Gender Definitions (Definitions from Wikipedia.org)
Butch and Femme
Butch and femme are LGBT terms describing, respectively, masculine and feminine traits, behaviors, styles, expressions, self-perception and so on. They are often used in the lesbian, bisexual and gay subcultures.[1]A similar term, en femme, is also frequently used in the cross dressing community. Butch and femme can sometimes be used to categorize identities of gay or lesbian individuals in terms that are recognized as analogous to (though not derivative from) heterosexual gender roles, with butch representing the traditionally masculine counterpart (the male role in heterosexual couples) and femme the traditionally feminine role (the female role in heterosexual couples). While some gay or lesbian couples may comprise a butch-identified individual and a femme-identified individual, not all gays or lesbians identify as "butch" or "femme." Lesbian relationships do not require these two identities to comprise them, and many lesbian individuals and couples cannot be described accurately in these terms.
Dyke
Dyke is slang noun meaning lesbian; it also is a slang adjective describing things associated with lesbianism. It originated as aderogatory label for a masculine woman, and this usage still exists. However, some persons attempt to use it in a manner that they see as positive, or as a neutral synonym for lesbian.[1] To some extent, the word has been reappropriated.
Faux Queen
A faux queen or bio queen is a female performance artist who adopts the style typical of male drag queens. A faux queen may be jocularly described as "a drag queen trapped in a woman's body",[1]though few are female to male transsexuals. Other descriptions include "biologically-challenged" drag queen, "female female impersonator",[2] or "female impersonator impersonator"[3] Like traditional drag queens and drag kings, faux queens play with traditional gender roles and gender norms to educate and entertain.
Kathoey
Kathoey or katoey (Thai: กะเทย; RTGS: Kathoei;[kàtʰɤːj]) is a Thai and Khmer term that refers to a transgender person or an effeminate gay male in Thailand. While a significant number of Thais perceive kathoeys as belonging to a third gender, including many kathoeys themselves, others see them as either a kind of man or a kind of woman.[1] Related phrases include sao (or phuying) praphet song (Thai:สาวประเภทสอง,"a second kind of woman"), or phet thi sam (Thai: เพศที่สาม, "third gender"). The word kathoey is thought to be of Khmerorigin.[2] It is most often rendered as ladyboy in English conversation with Thais and this latter expression has become popular across South East Asia.
Lesbian
Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females.[1] The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of femalehomosexuality, or as an adjective, to describe characteristics of an object or activity related to female same-sex desire
Lipstick Lesbian
The expression is slang, used in the United States of America to describe lesbian and bisexual women who exhibit extremely feminine gender attributes, such as wearing make-up (thus, lipstick), wearing dresses or skirts and having other characteristics associated with feminine women.
Soft Butch
A soft butch, or stem (stud-fem), is a woman who exhibits some stereotypical butch and lesbian traits without fitting the masculine stereotype associated with butch lesbians. These traits may or may not include short hair, clothing that was designed for men, and masculine mannerisms and behaviors. Soft butches generally appear androgynous, rather than adhering to strictly feminine or masculine norms and gender identities. In the spectrum of gender expression among lesbians, a soft butch lies closer to a butch lesbian than to a lipstick lesbian.
This type of behaviour is also considered socially acceptable of alternate gender roles within the lesbian community. Whereas it is sometimes considered a betrayal of the lesbian community to be "too feminine" or "too masculine" (a stone butch), the soft butch is an acceptable in-between state that generally receives greater acceptance.
Stone Butch
A stone butch is a butch woman or trans man who is superlatively masculine in character and dress, who tops his/her partners sexually (and sometimes emotionally), and who is averse to sexual contact with their genitalia. Some stone butches do not self-identify as lesbian, and/or do not identify with the lesbian community. A trans man with such traits may or may not self-identify as a stone butch. Sometimes, a stone butch may have as a partner a stone femme, who is a femme who bottoms sexually or who wishes not to touch the genitals of his/her stone butch partner. Butches are very diverse in emotion and sexual expression.
