A

A — The A in LGBTQIA+ is for ASEXUAL, AROMANTIC, and AGENDER. It is not for “ally.”

LGBT+ and the longer LGBTQIA+ are only useful as they group together people who are gender transgressors; they describe a broad shared experience of alienation under cisheteronormativity.

AAVE — Acronym for “African-American Vernacular English.”

The term AAVE itself is debated among Black people because it uses a colonial term for Blackness (“African American”) which many Black people do not identify with.

AAVE is a variety of English spoken by many Black Americans and some Black Canadians. It has its own vocabulary, grammatical structure, and accents. Its roots are in Southern English; it is not derived from West African Pidgin English or Creole languages, though those have parallels with AAVE.

Because AAVE is seen as an inferior vernacular in connection with all the stereotypes of anti-Black racism, AAVE speakers are penalized if they don’t speak Standard English in formal, business, academic, or public settings.

Lots of queer terms (and lots of terms in general) come from AAVE. Black people are often denied credit for creating culture, including language; they’re punished for deviating from whiteness (which is impossible for them to avoid even if they wanted to); and when an aspect of Black culture is deemed the right level of edgy and desirable by whiteness, they’re denied credit for it.

Examples in modern queer culture, which are appropriative when used by non-Black people, include:

• a look, serving looks, serving face

• as fuck, af

• basic

• boi

• drag (as in, “getting dragged”)

• extra

• fierce

• fuckboy

• here for it

• looking like a snack

• mood, a mood

• on point

• read (as in, “read for filth”)

• serving (serving shade, serving looks, serving tea)

• shade

• shook

• tea

• thicc

• thirst

• yaas

• the clapping hand emoji between words

AAVE isn’t just a list of words; it has a tone and a rhythm which is distinct from Standard English.

It’s appropriative and rude for non-Black people to speak AAVE, use AAVE terms, or use the tone or rhythm of AAVE.

ABLEISM — A totalizing system which oppresses disabled people and privileges abled people. Interactions which uphold this system.

Like all oppressions, ableism is both systemic and personal. Disabled people are more likely to suffer violences—physical, sexual, emotional, financial, and medical—and are less likely to be believed about their experiences. Disabled people are barred access to physical spaces which are not made accessible, and face discrimination which denies them socio-economic and political access to opportunities and public life. Ableism intersects with other systems of oppression to further disenfranchise people with multiple marginalized identities: patriarchy, transphobia, classism, fatphobia, white supremacy, homophobia, and agism.

Ableism frames disabled people as a burden, on individuals and society. Crip theory—a critical perspective on disability which uses similar lenses as queer theory and focuses on the liberation of all disabled people—highlights that all bodies are interdependent: none are “independent” or more “dependent” (e.g., on carers).

Ableism stereotypes disabled bodies as being asexual or deviant in their sexuality. Disabled people are patronized and infantilized, which denies them sexual agency; or, they are fetishized, which also denies them their sexual agency as well as their personhood. This not only manifests in discrimination and lack of positive representation, but physical and medical violence like forced sterilization.

Ableist language is that which further entrenches the stigma of disabilities, including stigma around mental health (which many people consider to be disabling). For example, pejorative or hyperbolic use of the words “crazy,” “dumb,” “lame,” “stupid,” and “crippled” is rooted in ableism, even if that is not the conscious intent of the speaker. Ableist language often intersects with other oppressions: dismissing women as “hysterical” is a historical tactic of misogynists to ignore women’s pain.

Disability is a diverse category. Making a space accessible does not just mean installing wheelchair ramps; it means considering and accommodating the needs not only of people in wheelchairs, but people with other mobility disabilities, people with cognitive and developmental disabilities, people with sensory disabilities, and people with chronic pain. Combating ableism means listening to the needs of disabled people and prioritizing their needs instead of centering the feelings (including guilt) of abled people.

