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Body Image Body image is a person's thoughts, feelings and perception of the aesthetics or sexual attractiveness of their own body. In the Queer Community, people can especially have trouble with their body image, due to mainstream beauty standards being determined by heteronormative society. There are also very prevalent archetypes that exist within the Queer Community, which can determine what is attractive, meaning we are constantly comparing ourselves to others. See: Archetypes, Body Dysmorphia & Body Shaming. < Back to Glossary

Community Care If self-care is about what you do for yourself, then community care is what you put into and what you are able to receive from the community you have built around yourself, as well as the community you live in. Practicing community care can look like cleaning for a friend who is going through a tough time, volunteering, donating to mutual aid efforts or getting to know (and helping out) your neighbours. It's essentially how we show up and create space for each other. ​ < Back to Glossary

Empathetic Witness Empathetic witnesses are people who value transformational relationships. It's not necessarily somebody who can change the other person's situation, but somebody that can mirror, validate, and accept that person's feelings and emotions. Through presence and understanding, they ensure the other person feels seen and heard. Having empathetic witnesses in our life can help us process our experiences and encourage us to continue moving forward through our low and high moments. ​ < Back to Glossary

Grassroots A Grassroots movement is one that uses the people in a given district, region or community as the basis for a political or economic movement. Grassroots movements and organisations use collective action from the local level to effect change at the local, regional, national or international level. Often, the biggest changes as far as the fight for equality for the LGBTQIA+ Community comes from Grassroots movement. See: Activist and Equality. < Back to Glossary

Visibility (See Representation) ​ < Back to Glossary

Grey Also known as grey-A, this is an umbrella term which describes people who experience attraction occasionally, rarely, or only under certain conditions. People may also use terms such as gay, bi, lesbian, straight and queer in conjunction with grey to explain the direction of romantic or sexual attraction as they experience it. ​ < Back to Glossary

Genderfluid Denoting or relating to a person who does not identify themselves as having a fixed gender. (syn. Genderqueer) ​ < Back to Glossary

Femme Femme originated as a term used to describe lesbians with a feminine gender expression, in contrast with "butches". It is also used within the transgender community (trans femme) as an umbrella term for trans women and transfeminine non-binary people. ​ < Back to Glossary

Humanistic A person having a strong interest in or concern for human welfare, values, and dignity. ​ < Back to Glossary

Feminism Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritises the male point of view and that women are treated unjustly in these societies. It is everyone's duty, including in the Queer Community, to promote gender equality in our society. See: Misogyny. < Back to Glossary

Sexuality 1. How a person experiences and expresses their sexual identity. 2. Referring to someone's sexual orientation i.e. the gender(s) they are attracted to. ​ < Back to Glossary

Gaslighting A deliberate attempt to undermine a victim’s sense of reality or sanity. In a work context, it usually means behaviours that undermine the success, self-confidence, self-esteem or wellbeing of the target. For people in underrepresented groups, it is more likely to occur, with more severe and harmful cumulative effects. Tactics can include withholding (critical information, meeting invitations, silent treatment), isolation (exclusion, causing conflict with coworkers), and discrediting (consistently shooting down the target’s ideas, ignoring or taking credit for them). ​ < Back to Glossary

Introspection A reflective looking inward: an examination or observation of one's own thoughts and feelings. ​ < Back to Glossary

Stereotype A overly simplistic or generalised view of a group of people. Stereotypes are harmful because they flatten and homogenise our varied existences. Thinking intersectionally requires moving beyond stereotypes and witnessing the complexity of the individual people around us. ​ < Back to Glossary

Gender Gender refers to the range of socially-constructed characteristics and behaviours pertaining to femininity and masculinity, with particular reference to social and cultural differences between groups of people rather than biological ones. ​ < Back to Glossary

Gatekeeping The activity of controlling, and usually limiting, general access to something - whether it be information, products or resources. This is undoubtedly a technique that the upper echelons of society use in order to maintain a wealth gap in society. Gatekeeping financial literacy is a great example of this. See: Class, Power and Hierarchy < Back to Glossary

Sexism Discrimination, prejudice and stereotyping based on gender, most often perpetrated against women and girls. ​ < Back to Glossary

Finances / Financial Status Those who are members of marginalised communities are often under increased financial pressure. This includes the LGBTQIA+ Community. This can be due a variety of factors, ranging from lack of education, nature of employment (e.g. we're more likely to be freelance and experience financial instability), less access to opportunity, to us facing higher living costs due to where we live. See: Bias, Class and Employment Gap. < Back to Glossary

Black Black is a racialized classification of people, usually a political and skin colour-based category for specific populations with a mid to dark brown complexion. Not all people considered "black" have dark skin; in certain countries, often in socially based systems of racial classification in the Western world, the term "Black" is used to describe persons who are perceived as dark-skinned compared to other populations. It is most commonly used for people of sub-Saharan African ancestry and the indigenous peoples of Oceania, though it has been applied in many contexts to other groups, and is no indicator of any close ancestral relationship whatsoever. It has been a generally accepted move to capitalise the B in black - "The change conveys “an essential and shared sense of history, identity and community among people who identify as Black, including those in the African diaspora and within Africa,” said John Daniszewski, AP’s vice-president of standards. “The lowercase black is a color, not a person.” ​ < Back to Glossary

Dox The act of publicly providing personally identifiable information about an individual or organization, usually via the Internet. An example could be outing someone online. ​ < Back to Glossary