Global Terms and Modern Constructions

A person whose gender identity differs from the one assigned at birth. Often shortened to 'trans.'

A person whose gender identity aligns with the one assigned at birth. From the Latin 'cis-' meaning 'on the same side.'

People whose gender is not exclusively man or woman — including identities that are both, neither, fluid, or something else entirely.

An older term, often used to signal a political and aesthetic refusal of the binary as much as an identity.

Describes a gender that shifts over time — across days, contexts, or longer arcs of life.

Without gender, or experiencing oneself as outside the system of gender altogether.

Identifying with two, three, or many genders, sometimes simultaneously and sometimes in turn.

Partially identifying with being a boy or girl, but not entirely.

A pan-Indigenous English umbrella term — not to be adopted by non-Indigenous people — for nation-specific gender and sexuality roles.

Used in legal and academic contexts for any officially recognized category beyond man and woman, as in India, Nepal, Pakistan, Germany, and elsewhere.

Assigned Female / Male At Birth — neutral language for describing the gender originally placed on a person without assuming their identity.

People born with sex characteristics that don't fit typical definitions of male or female. A category about bodies, distinct from gender identity.