Stone Femme
Stone femme is a lesbian identity whose name was patterned after the more widely-known term stone butch.[1]Identification with the term is not necessarily dependent upon the stone femme's physical appearance or gender expression, or upon the identity of the stone femme's partner.
Transwoman
A trans woman (sometimes trans-woman or transwoman) is a transgender person with a female gender identity. The label of transgender woman is not interchangeable with that of transsexual woman, although the two are often combined or mistaken for the same thing. A transsexual woman is someone who was assigned male at birth but whose gender identity is that of a woman; transsexual women may undergo physical changes to align their body with their gender identity (known as transition). Transgender is an umbrella term that includes different types of gender variant people (including transsexual people) so transgender women could, for example, refer to either a woman who was assigned male at birth, identifies as a woman, but does not wish to undergo physical changes, or a transsexual woman.
Transman
A trans man (also trans-man or transman) is a female-to-male(FTM) transgender or transsexual person. A trans man was assigned female at birth, but identifies as male. The label of transgender male is not interchangeable with that of transsexual male although the two are often combined or mistaken for the same thing. The difference is that while transgender males identify with the male gender identity, transsexual males may intend to undergo physical changes to align their body with their gender identity. A transgender male is someone whose gender identity is male, but who does not necessarily change himself physically
Bear
"Bear" is an LGBT slang term for men that are commonly, but not always, overweight and often having hairy bodies and facial hair. Some are also muscular and some project an image of rugged masculinity in their grooming and appearance. It is a subculture in the gay andbisexual male communities and to an emerging subset of LGBT communities with events, codes, and a culture-specific identity.
Metrosexual
Metrosexual is a neologism, derived from metropolitan and heterosexual, coined in 1994 describing a man (especially one living in an urban, post-industrial, capitalist culture) who is especially meticulous about his grooming and appearance, typically spending a significant amount of time and money on shopping as part of this.[1] The term originated as play on the term homosexual in order to contrast heterosexuals who adopt fashions and lifestyles stereotypically associated with homosexuals.
Muxe
In Zapotec cultures of Oaxaca (southern Mexico), a muxe (also spelled "muxhe") [muxeʔ] is a physically male individual who dresses and behaves in ways otherwise associated with the female gender; they may be seen as a third gender.[1] Some marry women and have children while others choose men as sexual or romantic partners.[2]
Transvesti
In cultures of South America, a travesti is a person who was assigned male at birth who has a feminine gender identity and is primarilysexually attracted to non-feminine men ("androphilia"). In South America the distinction between gender identity and sexual orientation is rarely made. Travestis of Latin America have been described as a third gender, but not all see themselves this way.
Androgyne
Androgyny is a term derived from the Greek words ανήρ, stem ανδρ- (anér, andr-, meaning man) and γυνή (gyné, meaning woman), referring to the combination of masculine and feminine characteristics. This may be as in fashion, sexual identity, or sexual lifestyle, or it may refer to biologically inter-sexed physicality, especially with regards to plant and human sexuality.
Asexual
Asexuality (sometimes referred to as nonsexuality),[1][2][3] in its broadest sense, is the lack of sexual attraction to others[4][5][6] or the lack of interest in sex.[6][7] It may also be considered a lack of asexual orientation.
Bigender
Bigender, bi-gender or bi+gender describes a tendency to move between feminine and masculine gender-typed behavior depending on context. Some bigendered individuals express a distinctly "en femme" persona and a distinctly "en homme" persona, feminine and masculine respectively; others have shades of grey between the two. It is recognized by the American Psychological Association (APA) as a subset of the transgender group.
Fa'afafine
Fa'afafine may be viewed as a third gender specific to Samoan culture. Fa'afafine are the gender liminal, or third-gendered people of Samoa. A recognized and integral part of traditional Samoan culture, fa'afafine, born biologically male, embody both male and female gender traits. Their gendered behavior typically ranges from extravagantly feminine to mundanely masculine.
Gay
Gay is a word (a noun or an adjective) that primarily refers to a homosexual person (noun) or the trait of being homosexual (adjective).
