Entering therapy for the first time can be intimidating. This glossary is designed to demystify the process by defining some key terms relating to therapy and the LGBTQ community. Should you have questions about any of these or other terms used in your treatment, feel free to bring them up with your therapist.

  • Addiction: A state in which the body relies on a substance for normal functioning and develops physical dependence, as in drug addiction. It can also refer to an obsession, compulsion, or excessive psychological dependence on a particular behavior, such as gambling, viewing pornography, binging and purging foods, etc.
  • Ally: Anyone, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity, whose attitude and behavior are allied with the LGBTQ community, and who works toward combating homophobia, transphobia, and heterosexism on personal and on institutional levels.
  • Ambivalence: The simultaneous existence of opposite feelings, attitudes, and tendencies toward another person, thing, or situation.
  • Androgyny (also androgynous, bi-gendered, no-gendered): A person (a) who identifies as both or neither of the two culturally defined genders; and/or (b) who expresses and/or presents merged culturally/stereotypically feminine and masculine characteristics, or mainly neutral characteristics. May or may not express dual gender identity.
  • Antidepressant: Anything, and especially a drug, used to prevent or treat depression.
  • Anxiety: An uncomfortable affect or emotional state characterized by feelings of unpleasant anticipation—a sense of imminent danger. Its intensity and duration may vary considerably.
  • Apathy: Absence of emotion or feeling.
  • Assigned Gender (also Sex Assignment): The announcement by medical professionals ("It's a boy/girl") based on what one's physical anatomy looks like. Based on this announcement, one is supposed to grow, to live, and to exist within a certain set of gender roles.
  • Attention: The ability to focus selectively on a stimulus, sustain that focus, and shift it at will. The ability to concentrate.
  • Birth/Biological Sex: The physiologically based distinction between male and female, focused primarily on genitalia and chromosomes.
  • Bisexual: A person who is sexually attracted to more than one gender, with no implications that attraction is limited to Cis Wo/Men.
  • Bisexual Erasure: The tendency to ignore, remove, falsify, or re-explain evidence of bisexuality in historical records, academic materials, the news media, and other primary sources. In its most extreme form, bisexual erasure can include denying that bisexuality exists.
  • Brain: The part of the central nervous system located within the cranium (skull). The brain functions as the primary receiver, organizer, and distributor of information for the body. It has two (right and left) halves called "hemispheres."
  • Butch: A term used to identify a person who expresses and/or presents culturally/stereotypically masculine characteristics. Often, a person who self-identifies to a great degree with the stereotypically masculine end of a gender characteristic spectrum. Can be used either as a positive or negative term.
  • Childhood: (1) The time of a person's life from birth until adulthood. (2) The more circumscribed period of time from infancy to the onset of puberty.
  • Cisgender: In contrast to transgender, the range of gender identities in which a person's identity, behavior, or performance match cultural expectations of the gender assigned to that person at birth. For example, a biological female who was raised as a woman, identifies as a woman, and is recognized by others as a woman.
  • Civil Union: A form of legal recognition given to nonmarried couples, particularly same-sex partners, so that they can have access to the benefits enjoyed by married heterosexuals. In the United States, civil unions are granted and recognized only in only a handful of states.
  • Closeted/In The Closet: A term used to describe a lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender person who conceals or does not disclose sexual orientation or gender identity. A person may be closeted to oneself, by not recognizing one's identity, or to others, by choosing not to share one's identity with a larger community or its members.
  • Cognitive: Pertaining to cognition, the process of knowing, and, more precisely, the process of being aware, knowing, thinking, learning, and judging. The study of cognition intersects with the fields of psychology, linguistics, computer science, neuroscience, mathematics, ethology, and philosophy.
  • Coming Out: To recognize one's sexual orientation, gender identity, or sex, and to be open about it with oneself and with others.
  • Conflict: Psychic or intrapsychic conflict refers to struggles among incompatible forces or structures within the mind; external conflict is that between the individual and the outside world. (They often go together, however.)
