LGBT+ history month: An A-Z guide

This

was written by

Zoe

Since its launch in the  UK in 2005, the LGBTQIA+ education charity Schools OUT UK stated that LGBT+ History Month is about “claiming our past”, “celebrating our present”, and “creating our future”.  It’s also used to promote LGBTQIA+ education in the country.

As part of helping educate people about LGBTQIA+ history, Schools Out UK provides free resources to support people who would like to celebrate. Other organisations like Stonewall and Mermaids offer free resources as well.

This guide explores a range of topics to help celebrate LGBTQIA+ history in an inclusive, educational, inspirational way and promotes real allyship. When able to, teachers should aim to celebrate past LGBT+ History Month, trying to incorporate LGBTQIA+ education into everyday lessons. Employers should aim to do the same, and ensure that they practice inclusivity with the LGBTQIA+ community every day. 

Whether you’re an employer or employee, teacher or student, ally or part of the LGBTQIA+ community, this resource includes articles, books, podcasts, film and TV recommendations that will help guide you on your journey to having a better understanding of LGBTQIA+ communities.

As language is always evolving and many of the definitions below are working definitions prone to change, every LGBT+ History Month, we’ll update this glossary to ensure that we accurately represent the language used in the LGBTQIA+ community. 

Glossary and resources

Asexual

Asexuality refers to a person who does not experience sexual attraction. But some asexual people do experience romantic attraction, while others do not. In some cases, asexual people might use terms like lesbian, gay, bisexual [bi], heterosexual [straight] and queer in conjunction with asexual to describe the direction of their romantic attraction.

Bi [sexual and/or romantic]

Bi is an umbrella term used to describe a romantic and/or sexual orientation towards more than one gender. When someone is attracted to more than one gender in a romantic way, they may describe themselves as bi or biromantic. If they are attracted to more than one gender in a sexual way, they might describe themselves as bi or bisexual. Bi people may use a range of terms including, but not limited to, bisexual, pan, queer, and some other non-monosexual and non-monoromantic identities. 

Biological sex  [Assigned Sex] / Assigned Sex at Birth [ASAB]

Biological sex is a label you’re given at birth based on medical factors, including your hormones, chromosomes and genitals. Most people are either assigned male or female, and this is what is put on their birth certificate. 

More people are preferring to use the term ‘assigned sex at birth’ as opposed to biological sex. This is because the latter doesn’t fully capture the complex biological, anatomical, and chromosomal variations that can occur. Having only two options [biological male or biological female] might not describe what’s going on inside a person’s body.
The term assigned sex acknowledges that someone [often a doctor] is making a decision for someone else.

Biphobia

Biphobia describes the prejudice, fear or hatred directed towards bi people. It can include making jokes or comments based on myths and stereotypes that seek to undermine the legitimacy of bi identity and can be targeted towards people who are bi or people who are perceived as bi. 

Blockers / Hormone blockers / Puberty blockers

Blockers, hormone blockers or puberty blockers are a type of medication which temporarily stops the production of the natural hormones which progress puberty. They are recognised by the NHS [National Health Service] Gender Identity Development Service [GIDS] and a body of international research to be a physically reversible intervention: if the young person stops taking the blocker, their body will begin developing as it would have done without medical intervention. You can read more about this on the NHS website. 

Butch

The term butch refers to people, often lesbians, bi or queer, who express themselves as stereotypically masculine. 

Cisgender / Cis

Cisgender or cis refers to someone who identifies and feels comfortable with the sex they were assigned at birth. 

Coming out

Coming out is when a person tells someone for the first time about their orientation and/or gender identity.

Deadnaming 

Deadnaming describes the action of calling someone by their birth name after they have changed their name. This term is more often associated with transgender people who have changed their name as part of their transition. Although specifically to do with someone’s name, this can negatively impact someone who is experiencing gender dysphoria, especially if their name change is a crucial part of their identity. 

