Equality Memo: key points for understanding LGBTI+ realities

Student life, Université Paris Cité

Having clear definitions is a key tool in combating discrimination. This Equality Memo provides a shared frame of reference for understanding concepts related to sexual orientations and gender identities.

Gender and gender identity

Gender refers to a person’s sense of belonging to a female, male, non-binary, or other identity. Often mistakenly reduced to biological sex alone, it actually encompasses three distinct and complementary dimensions:

  • Gender identity: the one we feel internally; it is each person’s deeply felt, intimate and personal experience of their gender (I feel like a man, I feel like a woman, I feel like neither, I feel like both, I feel alternately like a woman and a man, or I feel like another gender). This gender identity may or may not coincide with the gender assigned at birth.
  • Gender expression: what, in our attitude or physical appearance, socially identifies us as belonging to one gender or another.
  • Biological sex: the sex characteristics of our body (genitalia, sex chromosomes, etc.). Gender identity and gender expression may be expressed independently of biological sex.

(Source: SOS Homophobie)

Glossary of LGBTI+ and equality-related terms

LGBTQIA+

There are several versions of this acronym, such as LGBT, LGBTI, LGBTQ, LGBTQI+, and others. The acronym LGBTI+ stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, and intersex people. The “+” sign refers to any other community that is part of the diversity of sexual orientations and gender identities not explicitly included in the first letters (Source: DILCRAH)

Homosexuality

Homosexuality is a sexual orientation defined by attraction (emotional, romantic, physical, or sexual) between people of the same gender. (Source: MAG Jeunes LGBT)

Bisexuality

Bisexuality is a sexual orientation, like heterosexuality and homosexuality. A bisexual person may be attracted to people of the same gender as their own and to people of different genders. (Source: MAG Jeunes LGBT)

Trans identity and trans person

A person who lives, or wishes to live, in a gender different from the one assigned to them at birth. This includes anyone who has chosen, or wishes to choose, to transition, whether or not they decide to undergo medical treatment and/or surgery for that purpose. (Source: OUTrans Collective)

Intersex status and intersex person

Intersex people are born with sex characteristics (genital, hormonal, gonadal, or chromosomal) that do not fit typical binary definitions of male or female bodies. The term intersex is used to describe a wide range of natural bodily variations that may develop at any point in life. Intersex people are people whose sexed bodies have been medically invalidated. (Source: Intersex Activist Collective)

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