CHM Research Guides

Disclaimer: The following includes just some identity terminology. Every individual person will have their own identity terminology that they use. It is important to use the terminology that the individual identifies with to avoid causing harm.

Identity Term

Definitions

Sex

A combination of bodily characteristics including chromosomes, hormones, internal and external reproductive organs, and secondary sex characteristics. As a result, there are many more sexes than just male and female, just like there are many more genders than just male and female, as well.

Gender

Often expressed in terms of masculinity and femininity, gender is largely culturally determined and is assumed from the sex assigned at birth.

Sexual Orientation

The desire one has for emotional, romantic, and/or sexual relationships with others based on their gender expression, gender identity, and/or sex.

Homosexual

A medical term used to describe someone who has a romantic and/or sexual orientation towards someone of the same gender. The term ‘gay’ is now more generally used.

Heterosexual, straight

An adjective used to describe people whose enduring physical, romantic, and/ or emotional attraction is to people of the opposite sex.

Gender Expression

The external manifestations of gender, expressed through such things as names, pronouns, clothing, haircuts, behavior, voice, body characteristics, and more.

Gender Identity

One’s internal, deeply held sense of gender. Some people identify completely with the gender they were assigned at birth (usually male or female), while others may identify with only a part of that gender, or not at all. Some people identify with another gender entirely. Unlike gender expression, gender identity is not visible to others.

Cisgender

A person whose gender identity matches the gender they were assigned at birth.

Non-binary and/or Genderqueer

Terms used by some people who experience their gender identity and/or gender expression as falling outside the categories of man and woman. They may define their gender as falling somewhere in between man and woman, or they may define it as wholly different from these terms.

Lesbian

A woman who is attracted to other women.

Gay

Someone who is attracted to those of their same gender. This is often used as an umbrella term, but is used more specifically to describe men who are attracted to men.

Bisexual

Someone who is attracted to those of their same gender as well as to those of a different gender (for example, a woman who is attracted to both women and men). Some people use the word bisexual as an umbrella term to describe individuals that are attracted to more than one gender. In this way, the term is closely related to pansexual, or omnisexual, meaning someone who is attracted to people of any gender identity.

Transgender, Trans

Someone whose gender identity differs from the one that was assigned to them at birth. Many transgender people identify as either male or female, while others may see transgender as an umbrella term and identify as gender nonconforming or queer. How transgender people choose to express their gender is individualistic, as is their transition.

Transsexual

Someone who has undergone, or wishes to undergo, gender affirmation surgery. This is an older term that originated in the medical and psychological communities. Many transgender people do not identify as transsexual, although the term is preferred by some.

Queer

In a very basic sense, anyone who is not heterosexual and/or cisgender. In the past, queer was a negative or pejorative term for people who are gay, and thus it is sometimes disliked. But the term is increasingly being used to describe all identities and politics that go against normative beliefs. As such, the term is valued by many LGBTQ+ people for its defiance and by others who find it to be an appropriate term to describe their more fluid identities. It should be noted that not all LGBTQIA+ folks identify with the adjective "queer" and one should use caution when using it as an umbrella term.

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. Those variations are also sometimes referred to as Differences of Sex Development (DSD.) Avoid the outdated and derogatory term "hermaphrodite." While some people can have an intersex condition and also identify as transgender, the two are separate and should not be conflated.

Asexual, Ace

Someone who experiences little or no sexual attraction, or who experiences attraction but doesn’t feel the need to act out that attraction sexually. Many people who are asexual still identify with a specific sexual orientation.

Butch

Someone whose gender expression is masculine. Butch is sometimes used as a derogatory term for lesbians, but it can also be claimed as an affirmative identity label. In many communities of color in the United States, words like “stud” and “aggressive” are commonly used instead.

Dyke

Originally a derogatory slur to describe masculine women, this term was re-appropriated by working-class women (though not exclusively) to describe their sexual orientation toward other women; it is distinct from the word lesbian in that it connotes a defiance and resistance to middle-class norms of respectability. The term is still used to degrade women.

Faggot

Formerly and sometimes still considered a derogatory word to describe queer men. Some men have reclaimed the word, but it should never be used to describe someone unless you know they’ve taken it back for themself.

Drag

The act of performing a gender or presenting as a different gender, usually for the purpose of entertainment (i.e. drag kings and queens). Many people who do drag may not wish to present as a different gender all of the time.

Cross-dresser

Someone who wears clothes associated with a different gender. This activity is a form of gender expression, and is not always done for entertainment purposes. Many crossdressers may not wish to present as a different gender all of the time. (NOTE: Avoid using the term “transvestite.”).