Demi [sexual or romantic]

Demi is an umbrella term used to describe people who may only feel sexually or romantically attracted to people with whom they have formed an emotional bond. People may also use the following terms, gay, bi, lesbian, straight and queer, in conjunction with demi to explain the direction of their romantic and/or sexual attraction as they feel it.

Femme

Femme is a term used in the LGBTQIA+ community as an adjective to describe someone who expresses themselves in a typically feminine way. Other identities fall under femme, including ‘low femme’, ‘high femme’, and ‘hard femme’. 

Gay

Gay refers to a man who has a romantic and/or sexual orientation towards men. Gay is also a generic term for lesbian and gay sexuality, meaning some women may prefer to use the term gay, as opposed to lesbian, when referring to their own same-sex romantic and/or sexual orientation. 

Gender

Gender is often described using binary terms, such as masculinity and femininity. Much like race, gender is seen as a social construct as it has been culturally determined. Some people still assume gender to be determined by the sex you were assigned at birth. 

Gender dysphoria / Gender euphoria

Gender dysphoria is a term that describes a sense of unease that a person may have because of a mismatch between the sex they were assigned at birth and their gender identity.

Gender euphoria describes a sense of ease that a person who is experiencing gender dysphoria may feel when they present as the gender they identify with and/or by using their preferred pronouns. 

Gender expression

Gender expression is when a person presents as the gender they identify with. This can include behaviour and/or outward appearance such as clothes, hair, make-up, body language and/or voice.

Gender identity

Gender identity refers to how a person feels about their gender and how they choose to express it, in regards to femininity, masculinity and/or neither.

Heterosexual [Straight, Hetero]

Heterosexual is a term used to describe a person who has a romantic and/or sexual attraction to the opposite sex.

Heteronormative

Heteronormativity is what makes heterosexuality seem ordinary, what is natural and what is ideal. It involves the assumption that everyone is ‘naturally’ heterosexual and that heterosexuality is what people should strive for. 

Homosexual

Homosexual is considered to be a more medical term for describing someone who has a romantic and/or sexual attraction towards someone of the same gender. Nowadays, it’s more common to use the term ‘gay.’

Homophobia

Homophobia refers to the fear, dislike or hatred of someone based on prejudice or negative attitudes, beliefs or views about lesbian, gay or bi people. This can also include people perceived as lesbian, gay, or bi. 

Intersex

Intersex is a  term used to describe people who may have biological attributes of both sexes whose biological attributes do not fit with societal assumptions about what constitutes male or female. Intersex people may identify as male or female, or non-binary. Intersex people may or may not fall under the LGBTQ+ umbrella. 

Kiki

Kiki is a slang term which started in gay American social culture and is currently used to describe a gathering of friends for the purpose of gossiping and chit-chat. It was made famous by the Scissor Sisters in their song “Let’s Have a Kiki.”

Lesbian

Lesbian refers to a woman who has a romantic and/or sexual orientation towards women. Some non-binary people may also identify with this term.

Lesbophobia

The fear or dislike of someone because they are perceived as a lesbian.​

LGBTQIA+ 

The LGBTQIA+ acronym stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, asexual, amongst other sexualities, romantic attractions and gender identities that are not deemed heterosexual, heteronormative or binary.

Misgender / Mispronoun

Misgender and mispronoun refer to when someone uses a pronoun or other language which is different to someone’s way of describing themselves. People sometimes use this as a tool to undermine someone’s identity or refuse to recognise their identity.

Monosexual / Monoromantic

Monosexuality or monoromanticism describes the romantic or sexual attraction to members of one sex or gender only. However, sometimes it is used to describe the belief that heterosexuality and/or homosexuality are more legitimate sexual orientations than bisexual or other non-monosexual orientations. This term is considered derogatory towards bi, pan, demi and other sexual orientations which don’t prescribe to being attracted to one sex or gender only.

