Massage Therapy Journal Summer 2025

58 • Massage Therapy Journal

AMTA Continuing Education

different ways during different stages of their journey. Always listen for and respect a person’s self-identified terminology. • Ally (Straight Ally) . Anyone who actively supports people in the LGBTQIA+ community. It encompasses straight and cisgender allies, as well as those within the LGBTQIA+ community who support each other (e.g., a lesbian who is an ally to the bisexual community). • Asexual . A complete or partial lack of sexual attraction or lack of interest in sexual activity with others. Asexuality exists on a spectrum, and asexual people may experience no, little or conditional sexual attraction. Asexual is often called “ace” for short. • Bisexual (Bi) . A person who is emotionally, romantically or sexually attracted to more than one gender, though not necessarily simultaneously, in the same way, or to the same degree. Sometimes used interchangeably with pansexual. • Cisgender (Cis) . Someone whose gender identity is the same as the sex they were assigned at birth. Some individuals also use the term “non-trans.” • Coming out . When a person first tells another about their orientation and/or gender identity. • Deadnaming . Calling someone by their birth name after they have changed their name. This term is often associated with trans people who have changed their name as part of their transition. Only do this if you have permission or to keep someone safe around people who do not know they are transgender, which is outing them against their will. • Gay . A person who is emotionally, romantically or sexually attracted to members of the same gender. Men, women, trans and non-binary people may use this term to describe themselves. • Gender . Emotional, psychological, cultural and social traits that describe an individual as androgynous, masculine, feminine or along a spectrum. Gender is personal, not necessarily related to expression, but can be informed by societal expectations. • Gender-expansive . A person with a wider,

more flexible range of gender identity and/ or expression than typically associated with the binary gender system. Often used as an umbrella term when referring to young people still exploring the possibilities of their gender expression and/or their gender identity. • Gender expression . External appearance of one’s gender identity, usually expressed through behavior, clothing, body characteristics or voice, and which may or may not conform to socially defined behaviors and characteristics typically associated with being either masculine or feminine. • Gender-fluid . A person who does not identify with a single fixed gender or has a fluid or unfixed gender identity. • Gender identity . Personal sense of who you are and how you see or describe yourself. It can match the gender you were assigned at birth or differ from it. • Genderqueer . People who typically reject notions of static categories of gender and embrace a fluidity of gender identity and often, though not always, sexual orientation. People who identify as genderqueer may see themselves as being both male and female, being neither male nor female, or falling completely outside these categories. • Intersex . People born with a variety of differences in their sex traits and reproductive chromosomes, gonads, internal sex organs, hormone production, hormone response and/or secondary sex characteristics. Intersex people may identify as any of the terms within the LGBTQIA+ community, or they may choose not to identify with the community at all. • Lesbian . A woman who is emotionally, romantically or sexually attracted to other women. Trans and non-binary people may also use this term to describe themselves. and may prefer the definition of lesbians as non-men attracted to non-men. • Non-binary . A person who does not identify exclusively as a man or a woman. Non-binary people may identify as being both a man and anatomy. There are differences among intersex variations, including genitalia,

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