Stories of people exploring gender boundaries have been increasingly popular in the media over the past few years. From reality TV to hometown politics, trans folks are on the public radar. From this media outpouring you may have noticed that there's a whole alphabet soup of lingo related to gender bending. You may also have scratched your head wondering what the heck some of the jargon means, or which term properly describes your feminine coworker who enjoys dressing as a woman at your office holiday parties. To settle your confusion, I've compiled a glossary of terms to help you keep up when you find yourself in a conversation about gender bending.
- Cisgender: what you are if the body you were born with and your gender presentation (clothes, mannerisms, etc) are aligned. In science something is "cis" if it stays the same and "trans" if it changes state.
- Transgender: an umbrella term covering everyone who doesn't fit into the (rather small, if you think about it) cisgender box. This includes all of the below terms.
This article appears in Dec 9-15, 2010.