LGBTQ Terms

A person who is not a member of a targeted social group who takes action or speaks up to challenge discrimination or prejudice against a targeted social group.

The physical characteristics typically used to assign a person’s gender at birth, such as chromosomes, hormones, internal and external genitalia and reproductive organs.

Describes a range of negative feelings toward bisexuality and bisexual people as a social group or as individuals. People of any sexual orientation can experience such feelings of aversion.

A sexual orientation toward women and men in which gender is not a determining factor in romantic or sexual feelings toward another person.

An adjective often used to refer to someone whose gender identity is the same as the gender assigned to them at birth.

An adjective describing sexual orientation toward others of the same sex. Often used particularly with men.

The complex relationship between physical traits and one’s internal sense of self as male, female, both or neither, as well as one’s outward presentations and behaviors related to that perception.

Refers to the ways in which people externally communicate their gender identity to others through behavior, clothing, haircut, voice and other forms of presentation.

Conveys a wider, more flexible range of gender expression, with interests and behaviors that may even change from day to day. Individuals do not feel confined by restrictive boy/girl boundaries.

One’s inner concept of self as male, female, both or neither.

Refer to individuals whose behaviors and/or interests fall outside what is considered typical for their assigned gender at birth.

This term represents a blurring of the lines around gender identity and sexual orientation. These individuals typically reject notions of static categories of gender and/or sexual orientation.

A cultural norm that assumes that heterosexuality is the only normal and acceptable sexual orientation.

A social system of individual beliefs and actions, institutional rules and laws and cultural norms that privileges heterosexual relations and people and disadvantages same-sex relationships.

Used as a noun or adjective to describe sexual orientation toward people of another sex, typically males toward females and vice versa.