Genderqueer
Genderqueer (GQ; alternatively non-binary) is a catch-all term for gender identities other than man and woman, thus outside of the gender binary and normativity.[1] People who identify as genderqueer may think of themselves as one or more of the following:
§ both man and woman (bigender, pangender);
§ neither man nor woman (genderless, agender);
§ moving between genders (genderfluid);[2]
§ third gender or other-gendered; includes those who do not place a name to their gender;[3]
§ having an overlap of, or blurred lines between, gender identity and sexual and romantic orientation.[4][5]
Hijra
In the culture of South Asia, hijras (Hindi: हिजड़ा, Urdu:ہِجڑا, Bengali: হিজড়া, Kannada: ಹಿಜಡಾ, Telugu: హిజ్ర) orchhakka in Kannada, khusra in Punjabi and kojja in Telugu are physiological males who have feminine gender identity, women's clothing and other feminine gender roles. Hijras have a long recorded history in the Indian subcontinent, from antiquity, as suggested by the Kama Sutra period onwards. This history features a number of well-known roles within subcontinental cultures, part gender-liminal, part spiritual and part survival.
Homosexual
Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As an orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectionate, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same sex; "it also refers to an individual's sense of personal and social identity based on those attractions, behaviors expressing them, and membership in a community of others who share them."[1][2]
Mukhannathun
Mukhannathun (Arabic مخنثون "effeminate ones", "men who resemble women", singular mukhannath) is classical Arabic for people who would now be called transgender women, perhaps poorly distinguished from eunuchs. Various "mukhannathun" appear in several hadith.[1][2] In one hadith the prophet Muhammad banishes a mukhannath to a region near Medina, but prohibits people from killing them.[1] They could be said to be Muslim transwomen accepted as they are "within the boundaries of Medina and Mecca".
Queer
Queer is an umbrella term for sexual and gender minorities [1] that are notheterosexual, heteronormative, or gender-binary. In the context of Western identity politics the term also acts as a label setting queer-identifying people apart from discourse, ideologies, and lifestyles that typifymainstream LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transsexual) communities as being oppressive or assimilationist. This term is controversial because it was reappropriated only two decades ago from its use as an anti-gay epithet. Furthermore, some LGBT people disapprove of using queer as a catch-all because they consider it offensive, derisive or self-deprecating given its continuous use as a form ofhate speech. Other LGBT people may avoid queer because they associate it with political radicalism, or simply because they perceive it as the faddish slang of a "younger generation."
Transgender
Transgender ( /trænzˈdʒɛndər/) is a general term applied to a variety of individuals, behaviors, and groups involving tendencies to vary from culturally conventional gender roles.
Transgender is the state of one's gender identity (self-identification as woman, man, neither or both) not matching one's assigned sex (identification by others as male, female or intersex based on physical/genetic sex).[1] Transgender does not imply any specific form of sexual orientation; transgender people may identify as heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, pansexual, polysexual, or asexual; some may consider conventional sexual orientation labels inadequate or inapplicable to them. The precise definition for transgender remains in flux, but includes:
§ "Of, relating to, or designating a person whose identity does not conform unambiguously to conventional notions of male or femalegender roles, but combines or moves between these."[2]
§ "People who were assigned a sex, usually at birth and based on their genitals, but who feel that this is a false or incomplete description of themselves."[3]
§ "Non-identification with, or non-presentation as, the sex (and assumed gender) one was assigned at birth."[4]
Transexual
Transsexualism describes the condition in which an individual identifies with a gender inconsistent or not culturally associated with their assigned sex, i.e. in which a person's assigned sex at birth conflicts with their psychological gender.
Transvestite
Transvestism (also called transvestitism) is the practice of cross-dressing, which is wearing clothing traditionally associated with the opposite sex or gender. Transvestite refers to a person who cross-dresses; however, the word often has additional physical connotations.