  • Cross-dresser (also Transvestite, the older and less preferred term): A person who wears the clothing considered typical for another gender on occasion, but does not desire to change biological sex. Reasons for cross-dressing can range from a need to express a feminine or masculine side to attainment of erotic/sexual/fetish gratification. Although many cross-dressers are heterosexual, the use of transvestism in the gay "drag" culture is well documented.
  • Cross-living: Cross-dressing full-time, which is also referred to as 24/7, or living as the gender that one perceives oneself to be.
  • Defense Mechanism: A psychological strategy brought into play by various entities to cope with reality and to maintain self-image. Healthy persons normally use different defenses throughout life.
  • Denial: An early defense mechanism by which an individual unconsciously repudiates some or all of the meanings of an event. The ego thus avoids awareness of some painful aspect of reality and so diminishes anxiety or other unpleasant affects.
  • Depression: An illness that involves the body, mood, and thoughts. It may affect the way one eats and sleeps, the way one feels about oneself, and the way one thinks. A depressive disorder is not the same as a passing blue mood. It is not a sign of personal weakness or a condition that can be wished away. People with a depressive disorder cannot merely "pull themselves together" and get better. Without treatment, symptoms can last for weeks, months, or years. Appropriate treatment, however, can help most people with depression.
  • Domestic Partners or Domestic Partnerships: Individuals who share a life together, but are not married or joined in a civil union. A growing number of jurisdictions and institutions recognize and grant rights to same-sex domestic partners. For example, over ten state governments, over 200 colleges/universities, and nearly half of Fortune 500 companies offer health benefits to the domestic partners of their LGBT employees.
  • Drag (also Drag King, Drag Queen, Female/Male Impersonator): Wearing the clothing of another gender, often with exaggerated cultural/stereotypical gender characteristics. Individuals may identify as Drag Kings (females in drag) or Drag Queens (males in drag). Drag often refers to dressing for functional purposes such as entertainment/performance or social gatherings (e.g., costume parties). Drag has held a significant place in LGBTQ history and community.
  • Drug: A chemical substance used in the treatment, cure, prevention, or diagnosis of disease or used to otherwise enhance physical or mental well-being.
  • Dyke (also Femme Dyke, Butch Dyke, Bi Dyke, Boydyke): May have derived from the term "dyke-loupers" from old Scotland. They had "louped" or jumped over the "dyke" or low wall that divided the fields and had gone over to the other side. The word dyke represents the wall itself—hard, strong, rigid—and the concept of crossing over, of partaking of both the masculine and feminine worlds, is lost altogether. Recent history has abused lesbians with the use of the term in a hateful manner. Within the community, some have grasped the term as a pride word.
  • Effeminate: Used to identify a person (usually male) who expresses and/or presents culturally/ stereotypically feminine characteristics. This is often viewed as a culturally negative term, but the same characteristics can be claimed as a specific identity through the term "femme"
  • Ego: The moderator between the id and superego which seeks compromise to pacify both. It can be viewed as our "Sense of Self."
  • F2M/FTM (Female to Male): Used to identify a person who was female-bodied at birth and who identifies as male, lives as a man, or identifies as masculine.
  • Faggot (Fag): According to Webster's, "a bundle of sticks or twigs." Historically, gay men were gathered, tied together and used for "kindling" when burning someone at the stake who was worthy of a "real" execution (like a witch or a heretic). Within the community, some have grasped the term "fag" from its painful past and use it as a pride word.
  • Family of Choice: Persons forming an individual's social, emotional, and practical support network and often fulfilling the functions of blood relations. Many LGBTQ people are rejected when their families learn of their sexual orientation or gender identity, or they may remain "closeted" to their biological relatives. In such cases, it is their partner/significant other and close friends who will be called on in time of illness or personal crisis.
  • Family of Origin: Biological family, or the family in which one was raised. These individuals may or may not be part of a LGBTQ person's support system.
  • Femme: A person who identifies with being a woman, who understands the power and seduction of the feminine spirit and one who is willing to be powerful as a woman. Can be used to identify a person who expresses and/or presents culturally/stereotypically feminine characteristics. Can be used either as a positive or negative term.