ACCOUNTABILITY — A process by which people take responsibility for their harmful actions, and make sincere attempts to mitigate the harm they caused and actively prevent causing future harm.

Accountability processes are difficult to navigate for all parties involved, but the effort is made through the belief that community alternatives to the criminal justice system are worthwhile, especially because marginalized people are likely to be failed by the criminal justice system.

ACE — Short for ASEXUAL.

ACEARO — Short for ASEXUAL and AROMANTIC: someone who experiences neither sexual nor romantic attraction.

The acearo spectrum includes gray asexual and gray-romantic people, or people who fall between asexual and sexual, and aromantic and romantic.

see also: GENDER EXPRESSION; PATRIARCHY

ANDROPHILIA — Attraction to men or masculinity.

Part of an alternative model of sexuality to heterosexual and homosexual which does not make any reference to the subject’s gender and instead focuses on the gender/gender expression of the people they’re attracted to, along with gynephilia and ambiphilia.

see also: SEXUALITY; GYNEPHILIA; AMBIPHILIA

ANTI-BLACK RACISM, ANTI-BLACKNESS — A specific form of racism directed at Black people and Blackness.

Examples of anti-Blackness include: appropriating Black culture and Black liberation struggles; denial of Black identities which are not “simple” (e.g., Afro-Latinx, Afro-Caribbean, or any Black mixed race people); discrimination which positions Blackness as inferior to whiteness or non-Black people of color; institutional white supremacy, which benefits white people and, to a much lesser extent, non-Black people of color, at the expense of Black people; and denial of, and profit from, Black suffering. In short, anti-Blackness is racial injustice suffered by Black people.

In the aftermath of slavery, Blackness is still denied humanity, and by extension human gender and sexuality. To be Black is a priori to be gender non-conforming, because gender is constructed alongside/within white supremacy. Anti-Blackness also manifests as hyper-sexualization, fetishization, and tokenism.

Anti-Blackness is a queer issue and a queer problem. The LGBT+ image is whitewashed, and anti-Black racism is rife in queer communities.

Within and outwith queer communities, Black people and Black communities are falsely assumed to be more homophobic than non-Black people. The assumption that all Black people are monolithic in their attitudes about anything is itself racist, and this particular assumption manifests as erasure of Black queers, and justification for anti-Blackness in the name of queer liberation: that is, a white savior complex wherein white people see fit to educate Black people on queer culture and sensitivity. Blackness is painted as “uncivilized” for any iterations of homophobia while homophobic whiteness is euphemistically called “old fashioned.”

ANTI-SEMITISM — Hostility to, and prejudice against, Jews.

Anti-Semitism is a form of racialized oppression. Many Jews aren’t white; and for white Jews, their whiteness is conditional. Jewishness isn’t itself a race; it is both a religion and an ethnic group, but Jewishness is often racialized as an Other to whiteness. White supremacy targets Muslims and Jews as racialized groups and alleged threats to whiteness.

Anti-Semitism, like all bigotry, intersects with other systems of oppression. Anti-Semitism in the 20th century was closely tied to queerphobia; both Jews and queers were persecuted as undesirables during the Holocaust, along with the disabled, Romani people, ethnic Poles and other Slavs, Soviet citizens, Jehovah’s witnesses, and anarchists and communists. Anti-Semitism was, and still is, a vehicle for policing gender and sexuality: any deviation from white, cisheteronormative gender and family structures is punished. The links between anti-Semitism, homophobia, transphobia, and fascism are deeply entrenched.

Queer Jews exist, though there is practically no positive representation of queer Jews. There is a false assumption that observant Jews are forbidden from being queer, and that religious families are homogeneously queerphobic and will ostracize their queer children.

see also: ISLAMOPHOBIA; RACISM; FASCISM; OTHER

APHOBIA — Discrimination against asexual and aromantic people, particularly the exclusion of asexuals and aromantics from queer communities and discourses.

