Gender and Sexuality Flashcards
Agender/ Gender Neutral
A person who doesn’t identify with any gender
It is best to ask people who identify as agender which pronouns they prefer.
Androgyne
A gender identity in which a person feels their gender is between ‘male’ and ‘female’ and feels both masculine and feminine simultaneously.
Androphilic
An attraction to males or masculinity (andro)
An alternative term used in place of homosexual or heterosexual so as to avoid gendering the person while expressing their attraction to a particular gender.
It’s a polite, nonspecific way to ask what a certain person is attracted to. An androphilic man is homosexual, while an androphilic woman is heterosexual.
Gynephilic
An attraction to females or femininity (gyne).
Alternative terms used in place of homosexual or heterosexual so as to avoid gendering the person while expressing their attraction to a particular gender.
If a man is gynephilic, he is heterosexual. If a woman is gynephilic, she is homosexual.
Biological/anatomical sex/ sex assigned at birth
The physical structure of one’s reproductive organs that is used to assign sex at birth. Biological sex is determined by chromosomes (XX for females; XY for males); hormones (estrogen/progesterone for females, testosterone for males); and internal and external genitalia (vulva, clitoris, vagina for assigned females, penis and testicles for assigned males).
Given the potential variation in all of these, biological sex must be seen as a spectrum or range of possibilities rather than a binary set of two options.
Androgynous
A person that has both masculine and feminine qualities.
Asexual
An adjective used to describe people who do not experience sexual attraction
Bicurious
A curiosity toward experiencing attraction to people of the same gender/sex.
Bigender
Identifying with two genders (or sometimes identifying with either man or woman, as well as a third, different gender).
Binding/Binder
The (sometimes daily) process of wearing a binder, an undergarment used to alter or reduce the appearance of one’s breasts.
Biphobia/Biphobic
A range of negative attitudes (e.g., fear, anger, intolerance, invisibility, resentment, erasure, or discomfort) that one may have or express toward bisexual individuals. Biphobia can come from and be seen within the LGBTQ community as well as straight society.
Bisexual
A person who experiences attraction to some people of their gender and another gender.
Cisgender/ cis
A gender description for when someone’s sex assigned at birth and gender identity correspond in the expected way (e.g., someone who was assigned male at birth, and identifies as a man). A simple way to think about it is if a person is not transgender, they are cisgender.
Cisnormativity
The assumption, in individuals and in institutions, that everyone is cisgender, and that cisgender identities are superior to trans* identities and people. Leads to invisibility of non-cisgender identities.
Cross-dresser
Someone who wears clothes of another gender/sex.
