Transgender Defined: A Glossary of Terms
Adapted from information provided by the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation and the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition
Sex: The classification of people as male or female. Although at birth, infants are typically assigned a sex based on a visual assessment of their genitals, the more informed view of determining sex takes into account a combination of characteristics including: chromosomes, hormones, internal reproductive organs, primary and secondary sex characteristics, and gender identity. While some use the term “gender” to refer to socially prescribed characteristics associated with maleness or femaleness (as distinct from physiologic characteristics), the terms “gender” and “sex” are more typically used interchangeably.
Gender Identity: One’s internal, personal sense of their gender as male, female, both or neither. For a transgender person, one’s assigned sex at birth is typically different than one’s gender identity.
Gender Expression: The external manifestation of one’s gender identity, usually expressed through “masculine,” “feminine,” or other gendered behavior, appearance, or other characteristics. It could include one’s clothing, hair style, and voice. Typically, transgender people seek to make their gender expression match their gender identity, rather than their birth-assigned sex.
Sexual Orientation: Describes an individual’s enduring physical, romantic and/or emotional attraction to another person. Like non-transgender people, transgender people may be straight, lesbian, gay, bisexual or asexual.
Transgender: A term for people whose gender identity and/or gender expression differs from the sex they were assigned at birth. The term may include but is not limited to: transsexuals, cross-dressers and other gender-variant people. Transgender people may identify as female-to-male (FTM) or male-to-female (MTF).
Transsexual: A term that originated in the medical and psychological communities to describe an individual who undergoes a medical process of gender transition to live her/his life in a sex that is different than the one assigned at birth. Many transsexual people identify as transgender.
Gender Transition: The personal process in which a person begins to openly identify and live consistent with her/his gender identity, as opposed to her/his birth sex. For some transgender people, gender transition is a medically necessary process that is done under medical and mental health supervision. It can include changing one’s name, changing one’s gender presentation, hormone therapy and any one of a range of surgeries.
Sex Reassignment Surgery (SRS): Surgical procedures for the purposes of gender transition, including but not limited to genital surgeries (removal and constructive), facial feminization surgery, mastectomy and chest reconstructive surgeries. Not all transgender people require or can afford to have SRS.
Cross-Dressing: To occasionally wear clothes traditionally associated with people of the other sex. People who cross-dress are often comfortable with the sex they were assigned at birth and do not wish to change it, in contrast with someone who has transitioned to live full-time as the other sex or who intends to do so in the future.
Gender Identity Disorder (GID): A medical diagnosis given to some transgender and gender-variant adults and children to describe the significant distress that some individuals experience due to the mismatch between their birth sex and their gender identity. GID can be a serious medical condition that may require medical care and treatment, including medically supervised gender transition.