This document defines terms related to gender identity and sexuality. It describes gender identity as one's internal sense of gender, which may differ from biological sex and is separate from sexual orientation. It also defines terms such as heterosexism, heterosexual, homosexual, lesbian, sex reassignment surgery, sexual orientation, transgender, transition, and transphobia. Transgender is an umbrella term for those whose gender identity differs from the sex assigned at birth.

1. Terms List #4
1. Gender Identity: The sense of “being” male or “being” female. For some people, gender
identity is in accord with physical anatomy. For transgender people, gender identity may
differ from physical anatomy or expected social roles. It is important to note that gender
identity, biological sex, and sexual orientation are not necessarily linked.
2. Heterosexism: The concept that heterosexuality is natural, normal, superior and required.
A system of beliefs about the superiority of heterosexuals or heterosexuality evidenced in
the exclusion, by omission or design, of gay, lesbian and bisexual persons in assumptions,
communication, policies, procedures, events, or activities.
3. Heterosexual: A person who is primarily and/or exclusively attracted to members of a
gender or sex that is seen to be “opposite” or other than the one with which they identify
or are identified.
4. Homosexual: A person who is primarily and /or exclusively attracted to members of
what they identify as their own sex or gender. Because the term possesses connotations of
disease and abnormality, some people do not like to identify as homosexual. Still others
do not feel that it accurately defines their chosen identity.
5. Lesbian: One who identifies as a woman who is primarily or exclusively attracted to
others who identify as women.
6. Sex Reassignment (SRS): A surgical procedure that modifies one’s primary and/or
secondary sex characteristics. This process was formerly called a “sex change operation,”
a phrase now considered offensive.
7. Sexual Orientation: A person’s emotional, physical and sexual attraction and the
expression of that attraction with other individuals. Some of the better-known labels or
categories include “bisexual,” “multisexual,” “pansexual,” “omnisexual,” “lesbian,” “gay”
(“homosexual” is a more clinical term), or “heterosexual”.
8. Trans: Abbreviation for transgender, transsexual, or some other form of trans identity.
“Trans” can invoke notions of transcending beyond, existing between, or crossing over
borders.
9. Transgender: An umbrella term used to describe people who do not fit into traditional
gender categories, including transsexuals, transvestites or cross-dressers, intersexuals or
hermaphrodites, and sometimes, even people who identify as butch or femme. Can
invoke notions of transcending beyond, existing between or crossing over borders.
10. Transition: The period when one is changing from living as one sex or gender to a
different conception of sex or gender. Transitioning is complicated, multi-step process
that may include surgically and/or hormonally altering one’s body.
11. Transsexuals: People who believe that they are of one gender trapped in the body of the
other gender. A person who has altered or intends to alter her/hir/his anatomy, either
through surgery, hormones, or other means, to better match her/hir/his chosen gender
identity. As a medical term, transsexual was originally coined in the 1950s to refer to
individuals who desire to not only live as another gender, but also to change their bodies
through surgery to reflect the gender that often feels more “natural” or authentic. This
group of people is often divided into pre-op (operative), post-op, or non-op transsexuals.
Due to cost, not all transsexuals can have genital surgery. Others do not feel that surgery
is necessary, but still remain a transsexual identity.
a. Non-operative: People who do not intend to change their primary sex
characteristics, either because of a lack of a desire or the inability to do so. They

2. Terms List #4
may or may not alter their secondary sex characteristics through the use of
hormones.
b. Pre-operative: People who have started the procedure to reassign their primary
sex characteristics, but have not yet had the surgery. This covers both those
people who have just begun the procedure and those who are very close to the
actual surgery.
c. Post-operative: People who have had the actual genital surgery done. These
people may identify as a man, woman, an FTM transsexual or an MTF
transsexual.
12. Transphobia: The fear or hatred of transgender and transsexual people. Like biphobia,
this term was created to call attention to the ways prejudice against trans people differs
from prejudice against other queer people. There is often transphobia in lesbian, gay and
bisexual communities, as well as heterosexual or straight communities.
13. Persona: a character in drama or fiction or the part any one sustains in the world or in a
book. Persona also denotes the “I” who speaks in a poem or novel.
14. Plot: a plan or scheme to accomplish a purpose. In literature, this is the arrangement of
events to achieve an intended effect consisting of a series of carefully devised and
interrelated actions that progresses through a struggle of opposing forces, called conflict,
to a climax and a denouement. This is different from story or story line, which is the
order of events as they occur.
15. Point of view: a specified position or method of consideration and appraisal. It may also
be an attitude, judgment, or opinion. In literature, physical point of view has to do with
the position in time and space from which a writer approaches, views, and describes his
or her material. Mental point of view involves an author’s feeling and attitude toward his
or her subject. Personal point of view concerns the relation through which a writer
narrates or discusses a subject, whether first, second, or third person.
16. Prose: the ordinary form of spoken and written language whose unit is the sentence,
rather than the line as it is in poetry. The term applies to all expressions in language that
do not have a regular rhythmic pattern.
17. Scenario: an outline of the plot of a dramatic work, which provides particulars about
characters, settings, and situation. The term is most often used for the detailed script of a
film or a treatment setting forth the action in the sequence it is to follow with detailed
descriptions of scenes and characters, and actual works. Sometimes the plot of a film or
television show is loosely called a scenario.
18. Simile: a figure of speech in which two things, essentially different but thought to be
alike in one or more respects, are compared using “like,” “as,” “as if,” or “such” for the
purpose of explanation, allusion, or ornament.
19. Style: a manner of putting thoughts into words or the characteristic mode of construction
and expression in writing and speaking. The term is also used for the characteristics of a
literary selection that concern the form of expression rather than the thought conveyed.
Style is usually defined by the writer’s choice of words, figures of speech, devices, and
the shaping of the sentences and paragraphs. Sometimes, styles are classified according to
time period or individual writers.
20. Theme: the central and dominating idea in a literary work. A theme may also be a short
essay such as a composition. In addition, the term means a message or moral implicit in
any work of art.