What does it all stand for? Breaking down LGBT+ and other terms around gender and sexuality

What does it all stand for? Breaking down LGBT+ and other terms around gender and sexuality

  • L=LESBIAN: A woman who is sexually and/or romantically attracted only to other women.
  • G=GAY: A person who is sexually and/or romantically attracted only to people of the same sex. It’s often used to refer to men who are attracted to other men.
  • B=BISEXUAL: A person who is sexually and/or romantically attracted to more than one gender. This could mean could include cisgender men or women, nonbinary people, transgender people, or any gender identification.
  • T=TRANSGENDER: A person whose sense of personal gender identity does not align with the sex they were assigned at birth (see Assigned Sex). For example, they may have been born with a penis and have ‘male’ on their birth certificate, but identify as a woman.
  • Q=QUEER: Queer is an umbrella term for anyone who identifies as being LGBTQ+ as well as a term for the community as a whole. ‘Queer’ can mean different things for different people, but it generally can refer to anyone who is not both cisgender and heterosexual.
  • I=INTERSEX: A term used for a person is born with reproductive anatomy, hormones or chromosomes not typically expected of ‘female’ or ‘male’. This can be called ‘ambiguous’ genitalia.
  • A=ASEXUAL: A person who experiences little to no sexual attraction. Asexual people still may experience romantic attraction, non-sexual physical attraction and other forms of attraction.

Further reading

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