Non-binary

Non-binary is an umbrella term for people whose gender identity doesn’t sit comfortably with the binary gender identities of ‘man’ or ‘woman’. Non-binary identities are varied and can include people who identify with some aspects of binary identities while others reject them entirely. Non-binary identities are also not set in stone, and non-binary people may still choose to go by the pronouns she/her, he/him, she/them, he/them or all pronouns. 

Orientation

Orientation is an umbrella term describing a person’s attraction to other people. Whether it’s sexual [sexual orientation] or romantic [romantic orientation]. These terms refer to a person’s sense of identity based on their attractions, or lack thereof.

Outed

The term outed refers to the action of someone making someone’s sexual and/or romantic orientation or gender identity and/or sex public without their consent.

Pan [sexual or romantic]

The term pan [pansexual and/or panromantic] refers to someone whose sexual and/or romantic orientation isn’t based on sex and gender.

Passing

If someone is assumed, at a glance, to be a cisgender man or woman.

In some circles, this is considered derogatory as ‘passing’ is sometimes regarded as something a trans person should aspire to and assumes that being cisgender or looking cisgender is ideal.

Passing, in anti-racist language terms, is used if someone assumes a person to be white when they’re racialised. However, at Spark Insights, we use the term “assumed” as this puts the onus on the person making the assumption rather than the person whose identity is being assumed. 

QTIPOC

QTIPOC is the acronym for queer, trans, intersex and people of colour [racialised people]. 

Queer / Queer Theory

Queer is sometimes used as an umbrella term for LGBTQIA+, but some also see it as a political identity that is affiliated with left-wing, radical, anti-mainstream commercialisation of LGBTQIA+ groups. The term ‘Queer’ is also used to mean an attraction to different genders, including your own but is not limited to binary gendered sexualities, such as lesbian or gay, women or men.

Although stemming from historically derogatory roots, it has since been reclaimed on a wide scale. However, not all members of the LGBTQIA+ community have embraced this term.

Queer theory is an academic theory that questions socially established norms and challenges binary and heteronormative thinking. The term has grown out of radical Black movements, feminism, post-structuralist theory, gay, lesbian and trans movements, AIDS activism, postcolonialism and others. 

Questioning

Questioning describes the process of exploring your own sexual orientation and/or gender identity.

Rainbow capitalism

Rainbow capitalism [also called pink capitalism, homo-capitalism or gay capitalism] is the involvement of capitalism and consumerism in the LGBTQIA+ movement.

Rainbow racism

Rainbow racism refers to the racism that takes place in the LGBTQIA+ community.

Sex

Sex is usually based on primary sex characteristics [genitalia] and reproductive functions. The term is often used interchangeably with gender, with some people assuming it to determine whether someone is ‘male’ or ‘female’.

Spectrum

Spectrum is a term used to cover various identities with a root commonality or shared experience.

Transgender [Trans]

Transgender refers to someone whose gender does not identify or align with the sex that they were assigned at birth.

Transexual

In the past transexual was used in a more medical sense to refer to someone whose gender is not the same as, or does not sit comfortably with, the sex they were assigned at birth. 

This term is still used by some and is gaining popularity again in certain LGBTQIA+ circles. However, most people prefer the term trans or transgender. 

Transitioning

Transitioning describes the social, medical or legal process of someone changing their gender presentation and/or expression. May also be referred to as gender reassignment, which is a protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010

Transphobia

Transphobia describes the fear or dislike of someone based on the fact they are trans, including the denial or refusal to accept their gender identity.

Undetectable

HIV medication (antiretroviral treatment, or ART) works by reducing the amount of the virus in the blood to undetectable levels. This means the levels of HIV are so low that the virus cannot be passed on. This is called having an undetectable viral load or being undetectable. You can read more about this on Terrence Higgins Trust’s website. 

This guide was developed by Zoe Daniels (They/Them) to help you become a better ally or advocate of the LGBTQIA+ community.

This article was developed between 2023-2024; at the time of writing, the details about the content and author were accurate. The next revision is scheduled for April 2025.

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