Agender: An umbrella term encompassing many different genders of people who commonly do not have a gender and/or have a gender that they describe as neutral. Many agender people are trans. As a new and quickly-evolving term, it is best you ask how someone defines agender for themselves.
Cis or Cisgender: Is a person who identifies with their → gender assigned on birth. A „cis man“ or „cis woman“ is a person who is not transgender. For example, a cis man is a man who sees himself as a man and who has also for his whole life been seen as a man by society.
Endo or endosex is the opposite of intersex. An endosex person is born with a body that does fits into the norms of a male/female body. The norms are that male bodies have a penis, no breasts, a prostate, XY chromosomes, etc. and female bodies have a vagina, breasts, a uterus, XX chromosomes, etc. But some people are born with a vagina and XY chromosomes, or with a penis and a uterus, or with a vagina and a penis.
Gender: An attribute that describes a person’s position on the → gender spectrum. Gender is multi-dimensional and includes:
- the → gender identity (how someone feels inside)
- performed gender (how someone presents themselves to the outside)
- perceived/assigned gender (how other people perceive that person)
- gender expectations (how people want you to behave based on your perceived gender)
- position of privilege (in a patriarchal society people who are perceived as male are overprivileged and people who are perceived as female are underprivileged)
- biological gender →sex
. One’s position on the gender spectrum may be different in each of these dimensions, and it may change over time.
Gender binary: The idea that there are two distinct genders (woman and man) and that every person is either one or the other. This idea misrepresents everyone whose gender identity or body lies somewhere else on the → gender spectrum.
Gender Identity: One’s internal sense of being male, female, neither of these, both, or other gender(s). Gender identity can change over time. For transgender people, their sex assigned at birth and their gender identity are not necessarily the same. Not to be confused with Sexual Orienation.
Gender socialization: People will treat you differently based on your perceived gender. Gender socialization refers to the behaviours, habits and opinions that have internalized over the course of your life based on how other people have treated you because of how they perceived your gender. Many people say that in a → gender-binary society, people are socialized either as male or as female because these are the only two categories that society knows. In reality, your → gender identity can have an impact on how you react to the gender expectations of others and what role models you choose, so gender socialization is also a spectrum.
Gender spectrum is a way of describing gender without conforming to the → gender binary. It denotes gender as a continuum that includes male and female, but without establishing them as absolutes or polar opposites. The view of gender as a spectrum allows for the inclusion of identities besides male and female– specifically, it allows for the inclusion of intersex people, nonbinary gender identities, and nonbinary gender expressions.
Heteronormativity: is the belief that people fall into distinct and complementary genders (male and female) with natural roles in life. It assumes that heterosexuality is the „normal“ sexual orientation and that sexual and marital relations are most (or only) fitting between people of opposite sex. In the biketour we would use it to refer as a close minded way to understand genders roles into a relationship.
Intersex: Describing a person with a less common combination of hormones, chromosomes, and anatomy that are used to assign sex at birth. Parents and medical professionals usually coercively assign intersex infants a sex and have, in the past, been medically permitted to perform surgical operations to conform the infant’s genitalia to that assignment. This practice has become increasingly controversial as intersex adults speak out against the practice. The term intersex is not interchangeable with or a synonym for → transgender (although some intersex people do identify as transgender).
Non-binary: Adjective for people who don’t identify with a gender or an other, they may not feel comfortable about being associated to a gender category (man, women…) even if they don’t use neutral pronouns.
QINTAW stands for Queer and Questioning, Intersex, Non-Binary, Trans, Agender and Women. We chose to use this acronym instead of the previous ones (FLINTA and LGBTQIA+) to make it less confusing, as it has sometimes been misunderstood during the tour, or shortened to FLINTA. We thought that creating a new Acronym would lift these confusion. This mixity excludes endo cis hetero men.
Queer: A term for people of marginalized gender identities and sexual orientations who are not cisgender and/or heterosexual.
Questioning one’s gender identity or sexual orientation. This term describes people who are in a process of change and/or are unsure about which „label“ to use
Sex: This term is usually used to describe a person’s biological gender, in order to distinguish it from their social gender (see → gender). A → gender binary society knows just two sexes – male and female – defined by a number of criteria such as genitals (vagina or penis), internal organs (prostate or uterus), chromosomes (XX or XY), hormone levels (testosteron and estrogen) and various other attributes, for example pitch of voice, body hair, muscle mass, etc. In reality, biological gender is also a spectrum, as there are people who have a mix of these criteria or are in-between or outside of this binary (for example having XXY/XXXY chromosomes or having a prostate and a uterus) (see → intersex). In addition, the → gender socialization also has an impact on how the body develops, which makes parts of the biological gender socially constructed.
Sex Assigned At Birth: The assignment and classification of people as male, female, intersex, or another sex assigned at birth often based on physical anatomy at birth and/or karyotyping(genetics). This assignment usually ends up in your birth certificate and other legal documents and often has and impact on what name is given to you, which ends up having a big impact on how you will be treated in society.
Sexual Orientation: A person’s physical, romantic, emotional, aesthetic, and/or other form of attraction to others. Anybody, independent from their gender identity can be straight/hetero (women attracted to men and the other way around), bisexual (somebody attracted to women and men), lesbian, gay, asexual (not sexually attracted to anyone), pansexual (attracted to all genders), queer, etc. For example, a trans woman who is exclusively attracted to other women would often identify as lesbian.
They: In english, the pronoun „they“ can be used as a neutral gender pronoun (opposed to „it“ which is rather used for objects). It makes sense to use „they“ when you don’t know about somebodies pronoun or when you don’t speak about a specific person.
ex : They are so fast
In spanish, neutral pronoun is „elle“, and you would put a „e“ at the end of the adjectives as neutral gender mark.
ex : elle es muy rapide
Pronouns of people can be different of what you think they are. That’s why, when you introduce yourself in a circle, you are invited to say which pronoun you want us to use for you. And it’s also good, when you don’t know someone, to ask their pronoun. It’s important to take care about respecting preferred pronoun of everybody and put attention on it.
——if you translate this, you can translate the example-phrase into your lanugage. if there is no equivalent for „they“ it is also good to mention that. and you can add other sexist aspects of your language that one can try to avoid.—–
Transgender or Trans: Is a person who doesn’t identify with their gender assigned on birth. They can be non binair or identify themselves with another gender. Transgender people can have been operated, having an hormone treatment, or nothing.
Some more specific dictionaries on queer vocabulary:
http://www.transstudent.org/definitions/ https://queerdictionary.blogspot.com