  • Fetish: A term used to describe an inanimate object or a part of the human body that a fetishist needs in order to attain sexual arousal or orgasm.
  • Gay: A man attracted to men. Sometimes colloquially used as an umbrella term to include all LGBTQ people.
  • Gender: A socially constructed system of classification that ascribes qualities of masculinity and femininity to people. Gender characteristics can change over time and differ among cultures. Words that refer to gender include: man, woman, cisgender, transgender, masculine, feminine, and gender queer.
  • Gender Bender (also Gender Blender): A person who merges characteristics of different genders in subtle ways or intentionally flaunts merged/blurred cultural or stereotypical norms for the purpose of shocking others, without concern for passing.
  • Gender Dysphoria: An intense continuous discomfort resulting from an individual's belief in the inappropriateness of their assigned gender at birth and resulting gender role expectations. Also, a clinical psychological diagnosis (also called Gender Identity Disorder), which many in transgender communities are offended by, but is often required by insurance companies in order to receive hormones and/or surgery.
  • Gender Identity: One's psychological sense of oneself (and how one defines one self) as a man, woman, or other; in the spectrum of masculinity-femininity.
  • Gender Queer (also Gender Non-Conforming): A term that is used by some people who may or may not fit on the spectrum of transgender, or wish be labeled as transgender, but who identify their gender and their sexual orientation to be outside the assumed norm; used by some trans youth who do not identify as either male or female and who often seek to blur binary gender lines.
  • Gender Roles: The socially constructed and culturally specific behavior and appearance expectations imposed on women (femininity) and men (masculinity).
  • Grief: The normal process of reacting to a loss. The loss may be physical (such as a death), social (such as divorce), or occupational (such as a job). Emotional reactions of grief can include anger, guilt, anxiety, sadness, and despair. Physical reactions of grief can include sleeping problems, changes in appetite, physical problems, or illness. Grief and depression are not identical. Grief is the normal reaction to loss; depression is a condition.
  • Guilt: Refers to a group of affects including fear of retribution, both from outside and within the self, feelings of remorse, contrition, and penitence.
  • Hate Crime: Criminal acts motivated by hatred of a particular social group or identity, such as members of the LGBTQ community. Incidents may involve physical assault, damage to property, bullying, harassment, verbal abuse or insults, or offensive graffiti or letters.
  • Health: A state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being, not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.
  • Heredity: Genetic transmission from parent to child.
  • Heterosexism: Assuming every person to be heterosexual therefore marginalizing persons who do not identify as heterosexual. It is also believing heterosexuality to be superior to homosexuality and all other sexual orientations.
  • Heterosexism: Assuming every person to be heterosexual, therefore marginalizing or disregarding persons who do not identify as heterosexual. It is also the belief that heterosexuality is superior to homosexuality and other sexual orientations.
  • Heterosexuality: Sexual, emotional, and/or romantic attraction to a person of a sex other than one's own. Commonly thought of as "attraction to the opposite sex," but because there are more than two sexes (see Intersex and Transsexual), this definition is inaccurate.
  • Hir: A non-specific pronoun which can be used instead of "her" and "him."
  • Homophobia (also biphobia, transphobia): A fear of homosexuals, homosexuality, bisexuality, or any identity, behavior, belief, or attitude of self or others which does not conform to rigid sex-role stereotypes. It is this fear that enforces sexism and heterosexism. Also, disapproval of and irrational fear toward gay men, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgender individuals based on myths and cultural heterosexism. An extreme expression of homophobia is violence against LGBTQ individuals (see hate crime).
  • Homosexuality: Emotional, physical, and/or sexual attraction to members of the same sex. A clinical term that originated in the late 1800's. Some avoid using the word because it contains the base word "sex." Given that sexual orientation has more to do with the issue of love/attraction than of sex, it is believed that the use of "homosexual" devalues the orientation of individuals. The terms "gay," "lesbian," and "bisexual" are preferred by a majority of the community.