Aphobia is a particular strand of queerphobia: ace and aro people are at risk for the same violences suffered by other queer people, including discrimination, erasure, abuse, pathologization, and corrective rape.

On top of this, ace and aro people are assumed, by other queer people, to not experience oppression. Therefore asexuals and aromantics are denied entry into queer communities.

Amatonormativity—or the assumption and expectation that everyone seeks romantic love (which is generally, incorrectly, assumed to involve sexual desire by default) and prioritizes romance over other forms of intimacy—fuels aphobia.

Asexuals and aromantics are rendered invisible and their existence is denied.

Stereotypes about asexuals and aromantics are strikingly similar to other queerphobic stereotypes: “It’s a phase,” “You just haven’t met the right person yet,” “You’re making it up for attention,” “You just can’t attract someone of the opposite sex.” Ace and aro people are stereotyped as lonely, reclusive, nerdy, and socially incompetent.

Ace and aro people suffer specific kinds of discrimination based on their sexual and romantic orientations. Denying them access to queerness on the basis that it’s “not the same” is weak, and implies, for example, that gay men and lesbians, don’t have any shared struggle or oppression because they suffer different flavors of homophobic discrimination.

Ace and aro people are definitively queer, because their existence subverts heteronormativity. They eschew the expectations of their assigned gender roles—that they will fall in love with a person of the opposite sex, with whom they will reproduce—and like all queer people, they are punished for that deviance.

ARO — Short for AROMANTIC.

AROMANTIC — Someone who does not experience romantic attraction. Shortened to ARO.

Some aromantics are romance-repulsed, some aren’t. Some aromantics are asexual, some aren’t. Romantic attraction (or lack thereof) does not necessarily inform sexual attraction (or lack thereof).

Aromantic is one of the As in LGBTQIA+, along with asexual and agender. But there is contention about whether aromantic people who are both cisgender and heterosexual are part of the LGBT+ and queer communities.

The symbol for aromantic people is an (aro) arrow.

ASEXUAL, ASEXUALITY — A sexual orientation defined by a lack of sexual attraction. Often shortened to ACE.

Asexuality is an LGBT+ identity; the A in LGBTQIA+ is for asexual, agender, and aromantic. It’s also a valid queer identity. Asexuals are not heterosexual, so they have a valid claim to LGBT+ and queerness. Cisgender hetero-romantic asexuals are still queer, and are not cishet. But, the queer community has a plurality of opinions and this is not consensus.

Asexuality is a form of gender transgression for not fulfilling the sexual aspects of their assigned gender role, which is why it is part of the LGBT+ group. Asexuality is contrary to cisheteronormativity, which implores a (usually/allegedly monogamous) sexual and romantic relationship between a cis man and a cis woman, which follows a particular love-marriage-children trajectory. The discrimination that asexuals (and aromantics) suffer is called “aphobia.”

Asexuals do not always claim queerness, for the same reasons other LGBT+ people might not; plus, queer communities are often hyper-sexualized which, is alienating to aces. Many allosexual queers are rightly loud and proud of their sexualities, and being outspoken about it is subversive; but queer spaces tend to be dominated by cis white gay men, and are not made to be welcoming of asexuals (or people of color, or women, or trans people, or disabled people, or older people, or poor people).

Asexual people may or may not have sex, or masturbate; the term, like other sexualities, is defined not by practice but by (lack of) attraction. Asexuality is not synonymous with “abstinence” or “celibacy.” It also doesn’t mean that asexuals can’t enjoy sex; it means they don’t experience sexual attraction. Some asexuals enjoy sexual activity, and some are sex-repulsed. Arousal is not necessarily attraction; some aces have arousal and some don’t. Lack of arousal is not a medical problem itself, though it can be a symptom of medical conditions. Because of this, asexuals are often pathologized.

