Dictionary

This dictionary is a glossary of definitions of words in the way they are used by GALE. Some words or terms are contested. The LGBTI movement is progressing steadily in redefining terms, inventing new terns and acronyms or expanding acronyms in an attempt to make language (and hopefully the world) more inclusive. This means language is continuously changing. If you have any suggestions of this dictionary, feel free to contact us a info@gale.info).

Ace is an umbrella term used to describe a variation in levels of romantic and/or sexual attraction, including a lack of attraction.

Ally: A (typically) straight and/or cis person who supports members of the LGBT community.

Bisexual: person who defines as multi-gender attracted

Cisgender: someone whose sense of gender identity and/or expression meets society's expectations given their biological sex as assigned at birth

CSE: Comprehensive Sexual Education; sex education that is not just biological and focused on reproductive rights and STI's, but also on the emotional and social context, including sexual diversity

Coming-out: When a person tells someone/others about a discreditable identity. Short for “Coming out of the closet”.

Demi-sexual: people who only find themselves sexually attracted to people they already have a close relation to (Kalkum & Otto, 2017, p. 124)

DESPOGI: Disadvantaged because of their Expression of Sexual Preference Or Gendered Identity. >Read more…

Disaggregated data: to break down research findings to smaller sets of data related to specific aspects of the respondents, for example analyzing whether boys and girls differ in their level of homophobia, or whether LGB and T students have different needs and experiences than heterosexual students (http://edglossary.org/disaggregated-data/)

Discourse: the way people discuss certain topics, the types of stories they tell to give topics meaning (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discourse). In the context of sexual diversity, a "gender/heteronormative" analysis is a type of discourse used by activists, while this is opposed by a "traditional family values" discourse by the Catholic Church and by an international coalition of conservative and religious organizations. On the micro-level an example is calling someone "normal", which can be part of a heteronormative discourse. Another example are suggestions to use proper pronouns for transgender people which can be seen as a strategy to challenge traditional gender discourse.

Discreditable identity: an identity that is not directly visible and is there fore not immediately discredited. Only when the bear of the stigma reveals their identity, the become discredited. Black people, people with visible handicaps and visible cultural minorities have a discredited stigma. LGBTI people and people with invisible handicaps have a discreditable stigma. Discreditable stigma’s have different effect and impact as discredited stigma. Especially the fear of revelation plays and important role, which makes combating discrimination of discreditable identities different.

Emancipation: a set of various efforts to procuring economic and social rights, political rights or equality, often for a specifically disenfranchised group.

Gay: male-identified person who defines himself as attracted to another male-expressed person

Gillick competence: A term used in medical law to decide whether a child (under 16 years of age) is able to consent to their own medical treatment, without the need for parental permission or knowledge.

Heteronormative: the conceptualization of an ideal society with a strict division between male and female roles, the assumption that everybody is heterosexual until proven otherwise, where men marry women in order to procreate, to maintain a traditional family in which the male dominates the female, children are owned by their parents, and expression of other feelings or values are rejected

Heterosexual: person who defines as attracted only to a person who expresses as the other sex

Innovators: people who are always interested in trying out news things and who guide new innovations (see “Diffusion of innovations” by Everett Rogers)

Intersectionality, intersectional perspective: working from the realization that systems of oppression, domination, or discrimination work differently when people have different and often overlapping (“intersecting”) social identities (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersectionality)

Intersex, intersex condition: intersex individuals are born with sex characteristics (such as
chromosomes, genitals, and/or hormonal structure) that do not belong strictly to male or female categories, or that belong to both at the same time. Intersex people may not consider their condition to be part of their core identity and therefore prefer to label themselves as "having an intersex condition" rather than "being an intersex person"

Laggards: people who feel change as threatening and who will resist any form of innovation (see “Diffusion of innovations” by Everett Rogers)

Lesbian: female-identified person who defines herself as attracted to another female-expressed person

LGBT or LGBTI or LGBTIQ: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, or the same and Intersexual , or the same and Queer . Letters can vary according to priority given to anti-discrimination

Mainstreaming: the structural integration of an issue (like gender or sexual diversity) in mainstream rules, organizations and budgets

Mainstream organizations: regular education organizations, like schools, institutes for curriculum development, teacher training institutions, educational publishing houses, manufacturers of exams, trade unions, national federations of teachers in different subjects, associations of school counselors/psychologists etc.