  • Hormone Therapy (also Hormone Replacement Therapy, HRT, Hormonal Sex Reassignment): Administration of hormones to affect the development of secondary sex characteristics of the opposite assigned gender; HRT is a process, possibly lifelong, of using hormones to change the internal body chemistry. Androgens (testosterone) are used for female to males, and Estrogens are used for male to females.
  • Id: A selfish, primitive, childish, pleasure-oriented part of the personality with no ability to delay gratification.
  • Impulse: The psychic awareness that a desire toward some action is welling up.
  • Insight: The capacity or act of apprehending the nature of a situation or one's own problems.
  • Internalized Homophobia/Transphobia: The process by which an LGBTQ person comes to believe, accept, or live out the inaccurate stereotypes, misinformation, and prejudices about one's group.
  • Interpersonal Therapy (IPT): A form of psychotherapy in which the focus is on the patient's relationships with peers and family members and the patient's self-perception. IPT is based on exploring issues in relationships with other people. The goal is to help people to identify and modify interpersonal problems, and to understand and manage relationship problems.
  • Interpretation: The central therapeutic activity of the therapist during treatment, a process whereby the therapist expresses in words what he or she comes to understand about the patient's mental life.
  • Intersex: A set of medical conditions featuring congenital anomaly of the reproductive and sexual system. That is, intersex people are born with "sex chromosomes," external genitalia, or internal reproductive systems that are not considered "standard" for either male or female.
  • LGBTQ: An acronym that stands for "Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Questioning (or exploring one's sexuality or gender identity) and/or Queer." Sometimes seen as LGBT or GLBT, the acronym is used as a shorthand in describing the community of individuals who identify with these terms.
  • Lesbian: A woman attracted to women.
  • Love: A complex affective state and experience associated with primarily libidinal investment of objects. The feeling state is characterized usually by elation and euphoria, sometimes ecstasy, and on occasion pain.
  • Mania: Characterized by inappropriately high spirits, hyperactivity, and an inflated self-esteem often rich in paranoid grandiosity. A hunger for stimulus and new experience is exhibited in the individual's pressure of speech and flight of ideas.
  • Masturbation: Self-stimulation of the genitals which produces sexual pleasure with or without orgasm. An individual may masturbate themselves alone or in the presence of others.
  • Medication: (1) A drug or medicine. (2) The administration of a drug or medicine. (Note that "medication" does not have the dangerous double meaning of "drug.")
  • Men who Have Sex with Men (MSM): Men who engage in same-sex behavior, but who may not necessarily identify themselves as gay.
  • Mood: A relatively long lasting, affective or emotional state. Moods differ from simple emotions in that they are less specific, less intense, and less likely to be triggered by a particular stimulus or event.
  • Mourning: The process—internal and external—by which people adapt to a loss as, for example, the death of a loved one. Mourning is influenced by cultural customs, rituals, and society's rules for coping with loss.
  • Neurosis: A term that refers to any mental imbalance that causes distress, but, unlike a psychosis or some personality disorders, does not prevent or affect rational thought.
  • Obsession: A term relating to the domination of a person's thoughts, feelings, or behavior by a persistent idea, image, wish, temptation, prohibition, or command.
  • Outing: Disclosing someone's sexual orientation or gender identity to others without permission.
  • Pansexual (also Omnisexual): A person attracted to people of any biological sex or gender identity. The Greek prefix pan- translates to "all," thereby recognizing the potential for multiple gender identities.
  • Paranoia: A thought process characterized by excessive anxiety or fear, often to the point of irrationality and delusion. Paranoid thinking typically includes persecutory beliefs concerning a perceived threat towards oneself.
  • Partner or Significant Other: Primary domestic partner or spousal relationship(s). May also be referred to as "girlfriend/boyfriend," "lover," "roommate," "life partner," "wife/husband," or other terms.
  • Passing: The ability for a person to present themselves as another gender than which they live full-time or than which they were assigned at birth.
  • Personality Disorder: An enduring pattern of inner experience and behavior that deviates markedly from the expectations of the culture of the individual who exhibits it.
