Glossary

Alliances
Alliances are relationships with people or institutions with shared values around gender equity that can help you build your ability to contribute to gender equity work.

Ally
An ally is to be a person who supports someone with less power or privilege than yourself in a moment or situation where they are being discriminated against or unfairly treated. Allies support and advocate for people or marginalised and priority communities but do not speak for them.

Applying a Gender Lens
Applying a gender lens means carefully and deliberately examining all the potential gender implications of a situation and considering what could be done to make things fairer and more equitable.

AFAB/AMAB:
An acronym for binary sex that is assigned or presumed Female/Male at Birth.
AFAB: Assigned female at birth.
AMAB: Assigned male at birth.

Aromantic (Aro)
Refers to individuals who do not experience romantic attraction. Aromantic individuals may or may not identify as asexual.

Asexual (Ace)
Someone who has little or no sexual attraction to other people.

Barriers
Barriers include intended or unintended obstacles to undertaking gender equity activities, such as low staff interest or buy-in, lack of leadership commitment, and no additional resourcing to undertake activities.

Bias
Bias refers to the beliefs and values gained from family, culture and a lifetime of experiences that heavily influence how one views and evaluates both self and others.

Bisexual (Bi)
Described as an attraction to someone of the same gender and other genders. Everyone’s experience is a little different, and bi doesn’t necessarily mean being attracted to only two genders.

Brotherboy
Term used for trans people within some Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander communities. How the words Sistergirl and Brotherboy are used can differ between locations, countries and nations. Sistergirls and Brotherboys have distinct cultural identities and roles. Brotherboys are Indigenous people assigned female at birth but are a man or have a male spirit.

Bullying
Bullying is a type of repeated behaviour committed against a person or group, with the intention of causing distress and risk to their wellbeing.

Cisgender (Cis)
Someone who is not transgender or gender diverse, and who identifies with the sex they were assigned by doctors at birth. Sometimes written as ‘cis’ for short, the term comes from Latin meaning ‘on the same side as’ and is used in contrast with ‘trans’ meaning ‘on the other side of’.

Cisgenderism
Where something is based on a discriminatory social or structural view that positions (either intentionally or otherwise) the trans experience as either not existing or as something to be pathologised. Cisgenderism believes that gender identity is determined at birth and is a fixed and innate identity that is based on sex characteristics (or ‘biology’) and that only binary (male or female) identities are valid and real.

Cisnormativity
Assumes that everyone is cisgender and that all people will continue to identify with the gender they were assigned at birth. Cisnormativity erases the existence of trans people.

Dead Name
An informal way to describe the former name a person no longer uses because it does not align with their current experience in the world or their gender. Some people may experience distress when this name is used.

Direct Discrimination
Direct discrimination happens when a person or a group of people is treated less favourably than another person or group because of their background or certain personal characteristics.

Discrimination
Treating someone terribly, or less than equal, because of something about their identity. For instance, a school not allowing you to wear the uniform that aligns with your gender identity. Discrimination due to sexuality or gender identity is nearly always illegal in Australia.

Duty of Care
Duty of care is the legal responsibility that everyone has to take reasonable care not to cause harm to another person.

Dysphoria
The distress or unease sometimes experienced from being misgendered and/or when someone’s gender and body personally don’t feel connected or congruent. Many trans people do not experience gender dysphoria at all and, if they do, they may cease with access to gender affirming healthcare and/or peer support. With or without the presence of gender dysphoria, being trans is not a mental illness. Gender dysphoria does not equal being transgender.

Endosex
A term used to describe people whose innate sex characteristics meet medical and conventional understandings of male and female bodies.

Feminism
Feminism can be defined as the belief in the right of all people to political, economic, personal and social equality, regardless of their sex, gender or gender identity.

Gap Analysis
A gap analysis is a comparison of actual performance with potential performance.

Gay
Most commonly used to described someone who is attracted to someone of the same identified gender.

Gender
Gender is the socially constructed characteristics of women and men, including norms, roles and relationships of and between groups of women and men. It varies from society to society and can be changed.

Gender Accommodation
Gender accommodation seeks to respond to the problems that arise from gender inequities but doesn’t attempt to challenge the source of the problem – the unequal gender norms, practices and structures themselves.

Gender Affirmation
The personal process or processes a trans person determines is right for them in order to live as their defined gender and so society recognises this. This may involve social, medical and/or legal steps that affirm a person’s gender. A trans person who hasn’t medically or legally affirmed their gender is no less the man, woman or non-binary person they’ve always been. A person’s circumstances may inhibit their access to steps they want to take to affirm their gender.

