. Often viewed as a political statement as well as an identity or label.

Many older LGBTTTIQ people feel the word has been hatefully used against them for too long and are reluctant to embrace it. In addition, because it was used to demean LGFBTTTIQ people, those who do not identify as queer are urged to use the term with caution, or not at all.

RLT: Real Life Test. Most transgendered persons must live and work full time in their desired gender role for a period (typically one year) prior to being approved for GRS.

Sex: refers to a person based on their anatomy (external genitalia, chromosomes, and internal reproductive system). Sex terms are male, female, transsexual, and intersexed. Sex is biological, although social views and experiences of sex are cultural.

Sex identity: The sex that a person sees themselves as. This can include refusing to label oneself with a sex.

Sexual Identity and Gender Identity: are different issues. A gay man may or may not be masculine. Being a lesbian does not dictate a women’s femininity. Similarity, a transgendered person may be gay, straight or bisexual.

Sexual Minority: 1) Refers to members of sexual orientations/identities or who engage in sexual activities that are not part of the mainstream. 2) Refers to members of sex groups that do not fall into the majority categories of male or female, such as intersexuals and transsexuals.

Sexual Orientation: Sexual orientation refers to one’s sexual and romantic attraction. Sexual orientation is not necessarily the same as sexual behaviour.

Stealth: Refers to a transgendered person who has transitioned and is living in their preferred gender role with out other people knowing that they are transgendered.

Stereotype: An exaggerated oversimplified belief about an entire group of people without regard in individual differences.

Straight: Person who is attracted to the opposite sex and identifies as heterosexual.
Transgendered (TG), Trans, or trans-identified: A person who identifies with a gender identity other than the one that was ascribed to their biological sex at birth; or a person who views their gender as more fluid than the strictly male or female gender categories allows. Transgendered people may identify as heterosexual, homosexual, or bisexual.

Transgender: 1) Transgender (sometimes shortened to trans or TG) people are those whose psychological self (“gender identity”) differs from the social expectations for the physical sex they were born with. To understand this, one must understand the difference between biological sex, which is one’s body (genitals, chromosomes, etc.), and social gender, which refers to levels of masculinity and femininity. Often, society conflates sex and gender, viewing them as the same thing. But, gender and sex are not the same thing. Transgender people are those whose psychological self (“gender identity”) differs from the social expectations for the physical sex they were born with. For example, a female with a masculine gender identity or who identifies as a man. 2) An umbrella term for transsexuals, cross-dressers (transvestites), transgenderists, gender queers, and people who identify as neither female nor male and/or as neither a man or as a woman. Transgender is not a sexual orientation; transgender people may have any sexual orientation. It is important to acknowledge that while some people may fit under this definition of transgender, they may not identify as such.

Transition: The act of switching genders. In most cases, transition precedes SRS. Many TG people live part-time in their preferred gender role prior to transitioning to full time.

Transphobic: Fear or hatred or transgender people; transphobia is manifested in a number of ways, including violence, harassment and discrimination.
Transsexual: A person who identifies with and lives as a gender different (“opposite”) from the one typically assigned to their sex at birth. Transsexual persons usually undergo gender transition with or without surgical hormonal intervention. Also knows as male-to-female, MTF, female-to-male, FTM, transwomen, and transmen.

Transvestite/Cross Dresser: Individuals who regularly or occasionally wear the clothing socially assigned to a gender not their own, but are usually comfortable with their anatomy and do not wish to change it (i.e. they are not transsexuals). Cross-dresser is the preferred term for men who enjoy or prefer women’s clothing and social roles. Contrary to popular belief, the overwhelming majority of male cross-dressers identify as straight and often are married. Very few women call themselves cross-dressers.

Two-spirited: Two-spirited is a term adopted by some contemporary North American Aboriginal peoples to refer those who embody both the male and female spirit. The term is inclusive and can refer to both sexual orientation and/or gender identity or expression. Therefore, lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, and heterosexual trans-people may all refer to themselves as two-spirited. Terms such as “berdache” have a colonial origin; and “gay” and “lesbian” are, to many people, Eurocentric and culturally irrelevant to Aboriginal two-spirited people.

Zie: Gender neutral pronouns that can be used instead of he/she.

Zir: Gender neutral pronouns that can be used instead of his/her.