Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Terms and Definitions

as compiled by Kris Wells

Bisexual: A person who is attracted physically and emotionally to both males and females.

Coming Out: The process of acknowledging one’s sexual orientation or gender identity and integrating that awareness into one’s personal and social life. Coming out often involves an act of disclosure based on safety and trust. The coming out process is unique for each individual and is a lifelong process. This coming out experience is directly related to a larger coming to terms process that involves both the individual who discloses a non-heterosexual or gender variant identity and the recipient of that disclosure. Coming out for trans-identified individuals can often be a more complex process, which involves the intersection of sexuality, gender identity, and gender expression.

Cross-dresser (CD): A person who enjoys or receives erotic benefit from dressing in clothes appropriate to the opposite gender. Cross-dressers normally have no intention of attempting to “pass” as the opposite gender. The majority of cross-dressers are heterosexual men.

Drag Queen/Drag King: A person who for performance or theatrical reasons may dress as the opposite gender. Drag Queens/Kings may be gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans-identified, or straight.

Gay: A person who is physically and emotionally attracted to someone of the same sex. The word gay can refer to both males and females, but is commonly used to identify males only.

Gender Identity: A person’s internal sense or feeling of being male or female, which may or may not be the same as one’s biological sex. Gender expression relates to how a person outwardly presents his or her sense of gender to the larger society. Gender identity and gender expression are often closely linked with the term transgender or trans-identified.

Gender Queer: A person who identifies as neither man or woman nor masculine or feminine.

Heterosexual: A person who is sexually and emotionally attracted to someone of the opposite sex. Also commonly referred to as straight.

Homophobia: Fear and/or hatred of homosexuality in others, often exhibited by prejudice, discrimination, intimidation, or acts of violence.

Intersexual: A person born with ambiguous sex characteristics that do not seem to conform to cultural or societal expectations of a distinctly male or female gender. For example, some intersexed individuals are born with the reproductive organs of both males and females or ambiguous genitalia. Research indicates that intersexuality is thought to occur in every 1 to 2000 births. In some cases a person is not found to have intersex anatomy until he or she reaches puberty. Some intersexuals will undergo hormonal or surgical treatment to bring their bodies in congruence with their gender and others will leave their gender undefined.

LGBTQ: A commonly used acronym for the constellation of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans-identified, transsexual, two-spirited, and queer identities. Sexual minority is a synonymous term.

Lesbian: A female who is attracted physically and emotionally to other females.

Queer: Historically, a negative term for homosexuality. More recently, the LGBTQ community has reclaimed the word and uses it as a positive way to refer to itself.

Sexual Orientation: An enduring emotional, romantic, or sexual attraction that a person feels towards men, women, or both. Importantly, sexual orientation is not always synonymous with sexual activity.

Trans-Identified/Transgender: A person whose gender identity, outward appearance, expression and/or anatomy does not fit into conventional expectations of male or female. These individuals often report experiencing a profound personal disconnection between their biological sex and gender identity. Many transgender/trans-identified persons will not have or not wish to under go sex reassignment surgery. Slang definitions can include “Trans”, “TG”, “T”, or “Gender Queer”. Gender identity disorder is the clinical term for transgenderism. The terms transgender and trans-identified are often used as umbrella categories for a wide range of non-conforming gender identities and behaviours.

Transition: The process of changing ones gender role. Also, defined as the period in which this change occurs. For example, a person may transition from male to female through the use of hormones and/or sex-reassignment surgery. This surgery may involve corrective surgery, top surgery (double radical mastectomy) and bottom surgery (hysterectomy and reconstructive surgery). Individuals who are transitioning under medical supervision are required to live “full-time” in their adopted gender role as part of their prescribed treatment. This treatment includes using public facilities, bathrooms, and services of their felt gender. The ability to “pass” (to be considered by others to be a member of their gender) at work, in public, and at home is often considered to be a pre-requisite for sex reassignment surgery (SRS). This ability to pass is commonly referred to as the “Real-Life Test”. Correspondingly, transitioning often includes changing one’s style of dress, name, and pronoun usage to represent an individual’s new gender identity. Transitioning at this stage may or may not include medical intervention such as the use of hormone therapy, counseling, and/or surgery. Many transitioning individuals are at extreme risk of violence and discrimination as they begin the transitioning process.

Transphobia: The irrational fear of people whose actual or perceived gender identity/expression departs from stereotypical gender roles and expectations.

Transvestite: An older term used to identify a person who dresses in the clothing of the opposite sex (sometimes as a fetish for sexual gratification). Cross-dressers and transvestites are similar categories. Also, commonly referred to as “TV”.

Transsexual: A person who experiences intense personal and emotional discomfort with their assigned birth gender. Some transsexuals may undergo treatments (i.e. sex reassignment surgery and/or hormone therapy) to physically alter their body and gender expression to correspond with what they feel their true gender is. This term is most commonly used to refer to a person who is transitioning from one gender to another. For example, M2F represents a person born biologically male who is transitioning to female. F2M represents a person born biologically female who is transitioning to male. Transsexuals may be gay, lesbian, bisexual, or straight. Importantly, a person’s gender identity can be different than a person’s sexual orientation. Slang terms may include “TS”, “TransWoman”, “TransMan”, “NewWoman”, “NewMan”, “SheMale”, or “HeShe”.

Two-spirited: Some Aboriginal people identify themselves as two-spirited rather than as bisexual, gay, lesbian or transgender. Historically, in many Aboriginal cultures, two-spirited persons were respected leaders and medicine people. Before colonization, two-spirited persons were often accorded special status based upon their unique abilities to understand both male and female perspectives.