Glossary

Being agender means not recognizing yourself in any gender, or experiencing yourself as having no gender at all. It is not an in-between or a refusal: simply one fewer box, a question that does not arise for you in the same way it does for others.

You are cisgender when the gender you live matches the sex you were assigned at birth. This is the most common situation, so common that people often forget it is one: naming "cisgender" is precisely what reminds us it is not a neutral norm, just one situation among others.

It is the distress that arises from the gap between your gender and what your body or the gaze of others reflects back to you. It ranges from a diffuse unease to acute suffering, and it does not affect all trans people, nor in the same way. The word is used in medicine, but it describes a lived experience first.

It is everything that makes your gender visible: clothing, hairstyle, voice, the way you move. It may match your identity or diverge from it, by choice or by necessity, and it shifts from day to day without taking anything away from who you are. It is often confused with identity; they are two different things.

It is the gender you know yourself to be, from the inside: woman, man, nonbinary, something else, nothing. No one decides it for you, and it cannot be read on an ID card or a body.

Your gender is not necessarily fixed. For some people it shifts over time: more masculine one day, more feminine or neutral the next, without that being indecision. It is a way of living gender in the present, as it shows up.

Not everyone fits into two boxes. Being nonbinary means having a gender that exists between the two, beyond them, in motion, or outside that axis altogether. A two-box form sometimes leaves you no room, and that is the form that is too narrow, not you.

At your birth, someone checked "girl" or "boy" based on your body. That is all it says: a starting observation, not a truth about who you are or the gender you will live. For many people it aligns with their felt gender; for others it does not.

You are transgender when your gender does not match the sex checked at your birth. The word describes a lived gap, nothing more: it says nothing about how you dress, whether you have begun a transition, or who you love. "Trans" is its common shorthand.

It is the set of steps taken to live in one's gender: changing one's name, pronouns, official documents, sometimes beginning medical care. Every path is different, some stop early, others do not; none is more "complete" than another. It is a journey, not an exam to pass.

You are trans when the gender you live does not match the sex checked at your birth. It says nothing about your body, your path, or who you love: it is a question of identity, not appearance. Some people begin a transition, others do not; neither route makes anyone more or less trans.

This is the name a person uses and asserts, whether or not it appears on their official documents. Using it costs nothing and changes everything: it means recognizing someone as they present themselves, not as a file describes them.

For a trans person, this is the name they used before (often the one on their official documents), the one they no longer carry. Hearing it, or reading it on a badge, forces them back to someone they are no longer. Using it without good reason is almost always felt as a violation.

These are ways of speaking that avoid assuming gender, or that match the gender of the person: a neutral word, a paired form, the pronoun they, a rephrased sentence. It does not complicate language for the sake of it; it allows language to name people it would otherwise leave out.

To misgender someone is to address them with a gender that isn't theirs: the wrong pronoun, masculine agreement for a woman, the wrong honorific. It happens out of habit or carelessness, and even without any intent it hurts, because it sends the person back to a place they don't belong. Simply correcting yourself is almost always enough.

These are the words used to refer to you when people talk about you: she, he, they, sometimes more than one. Asking or sharing them is not an intrusion; it is a simple way of not assuming, and of showing respect. When in doubt, asking is better than guessing.

It's experiencing little or no romantic attraction. One can be aromantic and still feel desire, have deep friendships, build bonds that matter: romantic love isn't the only bond that counts.

It's experiencing little or no sexual attraction. It doesn't prevent loving, having relationships, or the desire for tenderness: these are separate things. Like everything else, it's lived in shades, from person to person.

It's attraction to more than one gender, not necessarily in equal measure or at the same time. It's neither a step toward something else nor an indecision: a full orientation in its own right.

Most often said of a man attracted to men, sometimes more broadly of a person who identifies with it. It's a word in common use, owned without apology, that one chooses for oneself.

It's attraction to a gender different from your own. It's the most common orientation, and the least often named, because it's assumed by default. Naming it as one word among others helps reveal that it is one, not the measure of all others.

It's attraction to a gender similar to your own. The word covers a lot of ground; in everyday life, people tend to say gay or lesbian instead, depending on who they are.

A woman attracted to women. Long hushed, the word is worn today without detour or euphemism: it names, simply.