Gender Assessment
Gender Assessment is a process you can undertake to review and analyse specific areas of a workplace using a gender lens. This involves collecting gender statistics such as sex-disaggregated data to understand gender differences.

Gender Bias
Gender bias is the inclination towards or prejudice against one gender and impacts everyone on that gender spectrum.

Gender Champions
Gender champions are existing gender equity advocates who are positioned to lead or promote change and reforms.

Gender Diverse
Describes a person who feels that their gender identity does not fit into the categories associated with their assigned sex. For example, someone who is raised as a girl may feel as though the categories of female/feminine are restrictive or don’t apply to them. Questioning how gender stereotypes relate to you is normal – and some people identify as genders other than male or female.

Gender Equality
Gender equality is a human right and an important social justice goal. It refers to the desired outcome of reaching equal participation, value, access and opportunities for all people, regardless of their sex, gender or gender identity.

Gender Equity
Gender equity refers to the provision of fairness and justice in the distribution of rights and opportunities between people, regardless of their sex, gender or gender identity.

Gender Equity Policy and Practice
Gender equity policy and practice is the recommended course of action for an employer to address gender inequities in the workplace.

Gender Equity Values
Gender equity values are values that align with participatory and inclusive empowerment processes that recognise universal human rights. Gender equity values challenge other values that support inequitable treatment and unequal outcomes for women, men and gender diverse people.

Gender Equity Work
Gender equity work includes actions or initiatives that address the impacts of the unfair distribution of power, rights and opportunities based on sex, gender or gender identity.

Gender Exploitation
Gender exploitation refers to situations when gender is ignored or unequal gender norms, practices and structures are actively drawn on, thereby reinforcing them.

Gender Expression
Refers to how a person chooses to publicly express or present their gender. This can include behaviour and outward appearance, including clothing, hair, make-up, body language and voice. Western expectations of gender expression are based on a binary of men as masculine and women as feminine but many people do not fit into binary gender expressions.

Gender Fluid
A term used to describe a person with a non-static shifting or changing gender.

Gender Identity
One’s sense of whether they are a man, woman, non-binary, agender, genderqueer, genderfluid, or a combination of one or more of these definitions. Gender identity is how a person views their own gender status, regardless of the sex they were assigned at birth. It includes a spectrum of identities and self-expression including woman, man, transgender, gender diverse and non-binary.

Gender Insensitive
Gender insensitive is something that ignores gender norms, roles and relations and the differences in opportunities and resource allocation for women, men and gender diverse people. As a result it often reinforces gender discrimination.

Gender Norms
Gender norms are a set of dominant beliefs and rules of conduct, which are determined by a society or social group in relation to the types of roles, interests, behaviours and contributions expected from girls, boys, women and men. Norms include the ideas, values or beliefs regarding gender that are common or dominant in a society or community and include culturally and socially influenced attitudes and gender stereotypes.

Gender Pay Gap
Gender pay gap is the difference between women’s and men’s average weekly full-time equivalent earnings, expressed as a percentage of men’s earnings.

Gender Practices
Gender practices are the everyday practices, processes and behaviours undertaken at different levels that reinforce and perpetuate established gender norms and structures.

Genderqueer
A gender identity that does not conform to traditional gender norms and may be expressed as other than woman or man or both man and woman, including gender neutral and androgynous.

Gender Questioning
Not necessarily an identity but sometimes used in reference to a person who is unsure which gender, if any, they identify with.

Gender Sensitive
Gender sensitive is something that considers gender norms, practices and structures but does not address structural inequality and power imbalances.

Gender Specific
Gender specific is something that considers how gender norms, practices and structures affect access and control of resources. It considers women’s and men’s specific needs and aims to target a group to meet that need.

Gender Structures
Gender structures are the formal processes or laws that reinforce or perpetuate unequal access and distribution of economic, political and social power between women, men and gender diverse people. This structural inequality both underpins and perpetuates gender norms and practices.

Gender Transformative
Gender transformative is about addressing the causes of gender-based inequalities with the aim of fostering change in the power relationships between women, men and gender diverse people.

Gender Unequal
Gender unequal is something that perpetuates gender inequality by reinforcing norms, roles and relations that privilege one gender over the other and result in one gender enjoying more rights or opportunities than the other.

Gender-disaggregated Data
Gender-disaggregated data includes statistics and information that is collected and analysed separately for different categories of gender identity e.g. woman, man and gender diverse. It may even include a further breakdown including transgender, gender fluid and non-binary groupings.

Gender-inclusive Communication
Gender-inclusive communication is gender equality and inclusion demonstrated through language, images and sounds.