There is an asexuality spectrum: allosexual (people who experience sexual attraction), asexual (no sexual attraction), gray asexual (rarely experience sexual attraction), and demisexual (only experience sexual attraction after an emotional bond is formed). Like other kinds of sexual identity, there is a lot of diversity among asexual people. Asexuals don’t all experience sex and romance the same way, and their asexual identity will be informed by their other identities.

Sexual attraction or lack thereof should not be conflated with romantic attraction. Asexuals may or may not experience non-sexual forms of attraction: romantic, platonic, or aesthetic. Asexuals who experience romantic attraction will usually also identify with a sexuality label like “gay,” “straight,” “lesbian,” or “bisexual” to describe their romantic attraction. Sexuality labels only work if they are self-defined; there is no “test” for asexuality. It’s up to individuals to self-define and labels of asexuality should not be coercively applied to people.

Asexuals are just as whole, complete, and capable as everyone else of having fulfilling loving relationships, romantic or otherwise. Asexuals have emotional needs and form emotional bonds.

Asexuality is not a “choice,” the same way being gay or trans isn’t a choice—which is to say, it actually can be a choice, and that would be valid, but generally it’s considered innate. Asexuality as a result of trauma, or doing sex work (“circumstantial asexuality”) is also valid. Discovering “why” someone is queer (including ace) is a bad project which fuels eugenics and does nothing to help queer people. Asexuals don’t need to be cured or “find the right person”; conversion therapy and corrective rape are extremely violent and harmful.

Asexuals suffer queerphobic discrimination and ace-specific discrimination: for example, the assumption that sexual attraction is an inherent part of romance or being human. In heteronormative culture, asexuals are made to feel broken or lacking. Asexuality is infantilized; asexuals are coded as immature because sexual attraction is part of the heteronormative narrative of growing up. Asexuals are assumed to be cold or uncaring because sex is hailed as the ultimate form of intimacy, in a false equivalence of sex and love. Asexuals are also assumed to be dorky because sexual prowess and seduction are “cool” and validating. There is basically no decent representation of asexuals in popular media.

ASSIGNED FEMALE AT BIRTH (AFAB) — A sex assignment given to newborns whose genitals are perceived to be female-typical, or whose genitals are “ambiguous” but “closer” to a vagina than a penis.

Alternative terms are “Coercively Assigned Female At Birth (CAFAB),” “Designated Female At Birth (DFAB),” and “Female Assigned At Birth (FAAB).”

Being assigned female at birth comes with social expectations of cisgender girlhood and heterosexual womanhood.

Using sex assignment at birth can be useful for grouping people together who have shared experiences, but this utility is limited: not everyone who is AFAB, and not even everyone who is trans and AFAB, or cis and AFAB, has a shared experience of gender. Grouping people together based on sex assignment is also alienating for many trans and intersex people who don’t want their sex assignment to define them.

Alternatives for talking about the different experiences and struggles shared by trans people who were AFAB include “trans masc” or “trans masculine,” and “transmisogyny exempt”, but these phrases too have their own problems. Most of the time, especially when referring to an individual, it’s more appropriate to mirror the self-described gender(s) of the people in question.

ASSIGNED MALE AT BIRTH (AMAB) — A sex assigned to newborns whose genitals are perceived to be male-typical, or whose genitals are “ambiguous” but “closer” to a penis than a vagina.

Alternative terms are “Coercively Assigned Male At Birth (CAMAB),” “Designated Male At Birth (DMAB),” and “Male Assigned At Birth (MAAB).”

Being assigned male comes with social expectations of cisgender boyhood and heterosexual manhood.

Using sex assignment at birth can be useful for grouping people together who have shared experiences, but this utility is limited: not everyone who is AMAB, and not even everyone who is trans and AMAB, or cis and AMAB, has a shared experience of gender. Grouping people together based on sex assignment is also alienating for many trans and intersex people who don’t want their sex assignment to define them.

Alternatives for talking about the different experiences and struggles shared by trans people who were AMAB include “trans femme” or “trans feminine,” and “transmisogyny affected”, but these phrases too have their own problems. Most of the time, especially when referring to an individual, it’s more appropriate to mirror the self-described gender(s) of the people in question.

