Sexual orientation
A person’s pattern of emotional, romantic, or sexual attraction, or the language they use to describe it.
Gender identity
A person’s internal understanding of their gender. It may or may not match the sex they were assigned at birth.
Gender expression
How someone expresses gender through clothing, hair, voice, mannerisms, name, or other aspects of presentation.
Transgender
A term for people whose gender identity differs from the sex they were assigned at birth.
Nonbinary
A term for people whose gender is not exclusively woman or man. People may use nonbinary alone or with other language.
Cisgender
A term for people whose gender identity aligns with the sex they were assigned at birth.
Queer
An identity term some people use for sexual orientation, gender, or community. Because it has also been used harmfully, follow each person’s lead.
Questioning
A term for someone exploring or uncertain about their sexual orientation, gender identity, or both. There is no required timeline for choosing a label.
Coming out
The personal process of recognizing or sharing information about one’s sexual orientation or gender identity.
Outing
Sharing someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity without their consent.
Outing can affect trust, safety, housing, family relationships, school, work, and healthcare.Deadname / deadnaming
A deadname is a former name a transgender or gender-diverse person no longer uses. Deadnaming is using it after being told the name the person uses now.
Pronouns
Words used in place of a person’s name, such as she/her, he/him, they/them, or other pronouns.