Heteronormativity
The view that heterosexual relationships are the natural and normal expression of sexual orientation and relationships. This is an extension of cisgenderism, which is a discriminatory social structure that positions cis and binary genders as the only real or valid experiences of gender.

Heterosexism
Describes a social system that privileges heteronormative beliefs, values and practice. Heterosexism provides the social backdrop for homophobic and transphobic prejudices, violence and discrimination against people with non-heteronormative sexualities, gender identities and intersex varieties.

Heterosexual
The romantic, physical or sexual attraction to someone who is of the opposite sex. Term is most commonly used in society when describing romantic attraction between cisgender men and cisgender women.

Homonormativity
A term that describes the privileging of certain people or relationships within the queer community (usually cisgender, white, gay men). This term also refers to the assumption that LGBTIQA+ people will conform to mainstream, heterosexual culture; for example, by adopting the idea that monogamy, marriage and having children is a natural and normal relationship progression.

Homophobia
Refers to negative beliefs, prejudices, stereotypes and fears that exist towards same-sex attracted people. It can range from the use of offensive language to bullying, abuse and physical violence; and can include systemic barriers, such as being denied housing or being fired due to a person’s sexual orientation.

Homosexual
This is an older word meaning attracted to the same gender or gay. Nowadays, this term is used less frequently, and shouldn’t be used to describe someone unless they use it to describe themselves first.

Inclusive Language
Inclusive language can be defined as language that is respectful, accurate and relevant to everyone involved in the communication.

Inclusivity
Inclusivity and inclusion are about empowering access to opportunity, addressing structural inequalities, tackling unconscious bias and developing inclusive organisations (State Government of Victoria, 2018).

Indirect Discrimination
Indirect discrimination occurs where a policy or practice is the same for everyone but has an unfair effect on people who share a particular attribute.

Intersectional Approach
Intersectional approach means:

• Going beyond explanations or solutions that use single categories to describe people or issues and acknowledging that people are shaped by many factors interacting together.
• Identifying and transforming systems of power and privilege that negatively shape individual outcomes, building coalitions and working towards social equity.
• Actively reflecting on and addressing each individual’s own relationship to power and privilege as bystanders, researchers, workers or advocates.
• Understanding that there is no fixed hierarchy of disadvantage and that people may experience or understand the ways their lives are impacted by power or oppression differently.
• Recognising that people can experience privilege and oppression simultaneously, depending on the specific context or situation.
• Centring marginalised experiences, voices and leadership, wherever possible.
  (Adapted from Multicultural Centre for Women’s Health (Chen, 2017))

Intersectional Feminism
Intersectional feminism is a form of feminism that asserts that gender and other forms of discrimination and how they interact must be identified and addressed to achieve equality.

Intersectionality
Intersectionality recognises that gender ‘intersects’, or crosses over, with other social identities including (but not limited to) Indigeneity, ethnicity, age, religion, race, class, sexual orientation and disability. This creates interdependent systems of discrimination and privilege for either an individual or a group and needs to be acknowledged and addressed.

Intersex
An umbrella term that refers to individuals who have anatomical, chromosomal and hormonal characteristics that differ from medical and conventional understandings of male and female bodies. There are at least 40 different variations that may be apparent at different life stages or may remain unknown to the individual and their medical practitioners. Some people with an intersex variation are LGBTQ, many are heterosexual and most are cisgender.

Misgendering
An occurrence where a person is described or addressed using language that does not match their gender identity (Rainbow Health Australia, 2016). This can include the incorrect use of pronouns (she/he/they), familial titles (dad, sister, uncle, niece) and, at times, other words that traditionally have gendered applications (pretty, handsome, etc.).

Non-Binary
An umbrella term for gender identities that sit outside of, across or between the spectrum of the male and female binary. A non-binary person might identify as gender fluid, trans masculine, trans feminine or could be agender (without a feeling of having any gender or having neutral feelings about gender).

Non-Judgemental
Being non-judgemental means, you do not make assumptions about someone based on their personal standards, beliefs, values, their appearance or other physical characteristics. Being non-judgemental requires an empathic approach to your work, putting aside your individual beliefs and values in order to understand other people’s experiences.

Pansexual
Describes the sexual, romantic or emotional attraction towards people regardless of their sex or gender identity.

PoC
Acronym standing for Person of Colour. Queer people of colour often use the acronym QTIPOC.

Queer
A term used to describe a range of sexual orientations and gender identities. Although once used as a derogatory term and still considered derogatory by many older LGBTIQA+ people, the term queer now encapsulates political ideas of resistance to heteronormativity and homonormativity and is often used as an umbrella term to describe the full range of LGBTIQA+ identities.

