What Does THAT Mean?
In the spirit of radical welcome and the belovedness of ALL, here are some of the terms we use here at Hadwen Park Church:
LGBTQIA+ or LGBTQ+: Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, asexual/agender, and evolving gender identities and sexual orientations not included in this acronym. An umbrella term.
Sexual Orientation: the emotional, romantic, sexual, or affectional attraction to other people. A person’s sexual orientation can be constant and can also be fluid or change over a lifetime. Sexual orientations include (but aren’t limited to) lesbian, bisexual (attraction to more than one gender), gay, single-gender-loving (SGL), heterosexual, asexual, and pansexual (attraction to people of all genders).
Gender Expression: How a person presents their gender identity to the world (which may or may not match their gender identity).
Gender Identity: A person’s internal sense of gender. This may or may not match the sex the person was assigned at birth. A person’s gender identity can be constant and can also change over a lifetime.
Sex/Sex Assigned at Birth: This is a medically constructed categorization based on biology (or the assumption of biology).
Intersex: An umbrella term to describe a range of natural body variations that do not fit neatly into conventional definitions of male or female. Intersex variations may include, but are not limited to, variations in chromosome compositions, hormone concentrations, and external and internal characteristics.
Trans/Transgender: This term can either be an umbrella term to describe gender diverse people or as an adjective describing a person whose gender identity does not match their sex assigned at birth.
Gender Diverse: An umbrella term that includes trans and non-binary people and those who feel they have no gender, fluid gender, or other genders.
Non-Binary: An adjective describing a person whose gender identity does not fall within the binary of traditional male or female gender identities. This is different than a transgender identity. A person can be non-binary AND trans, non-binary and NOT trans, and also trans and NOT non-binary.
Cisgender (or Cis): Adjective describing a person whose gender identity matches the sex that was assigned to them at birth.