Two Spirit
Two-Spirit People (also Two Spirit or Twospirit) is an umbrella term sometimes used for what was once commonly known as berdaches( /bərˈdæʃɨz/), Indigenous North Americans who fulfill one of many mixed gender roles found traditionally among many Native Americans and Canadian First Nations communities. Third gender roles historically embodied by Two-Spirit people include performing work and wearing clothing associated with both men and women. The presence of male two-spirits "was a fundamental institution among most tribal peoples."[1] Male and female two-spirits have been "documented in over 130 tribes, in every region of North America."[2]
Winkte
Winkte (also spelled wintke) is an old Lakota word, "Winyanktehca," that has been contracted through long use. Its meaning is "two-souls-person," or more directly, "to be as a woman" and applies to male-bodied individuals. It generally refers to someone who is either homosexual or transgender (i.e. male-bodied humans who do not conform to the ordinary man's gender role). The winkte are not marginalized, but rather, they are considered to be people with special spiritual and other talents that fulfill some needs of the community that other people could not fill.
Womyn
"Womyn" is one of a number of alternative spellings of the word "women" used by some feminist writers.[1] There are many alternative spellings, including "wimmin", "womban", "wom!n".
Heterosexual
Heterosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between persons of opposite sex or gender in the gender binary. As a sexual orientation, heterosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectionate, physical or romantic attractions to persons of the opposite sex"; it also refers to "an individual’s sense of personal and social identity based on those attractions, behaviors expressing them, and membership in a community of others who share them".
Man
In English, lower case man (pl. men) refers to an adulthuman male (the term boy is the usual term for a human male child or adolescent). Although men typically have a male reproductive system, some intersex people with ambiguous genitals, and biologically female transgenderpeople, may also be classified or self-identify as a "man".
The term manhood is used to refer to masculinity, the various qualities and characteristics attributed to men such as strength and male sexuality.[1]
Woman
A woman (/ˈwʊmən/), pl: women (/ˈwɪmɨn/) is a female human. The term woman is usually reserved for an adult, with the term girl being the usual term for a female child or adolescent. However, the term woman is also sometimes used to identify a female human, regardless of age, as in phrases such as "Women's rights". Unlike men, women are typically capable of giving birth.
Butch and Femme
Butch and femme are LGBT terms describing, respectively, masculine and feminine traits, behaviors, styles, expressions, self-perception and so on. They are often used in the lesbian, bisexual and gay subcultures.[1]A similar term, en femme, is also frequently used in the cross dressing community. Butch and femme can sometimes be used to categorize identities of gay or lesbian individuals in terms that are recognized as analogous to (though not derivative from) heterosexual gender roles, with butch representing the traditionally masculine counterpart (the male role in heterosexual couples) and femme the traditionally feminine role (the female role in heterosexual couples). While some gay or lesbian couples may comprise a butch-identified individual and a femme-identified individual, not all gays or lesbians identify as "butch" or "femme." Lesbian relationships do not require these two identities to comprise them, and many lesbian individuals and couples cannot be described accurately in these terms.
Dyke
Dyke is slang noun meaning lesbian; it also is a slang adjective describing things associated with lesbianism. It originated as aderogatory label for a masculine woman, and this usage still exists. However, some persons attempt to use it in a manner that they see as positive, or as a neutral synonym for lesbian.[1] To some extent, the word has been reappropriated.
Faux Queen
A faux queen or bio queen is a female performance artist who adopts the style typical of male drag queens. A faux queen may be jocularly described as "a drag queen trapped in a woman's body",[1]though few are female to male transsexuals. Other descriptions include "biologically-challenged" drag queen, "female female impersonator",[2] or "female impersonator impersonator"[3] Like traditional drag queens and drag kings, faux queens play with traditional gender roles and gender norms to educate and entertain.
Kathoey
Kathoey or katoey (Thai: กะเทย; RTGS: Kathoei;[kàtʰɤːj]) is a Thai and Khmer term that refers to a transgender person or an effeminate gay male in Thailand. While a significant number of Thais perceive kathoeys as belonging to a third gender, including many kathoeys themselves, others see them as either a kind of man or a kind of woman.[1] Related phrases include sao (or phuying) praphet song (Thai:สาวประเภทสอง,"a second kind of woman"), or phet thi sam (Thai: เพศที่สาม, "third gender"). The word kathoey is thought to be of Khmerorigin.[2] It is most often rendered as ladyboy in English conversation with Thais and this latter expression has become popular across South East Asia.
