Gender Unit

Sex

The biological distinction between females and males

Sexual Orientation

A person's sexual identity in relation to the gender to which they are attracted; the fact of being heterosexual, homosexual, or bisexual.

Transsexual

An individual who undergoes sex reassignment surgery and hormone treatments

Transgender

An umbrella term describing people whose gender identity or expression differs from that associated with their birth sex

Feminism

The belief that women should have economic, political, and social equality with men

Masculinity

A national culture attribute that describes the extent to which the culture favors traditional masculine work roles of achievement, power, and control. Societal values are characterized by assertiveness.

Emasculate

To deprive of strength

Pansexual

A person who experiences sexual, romantic, physical, and/or spiritual attraction for members of ALL gender identities/expressions

Intersectionality

Overlapping of social categories such as race, class, gender as they apply to a given individual or group. Creates interdependent systems of discrimination/disadvantage

Title IX (1972)

Prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in any federally funded education program or activity

Sexism

The ideology that one sex is superior to the other

Pauli Murray (1910-1985)

A founder of NOW. She brought back the popularity of sit-ins and wanted to see the

enforcement of the civil rights act. She had a long history of activism. Wanted to

desegregate University of North Carolina which didn't' work. Attempted to go to

Harvard, would not admit her, not because she was black, but because she was

female. Started to see discrimination between women and blacks was similar. Built a bridge between women movement and civil rights movement.

Bayard Rustin

One of Martin Luther King's aids in which most of his involvement in the movement was kept secret because of his supposed homosexuality. He was very involved in the planning of the March on Washington (1963) introduced King to the ideas of Ghandi.

Non-binary

Gender identities that are not exclusively masculine or feminine

Cis-gender

Individuals whose gender identity corresponds to their biological sex

Asexual

Having no sexual attraction to others

Ally

Someone who is supportive of the LGBTQ community

Gender-Fluid

People who perceive gender as more of a continuum and not limited to two mutually exclusive categories

Gender

The socially constructed roles and characteristics by which a culture defines male and female