LGBTQ Student Success Initiative

Definitions

Sexual Orientation: A person's inherent tendency to form emotional, physical, spiritual and sexual relationships with people of the same gender, the opposite gender, or either gender.

• Bisexual: A person who has emotional, physical, spiritual and sexual attractions to members of either gender.
• Gay: A man whose emotional, physical, spiritual and sexual attraction is to other men.
• Lesbian: A woman whose emotional, physical, spiritual and sexual attraction is to other women.
• Queer: A person who is not heterosexual.
• Straight/heterosexual: A person whose emotional, physical, spiritual and sexual attraction is to members of the opposite gender.

Gender Identity: A person's private sense of, and subjective experience of, their own gender. It is generally socially constructed, but made up of both socially-defined and biologically-created factors.

• Feminine: Gender identity of a person who has attributes, behaviors, and roles generally considered typical of, or appropriate to, a woman.
• Masculine: Gender identity of a person who has attributes, behaviors, and roles generallyconsidered typical of, or appropriate to, a man.
• Androgynous: Gender identity of a person who does not fit cleanly into the typical gender roles of their society. The person may identify as beyond gender, between genders, moving across genders, entirely genderless, or any or all of these.
• Gender neutral: Gender identity of a person who believes policies, language, and other social institutions should avoid assigning roles to a person based on reproductive organs.
• Transgender: Gender identity of a person who identifies socially with the sex opposite of birth assignment.