Guide to Writing Respectfully, Part II

Writing Respectfully on Gender and Sexuality

Hey, welcome back to Shelf Life’s series on respectful writing. I’m really glad you came back for part two.

Today’s article is about writing respectfully about people who may have a different gender identity, gender expression, or sexual orientation than you do; or who have a gender identity, gender expression, or sexual orientation that you don’t understand. It’s okay not to understand things. There’s tons of things I don’t understand. It’s not okay to use oppressive language to describe your fellow humans when you don’t understand them. For that, here’s a Shelf Life.

Herewith, then, the second part of your Shelf Life Guide to Respectful Writing:

1. Writing Respectfully on Race and Ethnicity;

2. Writing Respectfully on Gender and Sexuality; and

3. Writing Respectfully With Person-First Language

Please note: Terms appear in italics while phrases appear in “quotation marks.”

Big Queer Umbrella

The terms queer and LGBTQ, LGBTQ+, and LGBTQIA are used to describe an inclusive community of people whose gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, and/or romantic preferences do not fall under the broad headings of heterosexual and cisgender. Among many others, this is the community that includes gays and lesbians as well as transgender and gender nonconforming people.

This group may also be expressed as GSM, or gender and sexual minorities, a term that is often used in the medical community.

Gender and Sex

Sexuality is a very broad term that refers to the aspects of a person that include their biologic sex characteristics, their sexual orientation, their gender identity, their gender expression, their sexual preferences, and can also refer to their physical, emotional, and social feelings and behaviors.

The terms gender and sex do not mean the same thing and are in no way interchangeable. Gender is not a “more polite” way of saying sex. Gender is a social construct comprising gender expression and gender identity. Sex is a different social construct that refers to the configuration of physical biologic characteristics that a person has, including gamete-producing organs, genitalia, and chromosomes. Man, woman, girl, and boy are nouns and refer to people by gender identity or expression. Male, female, and intersex are adjectives and refer to specific configurations of sex characteristics. 

Gender identity refers to a person’s internal sense of their gender. Gender expression refers to the way a person demonstrates their gender externally through, for example, hairstyle, dress, behavior, and the pronouns they ask you to use to refer to them.

Transgender and Cisgender

If a person’s gender identity and expression matches the assessment of their visible sex characteristics that a doctor made at or before their birth, they may be described as cisgender. Cisgender comes from the Latin prefix cis-, meaning, “on the same side as.” You can think of this as describing someone whose gender identity and known sex characteristics are on the same side of the spectrum. You may have encountered this prefix before on words like cislunar, meaning something that is between the earth and the moon. A person who both cisgender and heterosexual should be described as cishet—meaning a person who is not queer—and not described as a “normal person” in contrast to a “queer person.”

If a person’s gender identity or expression and the assessment of their visible sex characteristics at birth do not align, that person may be described as transgender or trans (note: never transgendered). Like cis-, the prefix trans- is from the Latin and means “on the other side of.” Transgender people are those whose gender and known sex characteristics are on different sides of the spectrum. You are probably familiar with this prefix from words like transatlantic. 

It is respectful to bear in mind that a transgender person does not become transgender when they come out to you as trans or when they start their transition. A transgender person has likely been transgender for their whole life, and may or may not have realized this about themself or shared that information with others. If a transgender person is living openly as a trans person, you may refer to when they began to live that way as when they “came out as trans”; it is never appropriate to describe that when they “became” trans. 

Transgender is an umbrella term that describes any person whose gender identity or gender expression does not align with the assessment of their sex characteristics at birth. This includes the people we usually think of as transgender—for instance, someone who was assigned female at birth but who is a man—but also people whose gender identity or expression does not match their known sex characteristics in other ways, such as gender nonconforming people.

The term transsexual is not interchangeable with the term transgender, and the correct use of the term transsexual is hotly debated. It currently has two meanings: 

1. A person who has taken any action toward physical transition, which could include hormone therapy or transition-related surgery. 

2. A person who is living full time in a gender that is different from the assessment of their sex at birth, regardless of whether they have taken any physical or medical action toward transition.

It’s a loaded term; avoid using unless you have a very specific need that the term transgender does not cover and the person or people you are discussing are comfortable with its use.

Transition-related surgery does not refer exclusively to genital surgery but is an umbrella term that includes, for example, facial feminization surgery for a trans gal or chest masculinization surgery for a trans guy. These procedures are therapeutic, and should never be expressed as “cosmetic surgeries” even though the same procedures are sometimes (not always) considered cosmetic for cisgender people.

