Women (as well as non-binary and genderqueer people who feel a connection to womanhood) who are attracted to other women.
LGBTQIA+: Stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning, intersex, asexual/aromantic, and plus for other identities that are not straight and/or not cisgender.
Male to Male/MTM: Someone whose sex and/or gender was assigned female at birth and who rejects that their gender was ever female.
Man: Someone who identifies as a man.
Masexuality/romanticism a.k.a. Androsexuality/romanticism: Attraction to men and/or masculinity.
Maverique: Someone who has an autonomous gender which exists entirely independent of the binary genders man and woman.
Maxigender: Someone who experiences many, and sometimes, all available genders to them.
Monosexuality/romanticism: Attraction to a single gender.
MTF: Acronym for “male to female.”
Multigender/Polygender: Someone who has/experiences more than one gender.
Multisexuality/romanticism a.k.a. Non-monosexuality/romanticism: Attractions to more than one gender.
Neutrois: Someone whose gender is neutral or null.
Nomasexual/romantic: Someone who is attracted to anyone who isn’t a man.
Non-binary/nb: Existing or identifying outside the sex/gender binary, being neither a man nor woman, or being only partially or a combination of these things.
Normalize: to make something accepted as common or natural in society.
Norms: Behaviors society has deemed typical or standard and has come to expect.
Novosexual/romantic: A person whose attractions change based on the gender(s) they are experiencing.
Nowomasexual/romantic: Someone who is attracted to anyone who isn’t a woman.
Pan/Omnigender: People who experience many, and sometimes, all genders.
Pansexual/romantic a.k.a. Omnisexual/romantic: Capable of being attracted to any or all gender(s).
Policing: The imposition of norms, or personal beliefs, by way of telling others how they should, or should not, identify, behave, or express themselves. In this book, policing is used in the context of gender and sexuality. (Example: “You can’t do ballet, you’re a boy!” or “You can’t call yourself a lesbian until you’ve dated a girl.”)
Polyamory: The practice or desire of relationships involving more than two people. Like any relationship, these require communication, honesty, and consent in order to be successful.
Polysexual/romantic: Someone who experiences attraction to multiple, but not necessarily all, genders.
Privilege: Benefits and opportunities automatically afforded to majorities or non-oppressed groups of people, that are usually unnoticed or taken for granted and occur at the expense of oppressed groups of people.
Pronouns: In this book the types of pronouns explored are words used to refer to specific people when their proper names are not being used (e.g. he, she, they, ze, e, etc.). Our society has strong associations between certain pronouns and gender.
Queer: An umbrella term or identity taken on by some LGBTQIA+ people to describe a sexual and/or gender identity that falls outside societal norms. This term has a history of being used as a slur. Although it has been reclaimed by many LGBTQIA+ people, not everyone is comfortable using it.
Questioning: Being unsure of one’s sexual/romantic orientation or gender identity.
Quoisexual/romantic a.k.a. WTFromantic: A person who can’t tell the difference between attractions they experience, is unsure if they experience attraction, and/or doesn’t think romantic and/or sexual attractions are relevant to them.
Recipsexuality/romanticism: Experiencing attraction to someone only after knowing that they are attracted to you.
Same gender loving/SGL: This term refers to Black LGBTQIA+ people.
Self-Identification: The act of identifying a particular way, one that feels right or true for someone.
Sex: A socially constructed classification system based on a person’s biology. Society typically recognizes only two sex categories, male and female, each with specific biological requirements. The reality though, is that people’s biology is often more diverse than society’s categories and requirements. Intersex people are an example of this.
Sex/gender assignment: Society’s propensity to label an infant as male or female, man or woman, at birth, usually based on the appearance of their genitals.
Skoliosexual/romantic a.k.a. ceterosexual/romantic: People who are attracted to people of non-binary (nb) genders.
Society: The dominant community of people, laws, traditions, values, and culture in a particular area.
Spectrum: Concepts and models of identities that challenge mainstream beliefs about the rigidity of sexuality and gender. Spectrums illustrate that people can exist in the spaces between the more commonly established identities.
-spike: A suffix that indicates a person’s attractions fluctuate. Spike people often feel they experience no attraction, but then suddenly and intensely experience a spike in attraction(s). (Example usages: acespike, arospike.)
Stigma: Negative associations and/or expectations which are tied to specific groups/labels/identities that are usually based in misconception and/or stereotypes. (Example: Bisexuals are sometimes stigmatized as being greedy, promiscuous or confused.)
Trans man: Someone who was assigned female at birth and is a man.
Trans woman: Someone who was assigned male at birth and is a woman.
Transfeminine: A term used to describe someone who was assigned male at birth, and who has a predominantly feminine gender and/or expresses themselves in a way they describe as feminine.
Transgender/Trans: An umbrella term for anyone whose gender identity does not match their sex and/or gender assigned at birth.
Transition: The process of accepting oneself and/or pursuing changes in order to affirm one’s gender and/or alleviate dysphoria.
Transmasculine: A term used to describe someone who was assigned female at birth, and who has a predominantly masculine gender and/or expresses themselves in a way they describe as masculine.
Transsexual: A person whose gender is different from their sex/gender assigned at birth. Sometimes this identity is associated with having undergone and/or wanting to undergo some kind of medical transition. This is an older term that has fallen out of popular usage in favor of the word “transgender.”
Trigender: Someone who has/experiences three genders.
Trisexual/romantic: Someone who experiences attractions to three genders.
Trysexual/romatic: Someone who is sexually and/or romantically open to experimenting.
Umbrella