ASSIMILATION — The expectation that marginalized people emulate, rather than deviate from, the norms of the hegemonic group, including obscuring or erasing their differences.

Assimilation is a political tactic used by persecuted groups to make themselves seem palatable and “normal” to their oppressors, with the aim of gaining equal rights or ending discrimination. Assimilation maintains the status quo instead of challenging it: it further delineates who is “deviant” and excluded from rights or protections, instead of removing structures which deny people full personhood. Assimilation is also constantly encouraged by the oppressive groups, because deviance is considered threatening and is therefore punished on both systemic and interpersonal levels.

One key tactic of assimilation is for an oppressed group to distance itself from a more vulnerable oppressed group; for example, cis gay people distancing themselves from trans people despite an interlocked history. White, educated, middle-class cis gay and lesbian people have become the face of the LGBT+ movement, despite being both a minority within the group and the least vulnerable people in the group, and being the least instrumental in starting the political movement or fighting for LGBT+ rights. In short, assimilation is adjusting the hierarchies of an oppressive system without making any change to the system itself.

It’s bad political praxis to focus on gaining rights and protections for the most palatable/least vulnerable people in the hope that it will “trickle down,” or that it’s only politically possible to focus on the most “acceptable” people of the out-group. Instead we must focus on protecting the most marginalized, the least acceptable members of society. This disrupts the cultural hegemony of the privileged rather than expanding it to include only-slightly-different people, as well as more dramatically shifting the Overton window of ideas tolerated in public discourse.

The assimilationist line of “It’s not our fault we’re like this, we’ll do our best to be like you” frames difference as inferior and pitiable. Anti-assimilation is a political counter-tactic. The anti-assimilationist killjoy demands access to public life and equal rights without politely integrating themselves into the hegemonic culture which excludes them. The killjoy knows that there is no amount of assimilation which will make them, the Other, acceptable enough to be “worthy” of equal treatment.

AUTISM, AUTISTIC — A cognitive developmental difference, or a neurotype, pathologized as a mental disorder, characterized by difficulty with normative social interactions and communication.

Autistic is synonymous with “neurodivergent” or “neuroatypical,” its opposite being “neurotypical.” Autism is a non-linear spectrum. It is not a disease.

Autistic adults are assumed to be asexual and are infantilized, which is a form of ableism.

There is a lot of interest in the high correlation between autism and gender dysphoria. But, finding a “biological” connection or a gene for autism or transness is a bad project which benefits eugenists, not trans or autistic people.

AUTOGYNEPHILIA — A pathology given to assigned male at birth people who fantasize about being attractive to women. Used to delegitimize the womanhood of trans women.

This fantasy is extremely common among cis women, yet is only considered a “paraphilia” (mental illness) for trans women, AMAB trans people, and men, because the psychiatric community has historically seen women as not experiencing paraphilia and sees all AMAB people as men.

Autogynephilia appeared in the DSM-5 under “transvestic disorder.” It’s used by TERFs to undermine trans women’s identities as women, and suggest that trans women are perverse men who fetishize womanhood.

Autogynephilia fits into a broader transmisogynistic cultural narrative about trans women and trans feminine people being perverse threats to cis womanhood, and by extension dangerous to cis women. The pathology is used to deny trans people self-determination of the genders, and vilify trans women and AMAB trans people as predatory men, despite all evidence showing that trans people are far more likely to be victims than perpetrators of abuse and assault.

Both the term and the formal diagnosis have been discredited by the modern psychiatric community and the trans community more broadly. The notable exception is “gender critical” psychiatrists who use conversion therapy tactics despite them violating the norms of best practice.

A more accurate, less pathologizing and less stigmatizing term to describe erotic thoughts based on being a woman is “female/feminine embodiment fantasies,” coined by trans writer and biologist Julia Serano.