Table 1.
Glossary of terms.
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Cisgender (or cis) | Someone whose gender identity is the same as the sex they were assigned at birth |
| Gender-affirming treatment (GAT) | Medical interventions that aim to align a person’s characteristics with their gender identity, such as hormone treatment or surgeries |
| Gender diverse | Usually used to describe a population, but can also refer to someone whose gender identity or gender expression does not conform to socially defined binary gender norms |
| Gender dysphoria | Psychological distress or discomfort experienced because of a mismatch between sex assigned at birth and gender identity |
| Gender expression | How a person chooses to outwardly express their gender, within the context of societal expectations of gender |
| Gender history | Information related to a TGD person’s past social, legal and/or medical transition |
| Gender identity | A person’s innate sense of their own gender, which may or may not correspond to the sex assigned at birth |
| LGBTQ + | Initialism for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and a wide range of other sexual and gender minorities |
| Non-binary | An umbrella term for people whose gender identity does not sit comfortably with binary “male” or “female” |
| Pronoun | Words used to refer to people’s gender in conversation (i.e., he, she, they) |
| Sex assigned at birth | The label a medical professional gives to a baby when it is born (i.e., male, female, intersex), usually based on external genitalia. AFAB and AMAB are commonly used acronyms meaning “assigned female at birth” and “assigned male at birth”, respectively. |
| Transgender man | A term used to describe someone who is assigned female at birth but identifies and lives as a man. May be shortened to trans man |
| Trans/TGD status | Description of someone’s status as transgender or gender diverse |
| Transgender woman | A term used to describe someone who is assigned male at birth but identifies and lives as a woman. May be shortened to trans woman |
| Transfeminine | Describes someone who was assigned male at birth but identifies more with a feminine identity |
| Transgender (or trans) | An umbrella term to describe people whose gender is not the same as, or does not sit comfortably with, the sex they were assigned at birth |
| Transitioning | The steps a trans person may take to live in the gender with which they identify |
| Transmasculine | Describes someone who was assigned female at birth, but identifies more with a masculine identity |
| Transphobia | Discrimination against trans people |