  • Phobia: A psychological symptom characterized by the obligatory avoidance of specific situations or objects which, though not necessarily dangerous, cause severe anxiety.
  • Pre-Op (also Pre-Operative): Transgender individuals who have not attained gender reassignment surgery, but who desire to and are seeking that as an option. They may or may not "cross-live" full time and may or may not take hormone therapy. They may also seek surgery to change secondary sex characteristics.
  • Post-Op (also Post-Operative): Transsexual individuals who have attained gender reassignment surgery, and/or other surgeries to change secondary sex characteristics.
  • Primary: First or foremost in time or development. The primary teeth (the baby teeth) are those that come first. Primary may also refer to symptoms or a disease to which others are secondary.
  • Projection: A mental process whereby a personally unacceptable impulse or idea is attributed to the external world. As a result of this defensive process, one's own interests and desires are perceived as if they belong to others, or one's own mental experience may be mistaken for consensual reality.
  • Psychiatry: The medical specialty concerned with the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of mental illness, primarily using medication.
  • Psychoanalysis: A branch of science developed by Sigmund Freud and his followers, devoted to the study of human psychology. It is usually considered to have three areas of application: (1) a method of investigating the mind; (2) a systematized body of knowledge about human behavior; and (3) a modality of treatment to support emotional health.
  • Psychodynamic Therapy: A type of psychotherapy that draws on psychoanalytic theory to help people understand the roots of emotional distress, often by exploring unconscious motives, needs, and defenses.
  • Psychology: The study of the mind and mental processes. There are a number of fields of psychology. Clinical psychology is concerned with diagnosing and treating emotional disturbances and behavioral problems. Child psychology is the study of the mental and emotional development of children and is part of developmental psychology, which studies changes in behavior that occur through the life span. Cognitive psychology deals with how the human mind receives and interprets impressions and ideas.
  • Psychotherapy: The treatment of a behavioral disorder, mental illness, or any other condition by psychological means. Psychotherapy may utilize insight, interpretation, persuasion, suggestion, reassurance, and instruction so that patients feel better, come to see themselves and their problems differently, and develop the ability to cope effectively with them.
  • Psychosexual Development: Freud's frame of reference for conceptualizing development based on his examinations of the origin and dynamics of neurotic symptoms and character traits.
  • Psychosis: A mental state often described as involving a loss of contact with reality. Individuals experiencing psychosis may report hallucinations or delusional beliefs, and may exhibit personality changes and disorganized thinking. This may be accompanied by unusual or bizarre behavior, as well as difficulty with social interaction and impairment in carrying out the activities of daily living.
  • Queer: A historically derogatory term used to refer to LGBTQ individuals. Recently, the term has been embraced by the LGBTQ community. It is often used as an empowering term, referring to gay, transgender, bisexual, and even heterosexual individuals whose sexuality doesn't fit into the cultural standard of a monogamous heterosexual marriage.
  • Questioning: A term used to describe an individual who is contemplating their own sexual orientation and/or gender identity, but who has not yet decided upon their identity; often viewed as the beginning of an inner journey that may or may not result in an LGBTQ identity. Individuals who are questioning may or may not experiment with non-heterosexual types of sexual behavior or non-traditional gender roles or behavior.
  • Repression: The psychological act of excluding desires and impulses (wishes, fantasies or feelings) from one's consciousness and holding or subduing them in the unconscious.
  • Resistance: The phenomenon often encountered in psychotherapy in which patients either directly or indirectly oppose changing their behavior or refuse to discuss, remember, or think about presumably clinically relevant experiences.
  • Bondage, Discipline, Dominance, Submission, Sadism, Masochism (BDSM): includes a wide spectrum of activities and forms of interpersonal relationships that employ power exchange fpr sexual or non-sexual gratification. These practices are perfectly healthy as long as they are safe (meaning no permanent damage is enacted, including the transmission of sexually transmitted infections or diseases), sane (meaning participants are in clear state of mind, without the influence of drugs or alcohol), and consensual (meaning there is some form of dialogue beforehand, and participants may opt out at any time through the use of a "safe word" or other signal).
