woman, and anything in between while still having a very strong and specific gendered feeling.
Appropriation: Borrowing or adopting something as one’s own when it did not originate from them or their culture. This type of use occurs without proper understanding, credit, and/or permission. (Example: white people wearing feathered headdresses as costumes during Halloween.)
Aro: An umbrella term for any identity on the aromantic spectrum. Also shorthand for “aromantic.”
Aromantic: An umbrella term, or stand-alone identifier, for someone who experiences little or no romantic attraction.
Asexual: An umbrella term, or stand-alone identifier, for someone who experiences little or no sexual attraction.
Autosexual/romantic: Being able to elicit a sexual/romantic attraction from yourself by yourself and/or not desiring to partake in sexual activity with others, but still enjoying being sexually intimate with yourself.
Bicurious: Someone curious about having sexual/romantic attractions and/or experiences with more than one gender.
Bigender: Someone who has/experiences two genders.
Binary: The rigid way society divides sex and gender into only two categories: 1) male/men and 2) female/women.
Bisexual/romantic: Being attracted to two or more genders.
CAFAB/CAMAB: These are acronyms for “coercively assigned female at birth” and “coercively assigned male at birth.”
Cisgender/Cis: A person whose gender identity is the same as their sex and/or gender assigned at birth.
Conflate: To confuse, blend, connect or combine two independent things/ideas.
Community: When this book uses the term “community” it refers to a collective group of LGBTQIA+ people and organizations, as well as their supporters, who are all united by common identities, cultures, and/or social goals.
Demigender: Someone who has/experiences a partial connection to one or more genders.
Demisexual/romantic: A person who only experiences attraction to people with whom they have formed a strong emotional bond.
DFAB/AFAB/FAAB: Acronyms for “designated female at birth,” “assigned female at birth,” and “female assigned at birth.”
Diamoric: In terms of personal identity, a non-binary person may identify as diamoric to emphasize their own non-binary identity and their attraction to/relationship(s) with other non-binary people. In terms of a relationship, a diamoric relationship or attraction is one that involves at least one non-binary person.
DMAB/AMAB/MAAB: Acronyms for “designated male at birth,” “assigned male at birth,” and “male assigned at birth.”
Enby: This is a slang term meaning “a non-binary person.”
Erasure: When an identity is given insufficient representation, made invisible, or its existence is invalidated.
Female to Female/FTF: Someone whose sex and/or gender was assigned male at birth and who rejects that their gender was ever male.
Fluid: Not fixed, able to change.
-flexible: Suffix indicating someone is predominantly attracted to one gender but allows for and acknowledge exceptions. (Example usages: heteroflexible, homoflexible, etc.)
-flux: In regards to orientation, “flux,” is a suffix that indicates that a person’s attractions fluctuate in amount or intensity. (Example usages: biflux, trifux, polyflux, etc.)
FTM: Acronym for “female to male.”
Gay: This label can refer specifically to men who are attracted to men; it can refer to people who are primary attracted to the same or similar gender as their own; or it can be an umbrella term for anyone who is not straight.
Gender: In the context of individual self, gender is the state of being a man, a woman, both, neither, somewhere in between, or something entirely different. In the context of society, gender is a system of classification rooted in social ideas about masculinity and femininity.
Gender confusion/Gender f*ck: A person who deliberately seeks to cause, or enjoys when they create, confusion in regards to their own gender.
Gender dysphoria: Distress or unhappiness experienced because one’s gender does not match their sex and/or gender assigned at birth.
Gender euphoria: Extreme happiness, or comfortability, experienced because a person’s gender is being affirmed.
Gender expression: The manifestation of one’s gender.
Gender identity: The identifier (or lack of identifier) someone uses to communicate how they understand their personal gender, navigate within or outside our societal gender systems, and/or desire to be perceived by others.
Gender indifferent: Being gender indifferent means being apathetic about one’s gender/gender expression.
Gender neutral: Having a gender that is neutral.
Gender nonconforming/Gender diverse/Gender variant/Gender-expansive: These are umbrella terms and descriptors which refer to people who identify and/or express themselves in ways that are different from society’s binary norms.
Gender roles: Societal roles, positions, behaviors, and/or responsibilities allowed or expected from men and women based on societal norms.
Genderfluid: Having a gender that changes.
Genderflux: Someone whose experience with gender changes (fluctuates) in intensity.
Genderqueer: Someone whose gender exists outside of or beyond society’s binary concept of gender.
Graysexual/romantic: People who experience very low amounts of attraction; people who experience attraction rarely or only under certain conditions; and/or people who are not sure whether they experience attraction.
Graygender: This identity involves having a weak sense of gender and/or being somewhat apathetic about one’s gender identity/expression.
Heterosexual/romantic a.k.a. Straight: Being attracted to the other binary gender.
Homosexual/romantic: A person who is attracted to the same or similar gender(s) as their own.
IAFAB/IAMAB a.k.a. FAFAB/FAMAB: Acronyms for “intersex assigned female/male at birth” and “forcibly assigned female/male at birth.”
ID: Shorthand for “identify.”
Intergender: A person who identifies between or as a mix of the binary genders.
Internalization: Conscious or unconscious learning/assimilation of behaviors/attitudes.
Intersectionality: The various ways a person or group’s combined social identities/roles (e.g. gender, race, socio-economic status, etc.) interact to shape their experience of the world.
Intersex: A sex category that includes people whose anatomy does not completely fit into either of society’s typical definitions of male