Lesbian
Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females.[1] The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of femalehomosexuality, or as an adjective, to describe characteristics of an object or activity related to female same-sex desire
Lipstick Lesbian
The expression is slang, used in the United States of America to describe lesbian and bisexual women who exhibit extremely feminine gender attributes, such as wearing make-up (thus, lipstick), wearing dresses or skirts and having other characteristics associated with feminine women.
Soft Butch
A soft butch, or stem (stud-fem), is a woman who exhibits some stereotypical butch and lesbian traits without fitting the masculine stereotype associated with butch lesbians. These traits may or may not include short hair, clothing that was designed for men, and masculine mannerisms and behaviors. Soft butches generally appear androgynous, rather than adhering to strictly feminine or masculine norms and gender identities. In the spectrum of gender expression among lesbians, a soft butch lies closer to a butch lesbian than to a lipstick lesbian.
This type of behaviour is also considered socially acceptable of alternate gender roles within the lesbian community. Whereas it is sometimes considered a betrayal of the lesbian community to be "too feminine" or "too masculine" (a stone butch), the soft butch is an acceptable in-between state that generally receives greater acceptance.
Stone Butch
A stone butch is a butch woman or trans man who is superlatively masculine in character and dress, who tops his/her partners sexually (and sometimes emotionally), and who is averse to sexual contact with their genitalia. Some stone butches do not self-identify as lesbian, and/or do not identify with the lesbian community. A trans man with such traits may or may not self-identify as a stone butch. Sometimes, a stone butch may have as a partner a stone femme, who is a femme who bottoms sexually or who wishes not to touch the genitals of his/her stone butch partner. Butches are very diverse in emotion and sexual expression.
Stone Femme
Stone femme is a lesbian identity whose name was patterned after the more widely-known term stone butch.[1]Identification with the term is not necessarily dependent upon the stone femme's physical appearance or gender expression, or upon the identity of the stone femme's partner.
Transwoman
A trans woman (sometimes trans-woman or transwoman) is a transgender person with a female gender identity. The label of transgender woman is not interchangeable with that of transsexual woman, although the two are often combined or mistaken for the same thing. A transsexual woman is someone who was assigned male at birth but whose gender identity is that of a woman; transsexual women may undergo physical changes to align their body with their gender identity (known as transition). Transgender is an umbrella term that includes different types of gender variant people (including transsexual people) so transgender women could, for example, refer to either a woman who was assigned male at birth, identifies as a woman, but does not wish to undergo physical changes, or a transsexual woman.
Transman
A trans man (also trans-man or transman) is a female-to-male(FTM) transgender or transsexual person. A trans man was assigned female at birth, but identifies as male. The label of transgender male is not interchangeable with that of transsexual male although the two are often combined or mistaken for the same thing. The difference is that while transgender males identify with the male gender identity, transsexual males may intend to undergo physical changes to align their body with their gender identity. A transgender male is someone whose gender identity is male, but who does not necessarily change himself physically
Bear
"Bear" is an LGBT slang term for men that are commonly, but not always, overweight and often having hairy bodies and facial hair. Some are also muscular and some project an image of rugged masculinity in their grooming and appearance. It is a subculture in the gay andbisexual male communities and to an emerging subset of LGBT communities with events, codes, and a culture-specific identity.
Metrosexual
Metrosexual is a neologism, derived from metropolitan and heterosexual, coined in 1994 describing a man (especially one living in an urban, post-industrial, capitalist culture) who is especially meticulous about his grooming and appearance, typically spending a significant amount of time and money on shopping as part of this.[1] The term originated as play on the term homosexual in order to contrast heterosexuals who adopt fashions and lifestyles stereotypically associated with homosexuals.
