Language

The social and economic discrimination of people because of their age, for example, by inhibiting their participation in social life or in the labour market. The term usually refers to the discrimination of older people, but it can also refer to younger people.

The totality of people of African origin living outside the African conti­nent, e.g. the Afro-American, Afro-Caribbean, Afro-German population, as well as migrants of African origin and their descendants.

Social and economic discrimination against people because of their age, for example in their participation in society or in working life. The term usually refers to discrimination against older people, but it can also refer to younger people.

An individual who actively supports the social movements and rights of LGBTQIA+ and other marginalised identities, but who does not identify as LGBTQIA+ or as a member of said marginalised groups.

A former oppressive system that was officially implemented in South Africa from 1948 until 1994, to enforce racial segregation and political, economic and social discrimination against people of colour or anyone who was not classified as white. The word ‘apartheid’ is an Afrikaans word meaning ‘apartness’. The term has also been used to refer to global forms of institutionalised racial and socio-economic oppression that is still prevalent in societies across the worl

An umbrella term used to describe a sexual orientation that displays a lack of sexual attraction to others, or low or absent interest in or desire for sexual activity.

Within the dominant culture informed by Western scientific models that classify gender and sex as binary, gender and sex are commonly assigned at birth based on external biological sex characteristics (genitalia) and reproductive functions. A vulva-bearing child is typically assigned female at birth (commonly shortened to AFAB), while a penis-bearing child is typically assigned male at birth (commonly shortened to AMAB). AFAB and AMAB are terms commonly used by transgender, gender-non-conforming and non-binary people to demonstrate that the sex and/or gender one was assigned at birth may not necessarily match one’s true gender identity.

An umbrella term used to describe a romantic or sexual orientation to­wards more than one gender. Bisexual people may describe themselves using one or more of a variety of terms, including (but not limited to) pansexual and queer.

Capitalised when used to describe someone’s race, ethnicity or culture, unless the individual or group self-identifies otherwise.

A political identity, movement and school of thought that incorporates perspectives, experiences and politics around race, gender, class and sexual orientation, and surfaces the inextricable links between them.

A term used in queer culture to describe someone who often (but not al­ways) expresses themselves in a typically masculine way. This term should not be used to describe someone unless they expressly identify as such.

A term used to describe someone whose gender identity matches the sex and gender they were assigned at birth.

The “Civil Union” act in South Africa grants legal recognition to same sex couples. In Switzerland, the «registered partnership» was replaced by marriage for all on 01.07.2022.

The term describes discrimination against people on the basis of their actual or assumed financial resources, education or origin. Classism is based on the idea that a person’s social or economic status defines their value in society. In doing so, people who are considered to have a lower status are often given less access and rights within society.

A term used to describe a hate crime in which a person is raped because of their perceived sexual orientation or gender identity. The intended consequence of such acts is to enforce heterosexuality and gender conformity.

Cross dressing is the performative act of wearing clothes traditionally or stereotypically associated with a different gender.

Deaf is a positive designation used by people with hearing impairments, irrespective of whether they are very deaf, have a mild hearing loss or are hard of hearing. It also indicates that deafness is not regarded as a deficit.

A latex or polyurethane sheet placed over the anus or vulva as protection during oral sex to guard against sexually transmitted infections.

Disability focusses on the interplay between surroundings and individual, while impairment foregrounds the impairment of an individual. The preference for the one or other term is not identical in all countries.

People who perform in an exaggeratedly stereotypical feminine or mascu­line way. They play with and break gender expectations through clothing, make-up and behaviour.

Once an insulting term for lesbians, the expression has since become a positive self-designation used by people who feel empowered by the re-appropriation of this former slur. “Dyke” is associated with toughness and radicalism as well as the rejection of bourgeois role expectations, such as heteronormativity or decency.

The term designates a social group definable on the basis, for example, of a common self-description, language, origin, economic system, history, culture, religion or link to a particular geographical region. Among the approximately 1,300 ethnicities registered worldwide are numerous indigenous peoples.

Ethnology is a comparative social and cultural science investigating the diversity of human way of life. Formerly, its focus was on the almost 1,300 ethnic groups; today, it researches life contexts in a broader sense, like urban space, migration, etc.

A term widely used by queer and trans people to identify other queer and trans people. Also known as chosen family.

A term used in LGBTQIA+ culture to describe someone who often (but not always) expresses themselves in a typically feminine way. This term should not be used to describe someone unless they expressly identify as such.

A term used to refer to a man, trans person or non-binary person who tends to have a romantic and/or sexual orientation towards men. The term can also be used more broadly and colloquially to describe a same-sex or queer orientation.

