Here’s the last word on gender and sexuality

Recently we unveiled our slightly tongue-in-cheek guide to the lesbian tongue – The Great Big Lesbian Dictionary. Now, we bring you the Great Big Gender and Sexuality Dictionary, which proves there’s a label for absolutely everyone, if you know where to look…

What on earth is a demisexual? Are you a bisexual panromantic or a genderqueer androgynosexual? It’s only the tip of the iceberg but here’s some tongue-twisting terminology to get you started.

A

Agender/Genderless/Nongender: Someone who identifies as having no gender identity and/or no gender expression.

Androgynosexual: A person who has sexual attraction towards both men and women, particularly those with an androgynous appearance.

Aromantic: A person who experiences little or no romantic attraction to others – where romantic people have an emotional need to be with another person in a romantic relationship, aromantics are often satisfied with friendships and other non-romantic relationships.

Asexual: Someone that has no sexual attraction to anyone.

Autosexual: A term that describes a person that derives adequate sexual satisfaction from masturbation.

B

Bigender: Someone that moves between male and female gender identities.

Binarism: Erasing, ignoring or expressing hate towards people who identify outside of the gender binary (ie: male/female).

Biromantic/Panromantic: A person who is romantically attracted to members of every gender.

C

Cisgender:  Someone who identifies with the gender identity that matches their biological sex.

Cissexual: Someone who identifies with the gender identity that matches their biological sex but may have a different gender expression (eg: crossdress).

D

Demiromantic: Not necessarily friends, but any sort of close connection would be necessary for romantic attraction in someone who was demiromantic.

Demisexual: A person who does not experience sexual attraction until they form a strong emotional connection with someone, often (but not always) in a romantic relationship.

Dyadic: Refers to non-intersex people.

G

Gender binary: The pervasive social system that tells us there can only be masculine cis men and feminine cis women, and there can be no alternatives in terms of gender identity or expression.

Genderfuck: The act of messing with gendered expectations on purpose by crossing, mixing, and blending gender-specific signals.

Grayromantic: A person with a romantic orientation that is somewhere between aromantic and romantic.

Graysexual: Someone who is neither sexual or asexual but somewhere in the middle.

Gynosexual: Anyone who has sexual feelings towards a woman. Can be useful when describing the sexual orientation of an individual with a non-binary gender identity.

Gender Neutral/Gender Fluid: Someone who does not identify themselves solely as male or female, by gender identity, but rather transcends the binary division.

H

Heteroromatic: Attracted to the opposite sex in a romantic way but not necessarily in a sexual way.

Homoromantic: Attracted to the same sex in a romantic way but not necessarily in a sexual way.

I

Intergender: Those who feel their gender identity is in between man and woman, is both man and woman, or is outside of the binary of man and woman.

N

Neutrois: Someone who identifies as having no gender identity but wants to change their body to match. Sometimes identify as agender/genderless/nongender.

P

Pangender: Someone who feels that their identities do not relate to binary genders.

Pansexual/Omnisexual: Someone who transcends sexual attraction to just biological sexes or gender identity, where attraction is rooted in what people are like rather than what they are.

Polyromantic: Attracted to many, but not necessarily all sexes in a romantic way, but not necessarily in a sexual way.

Polysexual: Someone who isn’t gender blind, but is attracted to multiple biological sexes, gender identities, and even sexual identities (eg: pansexual).

Pomosexual: Someone who avoids sexual orientation labels.

T

Third Gender: Someone who identifies with a gender identity, they consider specifically to be neither male or female.

Trigender: Someone who moves between not just male and female gender identities, but between the third gender too.

Two-Spirit: A term specific to Native/First Nations cultures and people, which some lesbian, gay, queer, pansexual, bisexual, transgender, intersex, and gender non-conforming people identify with.

Phew. Got all that? I’m sure that I haven’t even scratched the surface, but hopefully you might have learnt a new word or two. (It’s always good to learn new stuff, right?) If you know of anything that’s been missed (there’s bound to be) or you think anything needs changing, please don’t hesitate to say so!