Muxe
In Zapotec cultures of Oaxaca (southern Mexico), a muxe (also spelled "muxhe") [muxeʔ] is a physically male individual who dresses and behaves in ways otherwise associated with the female gender; they may be seen as a third gender.[1] Some marry women and have children while others choose men as sexual or romantic partners.[2]
Transvesti
In cultures of South America, a travesti is a person who was assigned male at birth who has a feminine gender identity and is primarilysexually attracted to non-feminine men ("androphilia"). In South America the distinction between gender identity and sexual orientation is rarely made. Travestis of Latin America have been described as a third gender, but not all see themselves this way.
Androgyne
Androgyny is a term derived from the Greek words ανήρ, stem ανδρ- (anér, andr-, meaning man) and γυνή (gyné, meaning woman), referring to the combination of masculine and feminine characteristics. This may be as in fashion, sexual identity, or sexual lifestyle, or it may refer to biologically inter-sexed physicality, especially with regards to plant and human sexuality.
Asexual
Asexuality (sometimes referred to as nonsexuality),[1][2][3] in its broadest sense, is the lack of sexual attraction to others[4][5][6] or the lack of interest in sex.[6][7] It may also be considered a lack of asexual orientation.
Bigender
Bigender, bi-gender or bi+gender describes a tendency to move between feminine and masculine gender-typed behavior depending on context. Some bigendered individuals express a distinctly "en femme" persona and a distinctly "en homme" persona, feminine and masculine respectively; others have shades of grey between the two. It is recognized by the American Psychological Association (APA) as a subset of the transgender group.
Fa'afafine
Fa'afafine may be viewed as a third gender specific to Samoan culture. Fa'afafine are the gender liminal, or third-gendered people of Samoa. A recognized and integral part of traditional Samoan culture, fa'afafine, born biologically male, embody both male and female gender traits. Their gendered behavior typically ranges from extravagantly feminine to mundanely masculine.
Gay
Gay is a word (a noun or an adjective) that primarily refers to a homosexual person (noun) or the trait of being homosexual (adjective).
Genderqueer
Genderqueer (GQ; alternatively non-binary) is a catch-all term for gender identities other than man and woman, thus outside of the gender binary and normativity.[1] People who identify as genderqueer may think of themselves as one or more of the following:
§ both man and woman (bigender, pangender);
§ neither man nor woman (genderless, agender);
§ moving between genders (genderfluid);[2]
§ third gender or other-gendered; includes those who do not place a name to their gender;[3]
§ having an overlap of, or blurred lines between, gender identity and sexual and romantic orientation.[4][5]
Hijra
In the culture of South Asia, hijras (Hindi: हिजड़ा, Urdu:ہِجڑا, Bengali: হিজড়া, Kannada: ಹಿಜಡಾ, Telugu: హిజ్ర) orchhakka in Kannada, khusra in Punjabi and kojja in Telugu are physiological males who have feminine gender identity, women's clothing and other feminine gender roles. Hijras have a long recorded history in the Indian subcontinent, from antiquity, as suggested by the Kama Sutra period onwards. This history features a number of well-known roles within subcontinental cultures, part gender-liminal, part spiritual and part survival.
Homosexual
Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As an orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectionate, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same sex; "it also refers to an individual's sense of personal and social identity based on those attractions, behaviors expressing them, and membership in a community of others who share them."[1][2]
Mukhannathun
Mukhannathun (Arabic مخنثون "effeminate ones", "men who resemble women", singular mukhannath) is classical Arabic for people who would now be called transgender women, perhaps poorly distinguished from eunuchs. Various "mukhannathun" appear in several hadith.[1][2] In one hadith the prophet Muhammad banishes a mukhannath to a region near Medina, but prohibits people from killing them.[1] They could be said to be Muslim transwomen accepted as they are "within the boundaries of Medina and Mecca".