Queer Capitalism (Pink-washing)
The trend in corporations to publicly support LGBTIQ+ initiatives (especially during Mardi Gras or Pride Month) with no actual direct support of the community.

Questioning (Unsure)
Most people will question their sexual or gender identity at some point throughout their life. It can be confusing stuff, but it’s also pretty normal.

QTIPoC
Describes a Queer, Trans, Intersex Person of Colour.

Resistance
Resistance is the pushing back against progressive programs and initiatives such as those promoting gender equity. It can range from passive blocking techniques which seek to maintain the status quo, to strategies which aim to minimise or co-opt change efforts, to active, aggressive opposition in order to restore the old order.

Risk
Risk is an uncertain condition or event which, if it occurs, will have a negative impact on the implementation of the gender equity strategy.

Sex (Sex Assigned at Birth)
Sex is the different biological and physiological characteristics of females, males and intersex people and includes reproductive organs, chromosomes and hormones. Sex is not always binary, as some people may be born with an intersex variation, and anatomical and hormonal characteristics can change over a life span.

Sex Characteristics
A term used to refer to physical parts of the body that are related to body development, regulation and reproductive systems. Primary sex characteristics are gonads, chromosomes, genitals and hormones. Secondary sex characteristics emerge at puberty and can include the development of breast tissue, voice pitch, facial and pubic hair, etc.

Sex Disaggregated Data
Sex disaggregated data is data that is disaggregated and analysed along the lines of intersecting factors of privilege and oppression, such as sex, gender, age, sexual orientation, religion, disability, indigeneity, ethnicity, age and socio-economic status.

Sex Discrimination
Sex discrimination is when a person is treated less favourably than a person of the opposite sex would be treated in the same or similar circumstances.

Sexual Harassment
Sexual harassment is defined as any “unwelcome sexual behaviour, which could be expected to make a person feel offended, humiliated or intimidated” (Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission, n.d.).

Sexual Orientation
Refers to an individual’s sexual and romantic attraction to another person. This can include, but is not limited to, heterosexual, lesbian, gay, bisexual and asexual. It is important to note, however, that these are just a handful of sexual orientations – the reality is that there are an infinite number of ways in which someone might define their sexuality. Further, people can identify with a sexuality or sexual orientation regardless of their sexual or romantic experiences. Some people may identify as sexually fluid; that is, their sexuality is not fixed to any one identity.

Sexuality
Sexuality describes who you are attracted to physically and romantically. It’s totally different to your gender identity, although sometimes people are confused about this.

Sistergirl
Term used for trans people within some Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander communities. How the words Sistergirl and Brotherboy are used can differ between locations, countries and nations. Sistergirls and Brotherboys have distinct cultural identities and roles. Sistergirls are Indigenous people assigned male at birth but who live their lives as women, including taking on traditional cultural female practices.

Stereotype
A stereotype is defined as a widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing.

Tokenism
Making a purely symbolic effort to do a particular thing, especially by recruiting a small number of people from under-represented groups in order to give the appearance of sexual or racial equality within a workforce.

Transgender (Trans)
Umbrella terms used to refer to people whose assigned sex at birth does not match their gender identity. Trans people may choose to live their lives with or without modifying their body, appearance or legal status, and with or without medical treatment and surgery. Trans people may use a variety of terms to describe themselves including but not limited to: man, woman, trans woman, trans man, non-binary, agender, genderqueer, genderfluid, trans guy, trans masculine/masc, trans feminine/femme. Trans people may also use a variety of different pronouns.

Trans people have the same range of sexual orientations as the rest of the population. Trans people’s sexual orientation is referred to in reference to their gender identity, rather than their sex. For example, a woman may identify as lesbian whether she was assigned female or male at birth.

Transphobia
Used to describe a whole range of negative feelings or behaviours towards anyone who is gender diverse or transgender people, their desires and/or behaviours, that can lead to discriminatory actions or abuse.

Unconscious Bias
Unconscious bias refers to a bias that you are unaware of, and which happens outside of your control.

Values
Values are the basic and fundamental beliefs that every person holds. These beliefs guide an individual’s behaviour and attitudes. They can be personal, cultural, or professional in nature.

Victimisation
Victimisation happens when a person is treated unfairly because they make a complaint of discrimination or support another person who made a complaint.

Workplace Values
Workplace values are the ethical principles that underpin work within an organisation and include employee code of conduct, standards and expected behaviours in the workplace.