Minority stress: discriminatory or marginalizing stress that is of a low intensity, but when it is sustained over a longer time, can lead to negative consequences like internalized homophobia and burn-out

Modern homophobia/ LGBT-phobia/negativity: homo-, lesbian, bi- and trans-negative behavior that expresses itself mainly through social distance. "Modern" LGBT- phobic people may state they are not phobic, but they prefer their child not to be LGBT and they prefer not to associate with LGBT, especially not when they do not conform to heteronormative standards. Some peer educators use words like "sham tolerance", "fake tolerance" or "lack of acceptance" rather than "modern LGBT-phobia".

MSM: men who have sex with men

Outing: revealing someone (homo/bisexual) orientation with their permission, often against their will. Outing is sometimes used as a strategy to fight politicians who are homo/bisexual but who do not support LGBTI rights or even oppose such rights.

Pansexual: person whose romantic and/or sexual attraction towards others is not limited by sex or gender.

Preference: evaluative judgment of a person of liking or disliking someone or something. In some countries LGB prefer to refer to sexual "preference" rather to "orientation" to denote that expression of sexual feeling is a choice, while in other countries fear using "preference" will link into the conservative discourse that LGB sexual feelings can or should be changed.

PSHE: Personal Social Health Education

Queer: to reject specific labels of romantic orientation, sexual orientation and/or gender identity. Although the word originally was used for “weird” and as a slur, it was reclaimed in the late 80s by people who wanted to radically get rid of labels. Nowadays so many people use it, it does not have such a radical connotation nay more. Many people use it almost as a synonym for gay, lesbian or bisexual.

Questioning: exploring your own sexual orientation and/or gender identity.

Receiver-oriented: interventions and strategies that start from the perceptions and needs of the targeted audience. For example: a teacher training focusing on how to discuss controversial issues in class is more receiver-oriented than a training focusing on showing why LGBT people are discriminated (=sender-oriented).

Sapiosexual: A person who is sexually attracted to intelligence or the human mind before appearance.

Sender-oriented: interventions and strategies that start from the perceptions and needs of the campaigning organization.

Sexual: emotional and/or physical attraction so someone or behavior

Sexual diversity: all variations of sexual attraction and gender expression

SOGI(E): Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (and their Expression). Acronym used in international politics when referring to human rights aspects rather than to classifications of people.

SOGIESC: sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression or their sex
characteristics

SRE: Sex and Relationships Education

SRH(E): Sexual and Reproductive Health (Education)

SSA: same-sex attracted, a term sometimes used for young people and which includes young people not having sex (yet)

STI: Sexually Transmitted Infections. More correct term than Sexual Transmitted Diseases (STD) because not all infections immediately cause illness.

STD: Sexually Transmitted Diseases

Stigma-compensation: LGBT students who try to perform extraordinary well to compensate for stigmatizing behavior or others

Subsidiarity: the principle that social and political issues should be dealt with at the most immediate (or local) level that is consistent with their resolution. For example, most States deny that the UN (or a regional federation like the European Union) has the right to guide the content of education, because education is supposed to be cultural specific and therefore cannot be controlled on an international level. But in States with a decentralized school, the subsidiarity principle is also called in to refer antibullying policy or diversity policy to the level of schools rather than making mandatory guidelines on it on the national level.

Traditional homophobia or traditional LGBT-phobia: open rejection of LGBT people and/or same-sex relations and non-binary gender expressions.

Transfer: making sure that the teachers use the learned skills in a training in their school practice and support them to overcome barriers they are going to face when they are back in school

Transgender: umbrella term for people whose sense of gender identity and/or expression differs from society's expectations given their biological sex as assigned at birth

UPR, Universal Periodic Review: a review mechanism of the Human Rights Council (HRC) aimed at improving the human rights situation on the ground of each of the 193 United Nations (UN) Member States. Under this mechanism, the human rights situation of each of the UN Member States is reviewed every 5 years. 42 States are reviewed each year during three Working Group sessions dedicated to 14 States each. These three sessions are usually held in January/February, May/June and October/November. The result of each review is reflected in an “outcome report” listing the recommendations the State under review (SuR) will have to implement before the next review. (https://www.upr-info.org/en/upr-process/what-is-it)

UNESCO Commission: each country has a representation to UNESCO, which is called the UNESCO commission. The UNESCO commission usually as representatives of both the ministries of education and foreign affairs. In most countries the UNESCO commission also has a staff, which manages the selection of locally implemented UNESCO projects, like selecting schools may carry the label "UNESCO affiliated school".

WSW: women attracted to women