Terminology
This exhibit and history are heavily connected with the development of identity terminology. The terminology that is provided is to assist virtual visitors in getting acquainted with the meanings of these identity-based terms. The terms and definitions are not defined by everyone in the same way. We recognize peoples’ varied interpretations of these terms.
- Sex is a classification assigned at birth designating a person as either male or female.
- Gender Expression, how one presents their gender or nonconformity regarding gender. This is done through behavior and actions such as wearing certain clothing or speaking with a particular voice.
- Gender Identity, an internally held view of yourself in relation to your personal knowledge that you’re a man, a woman, or another gender.
- Crossdressing or Crossdresser is a term typically used by men who identify as heterosexual and occasionally dress according to cultural norms associated with women.
- Transgender is defined as an umbrella term. It encompasses those whose gender identity does not hold to the sex they were assigned at birth.
- Gender transition occurs when people take actions to change pronouns, legal documents, and/or receive medical treatment in order to align with one’s gender identity.
- Non-binary – Genderqueer is an identity used to describe one’s gender identity when they identify as neither a man nor a woman.
- Transexual is a term that predates transgender and is still used by some today. Unlike transgender, transsexual was a term developed within the medical and psychological fields of study.
- Transvestite, like transexual, predates transgender and is still used by some as an identity term. As with transexual, it was used in place of transgender, but also has had sexual connotations connected with it.
- Gender Identity Disorder was published as an official mental health diagnosis by the American Psychiatric Association in 1994, which was replaced in 2013 with Gender Dysphoria. Gender Dysphoria is “A marked incongruence between one’s experienced/expressed gender and assigned gender…” American Psychiatric Association
Additional Resources
- National Center for Transgender Equality
- Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD)
- Planned Parenthood
- Gender Spectrum
- Transgender History: The Roots of Today’s Revolution by Susan Stryker (Print Media)