Often expressed in terms of masculinity and femininity, gender is cultur­ally determined and is assumed from the sex assigned at birth. One’s gender is made up of one’s gender identity (a person’s innate sense of their own gender) and gender expression (how a person outwardly ex­presses their gender).

The system of dividing gender into two distinct categories – man and woman – thus excluding non-binary and gender-nonconforming indi­viduals.

Used to describe a person’s discomfort or distress because there is a mismatch between their sex assigned at birth and their gender identity.

A gender order that divides people into two categories. The male and fe­male sexes are portrayed as opposing and at the same time complement­ary, in a relationship of domination, with men above women. The exist­ence of other sexual orientations and gender identities is either denied or understood as subordinate to the male gender.

A person who does not conform to the binary gender categories that society prescribes (man and woman) through their gender identity.

Any incident that may or may not constitute a criminal offence, perceived as being motivated by prejudice or hate. The perpetrators seek to demean and dehumanise their victims, whom they consider different from them based on actual or perceived race, ethnicity, gender, age, sexual orienta­tion, disability, health status, nationality, social origin, religious convic­tions, culture, language or other characteristics.

A socio-political system that, predicated on the gender binary, upholds heterosexuality as the norm or default sexual orientation. Heteronorma­tivity encompasses a belief that people fall into distinct and complement­ary genders (men and women) with natural roles in life. It assumes that sexual, romantic and marital relations are most fitting between a cis­gender man and a cisgender woman, positioning all other sexual orienta­tions as “deviations”.

A form of LGBTQIA+ advocacy that frames LGBTQIA+ rights in national­istic terms that privilege North American and European expressions over those of the Middle East and the Global South, particularly Africa. Homo­nationalism sees the conceptual realignment of LGBTQIA+ activism to fit the goals and ideologies of both neoliberalism and the far right in order to justify racist, classist, Islamophobic and xenophobic perspectives. This framing is based on prejudices that migrant people are supposedly homo­phobic, and that western society is egalitarian.

The fear or dislike of someone based on prejudice or negative attitudes, beliefs or views about LGBTQIA+ people.

A person who has a romantic and/or sexual orientation towards someone of the same gender. Homosexual is often considered a more medical term. The terms lesbian and gay are now more generally used.

The term was formalised by legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989 in a discussion around Black women’s employment in the US. Intersection­ality encompasses the study of overlapping or intersecting social iden­tities and related systems of oppression, domination or discrimination. Intersectionality rejects the notion of universal experiences of woman­hood in favour of a more holistic assessment of how one’s race, class, ethnicity, age, ability, sexuality, nationality and religion can impact one’s experience of womanhood or gender, but also how these social inequalities intertwine with and shape one another.

A term used to describe a person who may have biological attributes that do not fit with societal assumptions about what constitutes male or fe­male. These biological variations may manifest in different ways and at different stages throughout an individual’s life. Being intersex relates to biological sex characteristics and is distinct from a person’s sexual orien­tation or gender identity.

There are many different kinds of invisible disabilities, for example, a psychological ailment or a chronic illness that cannot be identified by external features.

To be impeded or handicaped clearly indicates that people are not handicapped just because of their individual physical condition, but that the handicap represents their interplay with their surroundings. It applies to the social model of disability.

A type of language used amongst the LGBTQIA+ community in South Africa, mostly among the Nguni people.

A slur or derogatory isiZulu term used in vernacular language to refer to a person who is from the LGBTQIA+ community in the Southern African context. Translated into English, the term means a person who is born with both male and female parts.

A term used to refer to a woman, trans person or non-binary person who tends to have a romantic and/or sexual orientation towards women or non-binary femmes.

An acronym standing for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex and asexual. This is not an exhaustive list, as denoted by the inclusion of the plus symbol, which nods to the varying sexual orienta­tions and gender identities that exist around the world.

Also known as lobolo, lobola is a customary practice of marriage whereby the bridegroom’s family and kin transfer certain goods to the bride’s family in order to validate a customary marriage. Historically this was in the form of cattle, but today monetary payment is preferred, depending on the bride’s family.

The forcing of individuals or groups to the margins of society. Marginalisation can take place at various levels, for example, geographically, economically, socially or culturally; usually it happens at several levels.

The term translates to hostility towards women and is associated with a hierarchical conception of gender that places less value on women than men.

An acronym standing for men who have sex with men. MSM may or may not identify as gay, queer or bisexual.

A practice of extrajudicial torture and execution whereby a burning rubber tyre is forced around a person’s neck. Under apartheid, necklacing was sometimes used within the Black community to punish those who were perceived to have collaborated with the apartheid government.

An umbrella term for people whose gender identity does not sit comfort­ably with man or woman (also often referred to as genderqueer). Non-binary identities are varied and can include people who identify with some aspects of binary identities, while others reject them entirely.

