KEY TERMS: Definitions of terms. “It takes courage to grow up and be who you really are.” E E Cummings

Cisgender person: A person whose gender identity matches their sex assigned at birth, and who therefore, unlike transgender people, experiences no gender incongruence.

Gender: The attitudes, feelings, and behaviours linked to the experience and expression of one’s biological sex.

Gender identity: The personal experience of oneself as a boy or man, girl or woman, as a mix of the two, as neither, or as a gender beyond man or woman. Some individuals (particularly in cultures which accept the idea of genders beyond man and woman) identify as members of “third genders” or use indigenous gender labels.

Gender expression: The expression of one’s gender identity, often through appearance and mode of dress, and also sometimes through behaviour and interests. Gender expression is often influenced by gender stereotypes.

Gender stereotypes: Ideas, current in the culture and times in which a person lives, about the different characteristics that men and women have and should have. Many transgender people can encounter rejection and hostility because of departure from a gender stereotype.

Gender incongruence: Incongruence between a person’s own experience of their gender (gender identity) and the sex assigned to them at birth (birth-assigned sex).  Gender incongruence can have two aspects: social incongruence, between a person’s gender identity and the gender that others recognise on the basis of that person’s birth-assigned sex; and physical  incongruence, between a person’s gender identity and their primary or secondary sex characteristics.

Gender dysphoria: Discomfort or distress connected with one’s own gender incongruence (social, physical, or both).  

Gender transition: A person’s adoption of characteristics that they feel match their gender identity. Gender transition can involve social aspects such as changing appearance (including styles of dress and hair) and name, arranging new identity documents, or simply the use of a more suitable gendered pronoun. It can also involve a change in physical characteristics. Physical transition can facilitate social transition, enabling styles of dress, social activities, and (in many countries) changes in documentation that would not otherwise be possible. Those who engage in a physical transition are often popularly described as transsexual people.

Sex: A person’s biological status (chromosomal, hormonal, gonadal, and genital) as male or female. An individual’s sex at birth (birth-assigned sex) is usually determined on the basis of genital appearance, with those present usually assuming that other components of sex are consistent with the newborn’s genital sex.

Sexual orientation: Sexual orientation is about whom one is sexually attracted to, and is not the same as gender identity.

Transgender person: Transgender people experience a degree of gender incongruence. Some intersex people, as well as some people considered by others to be cross dressers or transvestites, experience gender incongruence and accompanying dysphoria.

Transgender man: A person assigned female who identifies as a man or in similar terms (eg, as a “trans man” or “ man of transgender experience”).

Transgender woman: A person assigned male at birth who identifies as a woman or in similar terms (eg, as a “trans woman” or “woman of transgender  experience”).