Welcoming and affirming those that determine as LGBTQIA+ in Christian communities contain recognizing all sexes, genders, and sexual orientations pretty much as good and sacred reflections of the divine. One factor that may go a good distance towards placing this theological conviction into follow is knowing the phrases that queer folks use to explain their identities.
Methods of pondering and speaking about intercourse, gender, and sexuality have advanced and are persevering with to evolve. New phrases and labels are rising to call folks’s experiences. Some definitions have shifted, broadened, narrowed, or multiplied. The rising abundance of significant phrases allows extra folks to explain themselves and really feel much less invisible. On the similar time, changing into acquainted and conversant with the big selection of phrases for LGBTQIA+ identities is usually a difficult and complicated course of on this quickly evolving context.
This text goals to offer a quick information for navigating frequent key phrases and concepts for LGBTQIA+ identities and experiences. It’s meant as an introductory glossary fairly than a definitive lexicon or encyclopedia; if you wish to dive deeper into any of those phrases, we suggest exploring extra sources, together with these supplied beneath. It’s not at all consultant of how all LGBTQIA+ folks assume and discuss these phrases. It is usually designed to be up to date, corrected, and improved as wanted.
Issues to Bear in Thoughts
This information will not be exhaustive
Individuals could use phrases, labels, or definitions to explain their experiences that aren’t listed right here.
These phrases can imply various things to totally different folks
Individuals who determine with these phrases could outline and perceive them in differing methods, and what the time period means to every individual will fluctuate from individual to individual.
Individuals’s relationships to those phrases can change
Individuals could change the phrases or labels they use as they develop in self-understanding and as language and meanings change. Typically social and cultural norms can hinder an individual’s discernment about their gender id or sexual orientation, they usually could notice {that a} totally different time period than one that they had beforehand used higher displays their expertise.
These phrases level to non-public, and typically intimate, human experiences
Intercourse, gender, and sexuality will be extremely private and delicate issues for folks. Thus these phrases and labels should be handled with sensitivity and care.
1. Intercourse Identification Phrases
Intercourse within the context of human identities typically factors to characterizations of human our bodies based mostly on reproductive physique elements. Intercourse is commonly introduced as two prospects: male and feminine. Nonetheless, intercourse is extra numerous than this both/or signifies.
intersex
Intersex is a time period that encompasses intercourse identities that the binary of male/feminine doesn’t adequately replicate. As InterACT’s article “What Is Intersex?” signifies, individuals who determine as intersex can have a variety of variations in intercourse traits via “genitalia, hormones, inside anatomy, or chromosomes” (Jan. 26, 2021). For extra data on intersex identities, take a look at InterACT’s “Intersex Variations Glossary.” [1]
2. Gender Identification Phrases
Gender typically factors to how human beings expertise themselves. Gender will not be so simple as checking “girl” or “man” packing containers based mostly on reproductive physique elements. As Gender Spectrum’s “Dimensions of Gender” useful resource says, “an individual’s gender is the complicated interrelationship between three dimensions: physique, id, and social gender.” In different phrases, as this text explains at larger size, an individual’s relationship with their very own physique and its sexual improvement, their sense of who they’re and the way they assume and really feel about themselves, and their negotiation of the socially constructed concepts and norms for gender roles and conduct of their context all play a component in shaping their gender.
Listed here are some frequent phrases used to explain explicit gender identities:
cisgender, cis
Cisgender, or cis for brief, refers to gender identities that correlate with the intercourse assigned at delivery. [2]
- Cisgender women or ladies are people who find themselves assigned the intercourse feminine at delivery and determine as women or ladies
- Cisgender boys or males are people who find themselves assigned male at delivery and determine as boys or males
transgender, trans
Transgender, or trans for brief, is often used to seek advice from gender identities that don’t correlate with the intercourse assigned at delivery. [3]
- Transgender usually refers to people who find themselves assigned male at delivery and determine as women or ladies (transgender women or ladies) in addition to people who find themselves assigned feminine at delivery and determine as boys or males (transgender boys or males)
- This time period may overlap with nonbinary as an umbrella time period for a big selection of gender identities past cisgender identities, relying on context and the way an individual chooses to determine themselves
nonbinary
Nonbinary is often used to seek advice from gender identities that the gender binary of woman/boy or girl/man doesn’t adequately replicate. This contains individuals who expertise their gender as fluctuating, as being each woman/girl and boy/man, as being neither woman/girl nor boy/man, as having no gender, and extra. [4]