It's toward which gender or genders your attraction goes, romantic and/or sexual. It's distinct from your gender identity: who you are and who you love are two separate questions. It can become clearer over time, and no orientation is more legitimate than another.

It's attraction that's possible regardless of the other person's gender: gender plays no part in what attracts you or not. Close to bisexuality, the word emphasizes that gender doesn't factor in.

Long an insult, the word has been reclaimed with pride. It gathers, without confining them, all the ways of existing outside gender and sexuality norms: a way of saying "not in any box" rather than just another box.

These are the people close to you who take the place of family when your family of origin is absent, rejecting, or unable to understand: friends, a former partner, a group that becomes a home. In many queer lives, it is chosen family that shelters, cares for, and celebrates. You do not endure it; you build it.

This means raising a child with several adults outside of a traditional romantic couple: two friends, a couple and a third person, configurations that are invented as you go. The idea comes down to one sentence: what makes a parent is the care given, not the shape of the household.

These are the bonds, and the tensions, with one's family of origin: what you keep from it, what you hope for, what gets replayed at the moment of coming out. Welcome is not always complete or immediate; it can also come, in small gestures, later than you had hoped.

This is a family where a child is raised by two parents of the same gender, or by one parent alone. The child has parents who love them; the rest (the "mother and father" forms, the stares) is for the world around them to adjust to, not for the family to apologize for.

It's someone the topic doesn't directly concern who supports it anyway, actively: by listening, by calling out an off remark, by making room rather than taking it. The title isn't self-awarded; it's verified through actions.

Being "in the closet" means not (yet) making visible who you are. By choice, by caution, because the time or place isn't right. It's not a lie: it's a door you open at your own pace, for whoever you choose.

It's the moment when you tell someone your orientation or gender. It doesn't happen just once: with each new person, each new context, the question comes back. Saying it, staying quiet, waiting. Nobody owes it to you, and you don't owe it to anyone.

It's the whole of LGBTQIA+ people and the spaces they create: venues, parties, associations, threads. It is plural and not always in agreement with itself, and that's a good thing: you don't have to look alike to recognize each other and offer support.

These are the first steps: pushing open the door of a place, saying a word out loud, living an encounter. Often a mix of nerves and momentum, and rarely as definitive as it feels in the moment. It's a beginning, not a test.

It's revealing someone's sexual orientation or gender identity without their consent. Even when well-intentioned, it takes away from that person the choice of saying it themselves, when and to whom: a choice that belongs to them alone.

It's being spontaneously read as your gender, or as cis or straight, without having to explain yourself. It can be a comfort and a form of safety; it can also become a pressure, as if you had to "pass" to be taken seriously. Both sides coexist.

It is the implicit assumption that everyone experiences sexual and/or romantic attraction, and that a life without it would be incomplete. It is the counterpart, on the side of desire, of the other norms: an expectation so common it is taken as self-evident.

It is the implicit assumption that being cisgender goes without saying, that everyone is until proven otherwise. It hides in details: a form with two boxes, a question no one thinks to ask. Naming it does not accuse anyone; it simply makes visible a backdrop that had become invisible.

It is the system that recognises only two genders, man and woman, posed as opposites and covering everyone. It organises a great many things, from bathrooms to paperwork. Many people find their place within it; calling it a system makes it possible to see those it leaves outside.

It is the assumption that heterosexuality is the norm, expected by default: the question "do you have a boyfriend?" asked of a girl before anyone knows. It is not an opinion, more of a social reflex. Seeing it is already a way to loosen its grip.

It is the gender recorded on your documents: your ID card, your forms, your files. It may match your lived gender, or it may diverge from it, sometimes for a long time while the administrative process catches up. A badge, a "mother/father" form, a box to tick: that is often where the gap makes itself felt again.

An intersex person is someone born with sexual characteristics (chromosomes, hormones, anatomy) that do not fit standard binary definitions of male or female. It is a bodily reality, distinct from orientation and gender identity. The "I" in LGBTQIA+, long made invisible, is there for exactly that.

The acronym brings together orientations (lesbians, gays, bi, asexual people) and gender identities (trans, sometimes intersex people), two distinct things worth keeping apart. The Q for queer and the + hold the door open for everything the letters have not yet named.