  • Sex: Refers to a person based on their anatomy (external genitalia, chromosomes, and internal reproductive system). Sex terms are male, female, transsexual, and intersex. Sex is biological, although social views and experiences of sex are cultural.
  • Sex/Gender Distinction: Terms used to describe the designation of an individual as male or female (sex) and, masculine or feminine (gender) according to biological or sociological/cultural standards. Although the distinction between these terms is debated, many consider "sex" as relating to one's biological/ physiological/genetic maleness or femaleness, and "gender" as relating to one's adherence to sociocultural standards of masculinity and femininity.
  • Sexual Orientation: The deep-seated direction of one's sexual (erotic) attraction. It exists on a continuum and not as a set of absolute categories. Sometimes referred to as affection orientation or sexuality.
  • Sex Reassignment Surgery (SRS): Permanent surgical refashioning of genitalia to resemble the genitalia of the desired gender. Sought to attain congruence between one's body and one's gender identity.
  • Shame: Refers to a broad spectrum of painful affects—embarrassment, humiliation, mortification, and disgrace—that accompany the feeling of being rejected, ridiculed, exposed, or of losing the respect of others.
  • Stress: Forces from the outside world that impinge on the individual. Stress is a normal part of life that can help us learn and grow. Conversely, stress can cause us significant problems.
  • Superego: Internalized societal and parental standards of "good" and "bad", "right" and "wrong" behavior.
  • Therapy: The treatment of a health problem.
  • Trauma: An emotional or psychological injury, usually resulting from an extremely stressful or life-threatening situation that has created feelings of helplessness, fear, and emotional unrest.
  • Transgender (also Trans): An umbrella term used to refer to anyone whose gender identity does not conform to society's expectations of gender role as determined by the sex assigned at birth. The term includes, but is not limited to:
    • Pre-operative, post-operative, and non-operative individuals who may or may not use hormones.
    • Individuals who exhibit gender characteristics or identities that are perceived to be incompatible with their birth or biological sex.
    • Individuals perceived to be androgynous.
    • Transvestites, cross dressers, or drag queens or kings.
  • Transsexual (also Female to Male, FTM, F2M, Male to Female, MTF, M2F, Pre-Operative, Post-Operative, Non-Operative): A person who, through experiencing an intense long-term discomfort resulting from feeling the inappropriateness of their assigned gender at birth and discomfort of their body, adapts their gender role and body in order to reflect and be congruent with their gender identity. Adaptation methods may include: cross-living, synthesized sex hormones, surgery and other body modification which may or may not lead to the feeling of harmony between a person's body and their gender identity.
  • Transference/Countertransference: The redirection of a client's feelings from a significant person to a therapist. Transference is often manifested as an erotic attraction towards a therapist, but can be seen in many other forms such as rage, hatred, mistrust, parentification, extreme dependence, or even placing the therapist in a god-like or guru status. Countertransference is defined as redirection of a therapist's feelings toward a client, or more generally as a therapist's emotional entanglement with a client.
  • Trigger: Something that sets off a reaction. For example, a sudden noise may trigger a fearful reaction in someone suffering from Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
  • Two Spirit (also a less-preferred term, berdache): A Native/American/Indian-First Nation term for people who blend the masculine and the feminine. Used to describe individuals who historically crossed gender boundaries and were accepted (sometimes revered) by Native/First Nation cultures.
  • Unconscious: (1) The state of an interruption of awareness of oneself and one's surroundings, or the lack of the ability to notice or respond to stimuli in the environment. A person may become unconscious due to oxygen deprivation, shock, central nervous system depressants such as alcohol and drugs, or injury. (2) In psychology, that part of thought and emotion that happens outside everyday awareness.
  • Women who have Sex with Women (WSW): The term often used when discussing sexual behavior. It is inclusive of all women who participate in this behavior regardless of how they identify their sexual orientation. The acronym WSW is conventionally used in professional literature.
  • Ze (also zhe, sie): A non-gender-specific pronoun that can be used instead of "she" and "he."