agender
Agender refers to individuals who perceive themselves to don’t have any gender. Their expertise could contain not figuring out with both woman/girl or boy/man or a impartial gender that’s neither woman/girl or boy/man. Agender is commonly included among the many numerous methods of figuring out as nonbinary. [5]
bigender
Bigender refers to individuals who have two or extra genders. It’s usually included among the many numerous methods of figuring out as nonbinary. Individuals who determine as bigender could expertise two or extra genders concurrently or over time. [6]
genderfluid
Genderfluid refers to individuals who expertise their gender as fluctuating and altering over time. It’s usually included among the many numerous methods of figuring out as nonbinary. [7]
genderqueer
Genderqueer is often used to seek advice from individuals who determine past or between the gender binary of woman/girl and boy/man. It may possibly seek advice from folks whose gender expertise doesn’t utterly align with woman/girl or boy/man and as a substitute includes features of every. It may possibly additionally seek advice from individuals who expertise a impartial gender or gender that’s utterly totally different than both woman/girl or boy/man. It might even be used interchangeably with nonbinary to embody numerous gender experiences that don’t replicate the gender binary. [8]
Two-Spirit
Two-Spirit is a time period developed by Elder Myra Laramee, as Isabella Thurston explains in “The History of Two-Spirit Folks,” and used amongst Indigenous peoples to seek advice from members of their communities whose genders embody each woman/girl and boy/man identities. It factors to identities which have distinctive cultural significance for sure Indigenous communities and is a time period that belongs to those communities. [9]
3. Sexual Orientation Phrases
Sexual orientation, or sexuality, typically factors to if and the way human beings expertise attraction to different folks. Attraction will be bodily, sexual, or romantic in addition to any mixture of those, and it may be tied to or unrelated to gender. Moreover, attraction to a selected gender (or to no explicit gender) doesn’t imply attraction to everybody who identifies with that gender.
An individual’s sexual orientation is part of their id. It isn’t the identical as sexual or romantic exercise, and it doesn’t rely on being romantically or sexually concerned with one other individual. It is usually not similar to or decided by gender; in different phrases, you may’t know an individual’s sexual orientation just by figuring out their gender id.
Some frequent phrases used to explain explicit sexual orientations are:
asexual, ace
Asexual, or ace for brief, refers to individuals who expertise no sexual attraction to different folks or for whom sexual attraction or curiosity is low or impartial. It might embody individuals who expertise no, low, or impartial romantic attraction as nicely. Cisgender, transgender, and nonbinary folks can determine as asexual. It is usually used as an umbrella time period to embody a spectrum of experiences. Some asexual folks additionally determine with sexual orientations like homosexual, lesbian, heterosexual, and bisexual, and asexual folks may additionally use frequent phrases for kinds of romantic attraction to determine their experiences, like aromantic, biromantic, heteroromantic, homoromantic, or panromantic. [10]
aromantic, aro
Aromantic, or aro for brief, refers to individuals who expertise no romantic attraction to different folks or for whom romantic attraction or curiosity is low or impartial. Cisgender, transgender, and nonbinary folks can determine as aromantic. Like asexual, it encompasses a variety of experiences. [11]
demisexual
Demisexual refers to individuals who don’t expertise sexual attraction to different folks till they develop an emotional reference to them. Cisgender, transgender, and nonbinary folks can determine as demisexual. It’s an id usually included inside the asexual spectrum. Demisexual folks may determine as homosexual, lesbian, heterosexual, bisexual, omnisexual, pansexual, and extra. [12]
graysexual, gray-asexual, gray-a, grey ace, grey
Graysexual, additionally known as gray-asexual in addition to gray-a or grey ace for brief, refers to individuals who expertise low or impartial sexual attraction or curiosity. It’s an id usually included inside the asexual spectrum. The extent or diploma of sexual attraction or curiosity can fluctuate amongst graysexual folks. Cisgender, transgender, and nonbinary folks can determine as graysexual, and graysexual folks may determine with different sexual orientations, together with homosexual, lesbian, heterosexual, bisexual, omnisexual, pansexual, and extra. [13]
homosexual
Homosexual refers to individuals who determine as males who’re interested in males (or boys who’re interested in boys). It tends to imply attraction solely to males (or boys). Each cisgender and transgender folks can determine as homosexual, and a few nonbinary people who find themselves interested in males additionally determine as homosexual. “Homosexual” can be regularly used as an umbrella time period to embody all who determine as homosexual and lesbian and much more broadly as a time period for all LGBTQIA+ folks. As a result of the time period has layers of that means that time to particular identities inside the LGBTQIA+ group, nonetheless, not all members of the LGBTQIA+ group use this time period to explain themselves. [14]
lesbian