People use the word othering when a group or a person distances themselves from another group by describing the other group as different or alien. This usually happens within an imbalance of power. Those described as other suffer discrimination and have few possibilities of defending themselves against the attribution.

When an LGBTQIA+ person’s sexual orientation or gender identity is disclosed without their consent. A coming-out is also regarded as outing, but is undertaken by the persons themselves.

A term that refers to a person, whose romantic and/or sexual attraction towards others is not limited by sex or gender.

An identification book or document that every person of colour or anyone who was not classified as white had to carry under the pass laws of apart­heid. The book was made up of two parts. One part had a laminated iden­tity card that featured the name of the bearer, their ethnic affiliation, the date the card was issued, the signature of an official and a black and white portrait photograph. The other part included five sections which listed information on permissions to enter urban areas, record of required medical examinations, names and addresses of employers, work status and receipts for tax payments. Colloquially, among the Black South Afr­ican population, these passes were often referred to derogatorily as the dompas, an Afrikaans term literally meaning dumb pass.

A social hierarchy that privileges and prioritises men over women and other gender identities.

A racist, dehumanising test that was devised to assist authorities in racial classification under apartheid. When officials were unsure if a person should be classified as white or of colour, a pencil would be pushed into their hair. If the pencil fell out, signalling that their hair was straight rather than curly, kinky or coily, the person passed and was classified as white.

A term used to denote someone who is not considered white. The term emphasises the common experiences of systemic racism amongst people of colour.

A term with multiple meanings, but that commonly refers to the appro­priation of the LGBTQIA+ movement in order to promote some corporate or political agenda. The term is used to describe the practices of entities who market themselves as ‘gay-friendly’ to gain favour with progressives, while simultaneously masking aspects of their practices that are violent and undemocratic.

Words we use to refer to people’s gender in conversation – for example, he or she, or gender-neutral pronouns such as they.

An acronym standing for queer, trans and intersex people of colour.

An umbrella term used by those who reject heteronormativity. Although some people view the word as a slur, it was reclaimed by the queer com­munity, who have embraced it as an empowering and subversive identity.

A system in which people are divided into a limited number of groups (originally defined geographically) on the basis of supposedly inherent biological differences and physical characteristics (e.g. skin colour) that are passed on from generation to generation.

A term for discriminatory controls used by law enforcement against people who are perceived as ethnically or religiously different and there­fore suspicious.

Structures or processes in which people are classified, stereotyped and devalued according to racist characteristics (e.g. appearance, way of life).

An environment that enables all persons to be free to express themselves without fear of discrimination or violation of their rights and dignity. Individual actions and reactions are key in upholding or violating a safe space.

A traditional African healer who specialises in treating people’s spiritual and physical diseases by looking into their past and future and connect­ing them with the ancestors. Healers believe that they are called by their ancestors to take on this important and respected position in society.

Words like gypsies or Eskimos, for example, that sweepingly denigrate whole groups.

Sex is distinct from gender. Sex is assigned to a person at birth on the basis of biological sex characteristics (genitalia) and reproductive functions.

An umbrella term used to describe people whose gender is not the same as, or does not sit comfortably with, the sex they were assigned at birth. Some transgender people are binary-identified and others are not.

The steps a trans person may take to live in the gender with which they identify. Each person’s transition involves different processes. For some this involves medical intervention or gender affirming healthcare such as hormone therapy and surgeries (medical transition), but not all trans people want or are able to have this. Transitioning might also involve things such as telling friends and family, dressing differently, changing one’s pronouns (social transition) and changing official documents (legal transition).

A term that characterises the marginalisation of Black trans women and transfeminine people and captures the intersection of transphobia, racism and misogyny. It is used to denote the fact that Black trans women experience a different, racialised form of misogyny that is compounded with transphobia.

A term capturing the interlocking discrimination of transphobia and misogyny. Transmisogyny includes negative attitudes, hate and discrimination toward transgender individuals who fall on the feminine side of the gender spectrum, particularly trans women and transfeminine people.

The fear or dislike of someone based on the fact that they are trans­gender, including the denial/refusal to accept their gender identity.

A racist ideology in which people defined and perceived as white are positioned as superior to and should dominate people of other races, and the practices based on this ideology.

An acronym standing for women who have sex with women. WSW may or may not identify as lesbian, queer or bisexual.

The term originates from the 1930s and means politically “awake” and committed against any form of discrimination. Meanwhile, however, the term is used pejoratively, especially by politically right-wing circles.

A Bantu ethnic group and language of Southern Africa situated within
the Nguni people. They are a branch of the southern Bantu and have close ethnic, linguistic and cultural ties with the Swazi and Xhosa. The Zulu are South Africa’s largest ethnic group, with an estimated population of 10 million, residing mainly in the province of KwaZulu-Natal.