LGBTQ+ Terms

AFAB

Any acronym meaning “assigned female at birth,”

ALLY

Describes a person who sup­ports, both pub­licly and pri­vate­ly, the LGBTQ com­mu­ni­ty and equal­i­ty in its many forms. Het­ero­sex­u­al and cis­gen­der peo­ple can be allies, as well as indi­vid­u­als from within the LGBTQ community.

AMAB

Any acronym meaning "assigned male at birth"

ASEX­U­AL

Describes a per­son who is not sex­u­al­ly attract­ed to oth­ers and has no desire to engage in sex­u­al behav­ior. Asex­u­al­i­ty dif­fers from celiba­cy in that a per­son who is celi­bate is sex­u­al­ly attract­ed to oth­ers but choos­es to abstain from sex. Some­times, asex­u­al is abbre­vi­at­ed as ​“ace.”

BIGEN­DER

Describes a per­son who has two gen­ders. Peo­ple who are bigen­der may expe­ri­ence two gen­der iden­ti­ties at the same time or at dif­fer­ent times. These gen­der iden­ti­ties can be bina­ry — male and female — or include non­bi­na­ry identities.

BISEX­U­AL

Describes a person who is attracted to both men and women. A person does not need to have had spe­cif­ic sex­u­al expe­ri­ences — or any sex­u­al expe­ri­ence — to iden­ti­fy as bisexual.

CIS­GEN­DER

Describes a per­son whose gen­der iden­ti­ty match­es the sex — male or female — orig­i­nal­ly iden­ti­fied on their birth cer­tifi­cate (i.e., peo­ple who are not trans­gen­der). Cis­gen­der, which is pro­nounced sis-gen­der, describes only a person’s gen­der iden­ti­ty — not their sex­u­al or roman­tic attrac­tions. Sometimes, cis­gen­der is abbre­vi­at­ed as ​“cis” in casu­al conversation.

COM­ING OUT

Describes the process of a person first com­ing to under­stand their own sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion, then reveal­ing it to oth­ers. How­ev­er, it is not nec­es­sary to have sex­u­al expe­ri­ences or to even tell oth­ers in order to come out. One may be out to just one’s self. Com­ing out is often cor­re­lat­ed with rates of youth home­less­ness.

ENBY

Describes a person who does not iden­ti­fy as exclu­sive­ly male or exclu­sive­ly female and usu­al­ly prefers​“they” as a pro­noun. Enby is the pho­net­ic pro­nun­ci­a­tion of​“NB,” which stands for non­bi­na­ry. Not all non­bi­na­ry indi­vid­u­als pre­fer or use this term.

FTM

An acronym used typically to describe trans men, meaning Female To Male

GAY

Describes a person who is attract­ed, emo­tion­al­ly and/​or phys­i­cal­ly, to some­one of the same gen­der. The term can be used by men, women, or indi­vid­u­als who iden­ti­fy as non­bi­na­ry. 

GEN­DER

A social con­struct used to clas­si­fy a person as a man, woman, or some oth­er iden­ti­ty. Fun­da­men­tal­ly dif­fer­ent from sex assigned at birth, gen­der is often close­ly relat­ed to the role that a person plays or is expect­ed to play in society.

GEN­DER AFFIRM­ING SURGERY

A sur­gi­cal pro­ce­dure that enables an individual’s body to be more con­gru­ent with their gen­der iden­ti­ty. Also referred to as sex reas­sign­ment surgery or gen­der con­firm­ing surgery.

GEN­DER DYSPHORIA

Describes the extreme dis­com­fort that a person feels because their assigned sex at birth does not match their gen­der iden­ti­ty. This sense of unease or dis­sat­is­fac­tion can cause depres­sion and anx­i­ety and neg­a­tive­ly impact an individual’s daily life.

GEN­DER EXPRESSION

How indi­vid­u­als com­mu­ni­cate their gen­der to oth­ers through their cloth­ing, speech, man­ner­isms and oth­er fac­tors. Gen­der expression is not the same thing as gen­der iden­ti­ty. A person can express one gen­der yet iden­ti­fy with another.

GEN­DER FLUID

Describes a person whose gen­der expression or gen­der iden­ti­ty — or both — changes over time. Not every­one whose gen­der iden­ti­ty or expres­sion changes iden­ti­fies as gen­der fluid.

GEN­DER IDENTITY

A person’s inter­nal iden­ti­fi­ca­tion as male, female, some­thing in between or some­thing oth­er than the two con­ven­tion­al gen­der options. A person’s gen­der iden­ti­ty is not vis­i­ble to oth­ers and can match or dif­fer from their assigned sex at birth.

GEN­DER NEUTRAL

Describes not iden­ti­fy­ing as being of a par­tic­u­lar gen­der. It can apply to sev­er­al dif­fer­ent aspects of life. Peo­ple who iden­ti­fy as gen­der neu­tral typ­i­cal­ly don’t sub­scribe to gen­der stereo­types and may use the pro­nouns ​“they/​them/​their” as well as others.

GEN­DER NONCONFORMING

Describes a person who does not adhere to the tra­di­tion­al expec­ta­tions — in terms of their appearance or behav­ior — of their assigned gen­der. Some of these indi­vid­u­als iden­ti­fy as trans­gen­der but oth­ers, for exam­ple, mas­cu­line les­bians, do not.

HET­ERO­SEX­U­AL

Describes a person who is attract­ed — phys­i­cal­ly and emo­tion­al­ly — to indi­vid­u­als of the oppo­site sex. Oth­er­wise known as a straight person.