Transvestite historically was used to refer to a person who dressed in the clothing of the opposite gender (not sex assigned at birth). Meaning, for instance, a man who enjoys dressing in clothes that are intended for women, but who is not, himself, transgender. This term is no longer used and is considered problematic, so the correct term to use for that specific situation is cross dresser (noun). Cross dressing can be a form of gender expression but does not speak to gender identity.

On a related note to the above: A drag queen or a drag king is an artist—of any gender identity—who dresses as a caricature of hyperfemininity or hypermasculinity as an act of theatrical performance. Trans woman and drag queen do not mean the same thing, and it would be very disrespectful to confuse these terms. 

If a transgender person has stopped using the name they were given at birth, that is their deadname or old name. You should not use it for any reason, and certainly never without the person’s express permission.

In the interest of scientific and information transparency, academic and scholarly writers and editors may feel that they have a duty to clearly explain when someone has changed their name, for instance:

“Dr Sally Smith (formerly Dr Steve Smith) was the principal investigator on the study.”

Your interest in providing full and complete information is admirable, but you must never do this. Outing someone publicly as transgender can put their career, their relationships, and their safety at risk. Just because you know that someone is transgender does not mean everyone else knows. 

This is not the same as acknowledging that someone—usually a woman—has changed their name owing to a change in marital status. That is an editorial change, meaning someone has chosen to change their name to reflect a change—an update—to their identity. A transgender person who uses a different name than the one they were given at birth is correcting a mistake; further, it is a mistake for which they were not personally responsible. In writing and editing, as in all life situations, it is unethical to punish someone for a mistake they took no part in making.

Even if you are writing about the past and referring to a transgender person at a point in their life prior to the beginning of their transition, you should use their preferred name, gender, and pronouns. If it is critical to your writing for the reader to know that the person to whom you are referring is transgender and you have the consent of your subject, then you should refer to sex assignment or sex assessment at birth (eg, “Sally was assigned male at birth” or “Sally formerly presented male”). Never state that, for instance, a trans gal “used to be a man” or, even worse, is “a biological man.” Both of those statements are incorrect.

Identity, Expression, and the Gender Spectrum

Gender is a spectrum. As mentioned above, a person who does not identify solely and consistently as a man or a woman falls under the umbrella of transgender but may also be genderqueer; gender nonconforming (GNC); nonbinary (NB); genderfluid; agender; bigender; or another term not specified here. All of these terms have different meanings and cannot be used interchangeably. Briefly:

• Genderqueer is an umbrella term that broadly refers to people who are gender nonconforming.

• Gender nonconforming people are those whose gender identity or gender expression does not match others’ perception of their gender. For instance, a person looks like a boy to you but identifies in another way.

• Nonbinary means any gender other than “man” and “woman,” or may refer to a person who rejects the idea of the gender binary as a whole.

• Genderfluid people experience being more than one gender. They may identify with one gender today and another tomorrow; or they may identify as a mix of multiple genders at the same time; or both.

• Agender people do not identify with any gender. Gender is not part of their experience of themself.

• Bigender people identify as two different genders, either of which may include but need not be “man” and “woman.” They may experience both of their genders simultaneously, or they may fluctuate between the two, much as a genderfluid person does. (Note: A genderfluid person may experience any number of genders, while a bigender person experiences exactly two.)

Sexual Orientation 

Gender identity and expression are not correlated with sexual orientation. Just because someone is transgender doesn’t mean that they are also gay; just as being cisgender does not mean that someone is necessarily heterosexual. Transgender people and cisgender people can experience the entire range of sexual orientations and romantic preferences.

Sexual orientation is a term that describes someone’s experience of emotional, romantic, or physical attraction to another person or group of people.

• Homosexual is a now-outdated term that refers to people who experience sexual attraction toward others who have the same gender as they do. This term should be avoided because it is dated, though I don’t know many people who find it offensive or pejorative.

• Straight or heterosexual people are those who experience exclusive attraction to people of a different gender (typically, the one that is commonly thought of as their “opposite”—so men to women, and women to men).

• Preferred terms for people who experience exclusive same-gender attraction are gay, gay man, gay person, and lesbian. When describing a person in a relationship with another person of the same gender, you should not automatically use the terms gay or lesbian (see next bullet).

• Relationships are sometimes described as “gay” or “lesbian” relationships even when neither of the people in the relationship is a gay man or a lesbian. For instance, a relationship between two bisexual women could be described as a lesbian relationship but would be better described as a sapphic relationship or, better still, simply “a relationship.”