Queer
Queer is an umbrella term for sexual and gender minorities [1] that are notheterosexual, heteronormative, or gender-binary. In the context of Western identity politics the term also acts as a label setting queer-identifying people apart from discourse, ideologies, and lifestyles that typifymainstream LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transsexual) communities as being oppressive or assimilationist. This term is controversial because it was reappropriated only two decades ago from its use as an anti-gay epithet. Furthermore, some LGBT people disapprove of using queer as a catch-all because they consider it offensive, derisive or self-deprecating given its continuous use as a form ofhate speech. Other LGBT people may avoid queer because they associate it with political radicalism, or simply because they perceive it as the faddish slang of a "younger generation."
Transgender
Transgender ( /trænzˈdʒɛndər/) is a general term applied to a variety of individuals, behaviors, and groups involving tendencies to vary from culturally conventional gender roles.
Transgender is the state of one's gender identity (self-identification as woman, man, neither or both) not matching one's assigned sex (identification by others as male, female or intersex based on physical/genetic sex).[1] Transgender does not imply any specific form of sexual orientation; transgender people may identify as heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, pansexual, polysexual, or asexual; some may consider conventional sexual orientation labels inadequate or inapplicable to them. The precise definition for transgender remains in flux, but includes:
§ "Of, relating to, or designating a person whose identity does not conform unambiguously to conventional notions of male or femalegender roles, but combines or moves between these."[2]
§ "People who were assigned a sex, usually at birth and based on their genitals, but who feel that this is a false or incomplete description of themselves."[3]
§ "Non-identification with, or non-presentation as, the sex (and assumed gender) one was assigned at birth."[4]
Transexual
Transsexualism describes the condition in which an individual identifies with a gender inconsistent or not culturally associated with their assigned sex, i.e. in which a person's assigned sex at birth conflicts with their psychological gender.
Transvestite
Transvestism (also called transvestitism) is the practice of cross-dressing, which is wearing clothing traditionally associated with the opposite sex or gender. Transvestite refers to a person who cross-dresses; however, the word often has additional physical connotations.
Two Spirit
Two-Spirit People (also Two Spirit or Twospirit) is an umbrella term sometimes used for what was once commonly known as berdaches( /bərˈdæʃɨz/), Indigenous North Americans who fulfill one of many mixed gender roles found traditionally among many Native Americans and Canadian First Nations communities. Third gender roles historically embodied by Two-Spirit people include performing work and wearing clothing associated with both men and women. The presence of male two-spirits "was a fundamental institution among most tribal peoples."[1] Male and female two-spirits have been "documented in over 130 tribes, in every region of North America."[2]
Winkte
Winkte (also spelled wintke) is an old Lakota word, "Winyanktehca," that has been contracted through long use. Its meaning is "two-souls-person," or more directly, "to be as a woman" and applies to male-bodied individuals. It generally refers to someone who is either homosexual or transgender (i.e. male-bodied humans who do not conform to the ordinary man's gender role). The winkte are not marginalized, but rather, they are considered to be people with special spiritual and other talents that fulfill some needs of the community that other people could not fill.
Womyn
"Womyn" is one of a number of alternative spellings of the word "women" used by some feminist writers.[1] There are many alternative spellings, including "wimmin", "womban", "wom!n".
Heterosexual
Heterosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between persons of opposite sex or gender in the gender binary. As a sexual orientation, heterosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectionate, physical or romantic attractions to persons of the opposite sex"; it also refers to "an individual’s sense of personal and social identity based on those attractions, behaviors expressing them, and membership in a community of others who share them".
Man
In English, lower case man (pl. men) refers to an adulthuman male (the term boy is the usual term for a human male child or adolescent). Although men typically have a male reproductive system, some intersex people with ambiguous genitals, and biologically female transgenderpeople, may also be classified or self-identify as a "man".
The term manhood is used to refer to masculinity, the various qualities and characteristics attributed to men such as strength and male sexuality.[1]
Woman
A woman (/ˈwʊmən/), pl: women (/ˈwɪmɨn/) is a female human. The term woman is usually reserved for an adult, with the term girl being the usual term for a female child or adolescent. However, the term woman is also sometimes used to identify a female human, regardless of age, as in phrases such as "Women's rights". Unlike men, women are typically capable of giving birth.