HOMO­SEX­U­AL

Describes a person who is attract­ed — phys­i­cal­ly and emo­tion­al­ly — to people of the same sex. This term is out­dat­ed and dis­fa­vored in the LGBTQ com­mu­ni­ty, as it was com­mon­ly used to ostra­cize others.

INTER­SEX

Describes a person born with sex char­ac­ter­is­tics that are not typ­i­cal for male or female bod­ies. Sex char­ac­ter­is­tics are phys­i­cal fea­tures relat­ing to sex — includ­ing chro­mo­somes, gen­i­tals, hor­mones and oth­er repro­duc­tive anato­my — as well as sec­ondary fea­tures that emerge from puber­ty. Inter­sex is an umbrel­la term, and inter­sex char­ac­ter­is­tics and traits are not always appar­ent or iden­ti­fied at birth. The ​“I” in the longer version of LGBTQ (LGBTQIA+) stands for intersex.

LES­BIAN

Describes a woman who is attract­ed, emo­tion­al­ly and/​or phys­i­cal­ly, to oth­er women. A woman does not need a spe­cif­ic sex­u­al expe­ri­ence — or any sex­u­al expe­ri­ence — to iden­ti­fy as a lesbian.

LGBTQ

An acronym used to describe les­bian, gay, bisex­u­al, trans­gen­der, queer or ques­tion­ing per­sons or the com­mu­ni­ty. Avoid using the term​“gay com­mu­ni­ty,” as it does not accu­rate­ly account for the community’s diversity.

MTF

An acronym used typically to describe trans women, meaning Male To Female

NON­BI­NA­RY

Describes a per­son whose gen­der iden­ti­ty falls out­side of the two-gen­der con­struct (male or female). For exam­ple, non­bi­na­ry can describe an indi­vid­ual whose gen­der changes over time, who does not iden­ti­fy as male or female or who asso­ciates with ele­ments of both gen­ders. Some indi­vid­u­als who iden­ti­fy as non­bi­na­ry pre­fer the term enby.

PAN­SEX­U­AL

Describes a person who is attract­ed to — or has the potential to be attract­ed to — peo­ple of any gen­der or gen­der iden­ti­ty. This attrac­tion can be emo­tion­al or physical.

QUEER

An adjec­tive used by some peo­ple, par­tic­u­lar­ly younger peo­ple, whose sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion is not exclu­sive­ly het­ero­sex­u­al. Queer was once used as a pejo­ra­tive term and has been reclaimed by some — but not all — members of the LGBTQ community.

QUES­TION­ING

Describes a per­son who is still dis­cov­er­ing and explor­ing their sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion, gen­der iden­ti­ty, gen­der expres­sion or some com­bi­na­tion there­of. Using this term enables an indi­vid­ual to iden­ti­fy as part of the LGBTQ com­mu­ni­ty while avoid­ing oth­er labels and rec­og­niz­ing that their process of self-iden­ti­­fi­­ca­­tion is still underway.

SEX

The clas­si­fi­ca­tion of a person as male or female. At birth, babies are assigned a sex that typ­i­cal­ly cor­re­sponds with their exter­nal anato­my. Yet an individual’s sex is influ­enced by a larg­er com­bi­na­tion of fac­tors, includ­ing their chro­mo­somes, genes, hor­mones, repro­duc­tive organs, and sec­ondary sex characteristics.

SEX­U­AL ORIENTATION

An endur­ing emo­tion­al and/​or phys­i­cal attrac­tion (or non-attrac­­tion) to oth­er peo­ple. Sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion is flu­id and encom­pass­es a vari­ety of labels, includ­ing gay, les­bian, het­ero­sex­u­al, bisex­u­al, pan­sex­u­al and asexual.

SOGIE

An acronym for sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion, gen­der iden­ti­ty and gen­der expres­sion. Every per­son has a sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion, gen­der iden­ti­ty and gen­der expression.

STRAIGHT

Describes a man who is attracted to women or a woman who is attracted to men. Can be used as a syn­onym for heterosexual.

TRANS­GEN­DER

Describes a person whose gen­der iden­ti­ty and/​or gen­der expression do not match their assigned sex at birth. Trans­gen­der peo­ple may be straight, les­bian, gay, bisex­u­al or queer.

TRANS­GEN­DER (OR TRANS) MAN 

Describes a person who was assigned a female sex at birth but identifies as male. This per­son may or may not active­ly iden­ti­fy as trans.

TRANS­GEN­DER (OR TRANS) WOMAN

Describes a per­son who was assigned a male sex at birth but iden­ti­fies as female. This per­son may or may not active­ly iden­ti­fy as trans.

TRAN­SI­TION

A com­plex process by which trans­gen­der peo­ple align their anato­my (med­ical tran­si­tion) and gen­der expres­sion (social tran­si­tion) with their gen­der iden­ti­ty. Tran­si­tion­ing is a mul­ti­­ple-step process that occurs over a long peri­od of time. It can include such steps as using a dif­fer­ent name, using new pro­nouns, dress­ing dif­fer­ent­ly, updat­ing legal doc­u­ments, hor­mone ther­a­py and surgery. The exact steps involved in a person’s tran­si­tion varies.

TWO SPIR­IT

Describes a per­son who iden­ti­fies as hav­ing both a mas­cu­line and a fem­i­nine spir­it. It is used by some Native Amer­i­can and Alas­ka Native peo­ple to describe their sex­u­al, gen­der and/​or spir­i­tu­al iden­ti­ty. It may encom­pass same-sex attrac­tion and also include rela­tion­ships that could be con­sid­ered poly.