Recently we unveiled our slightly tongue-in-cheek guide
to the lesbian tongue - The
Great Big Lesbian Dictionary. Now, we bring you the Great Big
Gender and Sexuality Dictionary, which proves there's a label for
absolutely everyone, if you know where to look...
What on earth is a demisexual? Are you a bisexual
panromantic or a genderqueer androgynosexual? It's only the tip of
the iceberg but here's some tongue-twisting terminology to get you
started.
Agender/Genderless/Nongender: Someone who
identifies as having no gender identity and/or no gender
expression.
Androgynosexual: A person who has
sexual attraction towards both men and women, particularly
those with an androgynous appearance.
Aromantic: A person who experiences little or
no romantic attraction to others - where romantic people have
an emotional need to be with another person in a romantic
relationship, aromantics are often satisfied with friendships and
other non-romantic relationships.
Asexual: Someone that has no sexual attraction
to anyone.
Autosexual: A term that describes a person that
derives adequate sexual satisfaction from masturbation.
Bigender: Someone that moves between male
and female gender identities.
Binarism: Erasing, ignoring or expressing hate
towards people who identify outside of the gender binary (ie:
male/female).
Biromantic/Panromantic: A person who is
romantically attracted to members of every gender.
Cisgender: Someone who identifies with
the gender identity that matches their biological sex.
Cissexual: Someone who identifies with the gender
identity that matches their biological sex but may have a different
gender expression (eg: crossdress).
Demiromantic: Not necessarily friends, but any
sort of close connection would be necessary for romantic attraction
in someone who was demiromantic.
Demisexual: A person who does not experience
sexual attraction until they form a strong emotional connection
with someone, often (but not always) in a romantic
relationship.
Dyadic: Refers to non-intersex people.
Gender binary: The pervasive social system that
tells us there can only be masculine cis men and feminine cis
women, and there can be no alternatives in terms of gender identity
or expression.
Genderfuck: The act of messing with gendered
expectations on purpose by crossing, mixing, and blending
gender-specific signals.
Grayromantic: A person with a romantic
orientation that is somewhere between aromantic and
romantic.
Graysexual: Someone who is neither sexual or
asexual but somewhere in the middle.
Gynosexual: Anyone who has sexual feelings
towards a woman. Can be useful when describing the sexual
orientation of an individual with a non-binary gender identity.
Heteroromatic: Attracted to the opposite sex in
a romantic way but not necessarily in a sexual way.
Homoromantic: Attracted to the same sex in a
romantic way but not necessarily in a sexual way.
Intergender: Those who feel their gender
identity is in between man and woman, is both man and woman,
or is outside of the binary of man and woman.
Neutrois: Someone who identifies as having no
gender identity but wants to change their body to match. Sometimes
identify as agender/genderless/nongender.
Pangender: Someone who feels that their
identities do not relate to binary genders.
Pansexual/Omnisexual: Someone who
transcends sexual attraction to just biological sexes or gender
identity, where attraction is rooted in what people are like rather
than what they are.
Polyromantic: Attracted to many, but not
necessarily all sexes in a romantic way, but not necessarily in a
sexual way.
Polysexual: Someone who isn't gender blind, but
is attracted to multiple biological sexes, gender identities, and
even sexual identities (eg: pansexual).
Pomosexual: Someone who avoids sexual
orientation labels.
Third Gender: Someone who identifies with
a gender identity, they consider specifically to be neither male or
female.
Trigender: Someone who moves between not just
male and female gender identities, but between the third gender
too.
Two-Spirit: A term specific to Native/First
Nations cultures and people, which some lesbian, gay, queer,
pansexual, bisexual, transgender, intersex, and gender
non-conforming people identify with.
Gender Neutral/Gender Fluid: Someone who
does not identify themselves solely as male or female, by gender
identity, but rather transcends the binary division.
Phew. Got all that? I'm sure that I haven't even
scratched the surface, but hopefully you might have learnt a new
word or two. (It's always good to learn new stuff, right?) If you
know of anything that's been missed (there's bound to be) or you
think anything needs changing, please don't hesitate to say
so!
PHOTO VIA WIKIPEDIA, CREDIT: DR MARCUS GOSSLER