• Corollary to previous bullet: Relationships should not be specified as “gay” or “lesbian” unless being compared or contrasted to similar “straight” or “het” relationships—unless you are drawing a comparison, there is no need to specify.

• Genderqueer people, although they do not necessarily identify as men or women, may identify as lesbian, gay, straight, hetero, or any other orientation.

• Bisexual, pansexual, and omnisexual are terms that describe attraction to more than one gender. Some people describe themselves using any of these terms interchangeably, while others appreciate shades of difference. Some people consider bisexual to be a trans-exclusionary orientation while pansexual and omnisexual are more inclusive. A bisexual person is not necessarily trans-exclusionary, although they may be in specific cases.

• Asexual refers to a person who does not experience sexual attraction to anyone. Asexuality is a sexual orientation and should never be characterized as a lack of any sexual orientation. Asexuality is distinct and separate from celibacy; these terms are unrelated.

Romantic Preference

Like gender and sex, romantic preference and sexual preference are often but not always aligned. It is possible to be, for instance, bisexual but heteroromantic. Further, while many people who are asexual are also aromantic, other people who are asexual are interested in romantic relationships.

Gender and Sex in Medical and Social Science Contexts

When you are writing about specific groups of people for medical or social science purposes, you must use the most precise language available. If you are talking about people who are at risk for ovarian cancer, you should say that you are talking about “people who are at risk for ovarian cancer” because that includes all people with ovaries, who may be:

• Cisgender women

• Transgender men

• Nonbinary people

• Intersex people

Likewise, if you are talking specifically about, for example, “men who have sex with men”—then it is imperative that you say it that way rather than saying, for instance, “gay men.” Not all men who have sex with men are gay or even bisexual. All kinds of men can have sex with men, with or without identifying as queer.

Pronouns and Honorifics

Always use an individual’s preferred pronouns. These could be (but are not limited to):

• She/Her

• He/Him

• They/Them

• Zhe/Hir (pronounced zee and here)

The last bullet is a neopronoun, or a singular, third-person pronoun not officially recognized by the language in which it is used.

Some people do not use pronouns at all and, in that case, wherever you would use a pronoun for that person, you must use the person’s name instead. If you’re writing about a subject who does not use personal pronouns, you’ll have a great opportunity to stretch your creative muscles.

A note on they/them. Many native speakers of English have difficulty using they/them for a single person, because we mostly use these to describe groups of people:

“Look at those three nuns. They are so cute. I love them.”

However, they/them have been in use as descriptors of singular people since the mid-14th century. You can see a great history of this usage from the Oxford English Dictionary’s blog. I would also like to point out that if you have ever said:

“Oh, look, someone forgot their umbrella.” or

“What can you say? To each their own!” or 

“Any parent would be proud of their child for winning an Olympic medal.”

Then you’ve already used the singular they and lived to tell about it. In their guidance on using bias-free language, the American Psychological Association (APA) specifies that, in addition to individuals who request these pronouns, they/them should also be used in any situation where someone’s gender is not known, or when referring to a hypothetical person and their gender is immaterial to the discussion.

One more item on pronouns. Consider situations such as:

• She/They

• Any But He/Him

In these cases, someone has told you what pronouns they will accept but not their preference. If you are going to write about them, it would be respectful to clarify either by researching how the individual refers to themself, or by asking directly. Someone who specifies “She/They” may not have a preference; or she may strongly prefer “she” for herself, but wishes to show solidarity with the genderqueer community by accepting “they”; or they may have a strong preference for “they” but have chosen also to accept “she” so as not to have to fight about it day after day.

“It” is never an appropriate pronoun for a human being unless someone has specifically asked for that treatment.

When using honorifics, remember:

• Mr is for all men.

• Ms is for all women regardless of age, marital status, and context.

• Mrs is for women who you know for sure to be married and who have expressed a preference for Mrs over Ms. Not all married women are Mrs!

• Mx (pronounced mix) is gender-free and often used by NB/GNC and genderqueer folks.

• M is an appropriate honorific for anyone regardless of gender identity and expression, marital status, and context. I would love to bring this back into common use.

• Your Excellency would probably be fine with anyone.

When you don’t know someone’s preferred pronouns, honorific, or gender identity—ask them and then respect their answer. That’s your ultimate takeaway on gender, sex, expression, identity, and sexual orientation: Make sure you are using someone’s preferred term or terms to describe them. Ask if you need to. Don’t guess.

Thanks for reading today, happy hump day, and I hope you’ll be back on Friday for guidance on respectful writing with person-first language. 

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