We had a FABULOUS ‘Hamster Church conversation with Adrien Converse at Echoes. They provided us with some helpful definitions, which we printed and passed around to folx. Since not everyone could attend, we’re posting for the benefit of all!

Resource prepared by Adrian Converse. You can find more amazing work on their blog, deconforming.com

Definitions to know

Agender: a person who has no sense of gender. Also sometimes called genderblank or gendervoid.

Binary genders: Genders that are either man or woman. (A binary person may or may not be transgender.)

Cisgender: A person whose gender aligns with the gender they were assigned at birth; not transgender. Sometimes shortened to “cis.”

Gender dysphoria: A profound sense of unease coming from the fact that the person you are is being distorted beyond recognition.

Genderqueer: an umbrella term for a person whose gender is not strictly male nor strictly female (sometimes used synonymously with nonbinary)

Gender questioning: a person who is questioning whether or not they really are cisgender, but is not certain about their gender identity.

Gender identity: a person’s gender identity is who they are.

Intersex: a person who has a combination of male and female sex characteristics. It’s the “I” in LGBTQIA+.

Medical transition: Various medical procedures that help align a person’s physical body with the person they know themselves to be.

Misgendering: When a person is referred to as a gender that is not accurate to who they really are.

Neopronouns: a word that literally means “new pronouns.” These pronouns are used to reference people of different genders with a higher degree of nuance.

Nonbinary: a person whose gender is outside the gender binary; not strictly male nor strictly female

Social transition: The act of shifting a person’s life to align more with their gender. Includes things like changing your name, changing the gender on your birth certificate, adjusting how you dress, asking people to use different pronouns in reference to you.

Transgender: A person who was assigned a gender at birth that doesn’t match who they are.

Transgender man: a person who was assigned the female gender at birth, but who is actually male.

Transgender woman: a person who was assigned male at birth, but who is actually female.