Lesbian refers to individuals who determine as ladies who’re interested in ladies (or women who’re attracted to ladies). It tends to imply attraction solely to ladies (or women). Each cisgender and transgender folks can determine as lesbian, and a few nonbinary people who find themselves interested in ladies additionally determine as lesbian. [15]
heterosexual, straight
Heterosexual or straight typically refers to individuals who determine as ladies who’re interested in males (or women who’re interested in boys) in addition to to individuals who determine as males who’re interested in ladies (or boys who’re attracted to ladies). It tends to imply attraction that’s completely ladies to males and males to ladies (or women to boys and boys to ladies). Each cisgender and transgender folks can determine as straight. [16]
bisexual, bi, bi+
Bisexual, or bi for brief, refers to people who find themselves interested in a couple of gender. Cisgender, transgender, and nonbinary folks can determine as bisexual. Though the prefix “bi” means two, individuals who determine as bisexual could also be interested in greater than two genders. They might even have a stronger attraction to folks of 1 gender greater than one other, and attraction to numerous genders can fluctuate. “Bi+” is commonly used to embody all individuals who expertise attraction to a couple of gender, together with bisexual, omnisexual, and pansexual identities. [17]
omnisexual
Omnisexual refers to people who find themselves interested in folks of all genders. Cisgender, transgender, and nonbinary folks can determine as omnisexual. The time period usually signifies that gender performs a task of their expertise of attraction, in distinction to pansexuality (see beneath). Like bisexual folks, those that determine as omnisexual could have a stronger attraction to folks of explicit genders greater than others, and attraction to numerous genders can fluctuate. [18]
pansexual, pan
Pansexual, or pan for brief, usually refers to people who find themselves interested in folks of any gender. Cisgender, transgender, and nonbinary folks can determine as pansexual. For some, this time period additionally signifies that gender doesn’t play a task of their attraction to different folks. Moreover, some who determine as pansexual additionally use the time period “bisexual” to explain themselves. [19]
queer
Queer is a time period that was used traditionally as an insult for LGBTQIA+ folks however has been reclaimed by many members of the LGBTQIA+ group and given constructive, affirming that means. It’s generally used as an umbrella time period for all who determine as LGBTQIA+. As a reclaimed time period, it may also be used to problem gender- and sexuality-based oppression. Due to the time period’s historical past, nonetheless, not all members of the LGBTQIA+ group determine with it. [20]
questioning
Questioning refers to people who find themselves nonetheless discerning their gender or sexual orientation. Some people who find themselves grappling with their gender or sexuality could select to explain themselves as questioning, and a few could not. [21]
A Phrase about “Gay”
“Gay” is a time period that has come to be considered “offensive” in some contexts, to cite the “PFLAG National Glossary” and We Are Family‘s “LGBTQI+ Glossary of Terms.” GLAAD lists the phrase in its “phrases to keep away from” and gives this clarification:
“Due to the medical historical past of the phrase ‘gay,’ it’s aggressively utilized by anti-LGBTQ activists to recommend that folks interested in the identical intercourse are someway diseased or psychologically/emotionally disordered—notions discredited by the American Psychological Affiliation and the American Psychiatric Affiliation within the Seventies” (see “Glossary of Terms: LGBTQ“).
Extra Assets
Notes and References
1. See “What Is Intersex?,” InterACT: Advocates for Intersex Youth (Jan. 26, 2021).
2. See “The Language of Gender,” Gender Spectrum.
3. See “The Language of Gender.”
4. See “Glossary of Terms,” Human Rights Campaign; “Understanding Nonbinary People: How to Be Respectful and Supportive,” Advocates for Trans Equality.
5. See “What’s it like to not have a gender?” in “The GENDER Book.”
6. See “What Is Bigender Identity?” by Leah Campano, “Seventeen” journal (Could 17, 2022).
7. See “The Language of Gender.”
8. See “The Language of Gender“; “Glossary of Terms,” Human Rights Campaign.
9. See “The History of Two-Spirit Folks” by Isabella Thurston, The Indigenous Foundation.
10. See “About Asexuality,” The Asexual Visibility & Education Network.
11. See “Romantic Orientations,” The Asexual Visibility & Training Community.
12. See “General FAQ: Definitions,” The Asexual Visibility & Training Community; “Am I Demisexual?” by Alison Caporimo and Leah Campano, “Seventeen” journal (Sept. 30, 2022).
13. See “The Gray Area,” The Asexual Visibility & Training Community.
14. See “List of LGBTQ+ Terms,” Stonewall.
15. See “List of LGBTQ+ Terms,” Stonewall.
16. See “List of LGBTQ+ Terms,” Stonewall.
17. See “What Is Bisexuality?,” Bisexual Resource Center.
18. See Lindsay Curtis, “Omnisexual: Meaning, Attractions, Relationships, and Health,” Verywell Health (Feb. 13, 2025).
19. See Sue Cardenas-Soto, “Pansexuality: What It Is, What It Isn’t,” The Trevor Project (Could 23, 2023); “What Is Bisexuality?,” Bisexual Useful resource Heart.
20. See “What Does the Term ‘Queer’ Mean? Why Are Younger Generations Reclaiming the Word Queer?,” The LGBTQ Community Center of the Desert (Dec. 12, 2022).
21. See “About the Q” and “PFLAG National Glossary,” PFLAG.
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