Home  /  Chapters  /  Sexuality & Gender Identity

Sexuality & Gender Identity

37 terms · 37 published · 0 planned

Transgender, gay, queer, bisexual, lesbian, cisgender, intersex, sexual orientation, pronouns, homophobia — how source guides handle LGBTQ+ identity, language, and journalistic practice. The strongest convergences in this chapter are grammatical (adjective-not-noun, drop 'preferred pronouns') and the central rule is universal: defer to how the subject identifies, then write accordingly.

What this chapter covers

This chapter gathers terms that source guides treat as identifiers, descriptors, and operational rules for LGBTQ+ identity and journalism: identity terms (transgender, gay, lesbian, queer, bisexual, cisgender, intersex), the foundational two-axis concept (sexual orientation as distinct from gender identity), grammatical conventions (singular they, pronouns, adjective-not-noun rules), and the family of related terms describing prejudice against LGBTQ+ people (homophobia, biphobia, transphobia, heterosexism). It also carries the dated forms the corpus replaces (homosexual, transgendered, transsexual), the process term transition with its relevance test, the genderqueer identity term, and the gender binary as the concept behind many of the chapter’s concrete rules. Future batches may extend the chapter to the cross-cutting “deadnaming” and “outing” entries.

Sexuality & Gender Identity is treated as one chapter, but gender identity and sexual orientation are separate axes. Sources in this chapter agree on this almost universally — being transgender doesn’t predict sexual orientation, and being gay doesn’t predict gender identity. The chapter is organized this way because the source guides themselves treat the two together (HRC’s glossary covers both; NLGJA’s stylebook is structured by sexual orientation + gender identity sections; TJA is the same on the trans side); but the practical work of identifying any individual asks the two questions separately.

The strongest cross-corpus consensus call in this chapter is grammatical. Transgender, gay, queer, and bisexual are adjectives in the post-2020 corpus — not singular nouns. Every active LGBTQ+-led source and journalism aggregator converges on this rule. The second strongest consensus is the rejection of “preferred pronouns” in favor of just “pronouns” — APA, DSG, NLGJA, and TJA all explicitly drop the “preferred” qualifier.

How sources position themselves

Sources in this chapter cluster into three groups. The LGBTQ+-led journalism guides (NLGJA, TJA) are the post-2020 operational standard for newsrooms — strict relevance rules, sharpest on grammatical conventions, most current on the chronology. The LGBTQ+-led advocacy guides (HRC, interACT) supply definitions and identify the boundaries of related categories (gender identity vs sexual orientation; intersex vs transgender). The ally-led guides (Sierra Club, SumOfUs, Color of Change, GCJT, SEIU, APA, DSG, RET) adopt the LGBTQ+-led standards and apply them to specific movement, journalism, or institutional contexts.

Source coverage in this chapter spans:

• NLGJA: The Association of LGBTQ+ Journalists (2025) — Primary LGBTQ+-focused journalism stylebook. Sharpest on relevance rules, adjective-not-noun grammar, and the family of homophobia/biphobia/transphobia terms.
• Trans Journalists Association (TJA, 2026) — Trans-led journalism stylebook. The corpus’s anchor for transgender grammar, pronoun rules, and trauma-informed transgender coverage. Sharpest framing of “preferred pronouns” as a category error.
• Human Rights Campaign Glossary (HRC, 2023) — LGBTQ+-led advocacy glossary. Broadest definitional treatments; treats reclamation of “queer” as more settled than journalism guides do.
• interACT Advocates for Intersex Youth (2017) — Intersex-focused media guide. Earliest in this corpus to name neopronouns; draws the intersex-versus-transgender precision rule.
• Diversity Style Guide (2023) — Peer aggregator. Richest historical context; convergent with NLGJA on most operational rules; useful for cross-checking.
• Sierra Club Equity Language Guide (2021) — Substantial Gender and Sexuality section. Source of the “self-identified queer activist” construction and the writer-side accountability framing for homophobic patterns.
• SumOfUs Progressive Style Guide (2016) — Pre-2020 framing; treats transgender-as-adjective and queer-with-care as operational rules earlier than most contemporaries. Useful as a chronology marker — the rules are present, the modern vocabulary (“preferred pronouns” rejection) isn’t yet.
• APA Guidelines (2023) — Academic/clinical guide. Sharpest single-line framing of the “preferred pronouns” rejection: “implies choice.”
• Color of Change (2022 Black Survivors Style Guide) — Movement-led intersectional framing; positions homophobia + transphobia + sexism as interlocking systems. Still uses “preferred pronouns” — a 2022 date marker.
• Racial Equity Tools (2023) — Academic / training context. Sources LGBTQ+ definitions to PFLAG; treats transition as optional, not constitutive.
• SEIU Stylebook (Jan 2020) — Labor movement guide. Predates the broader 2020–2025 convergence; useful as a chronology marker on the adjective-not-noun and transgender-not-transgendered rules, which were present earlier than the broader “preferred pronouns” rejection.
• GCJT Style Guide for Trauma-Informed Journalism (2021) — Bridges LGBTQ+-led editorial standards into mainstream trauma-informed journalism. Source of the “don’t out a source” and “say is, not identifies as” framings.

Chronology

Three inflection points shape this chapter’s content:

• Pre-2020 (SumOfUs 2016, interACT 2017, SEIU 2020). Adjective-not-noun rules and the “transgender, not transgendered” preference are present and operational. “Preferred pronouns” framing is still standard. Singular they is in transitional use, accepted with caveats.
• 2020–2022 (Sierra Club 2021, GCJT 2021, Color of Change 2022). The progressive-guide layer adopts and extends LGBTQ+-led journalism rules. “Preferred pronouns” still common — even Color of Change’s 2022 survivor guide uses the phrase. Singular they moves toward standard.
• 2023–2026 (HRC 2023, DSG 2023, APA 2023, NLGJA 2025, TJA 2026). The “preferred pronouns” rejection settles across the LGBTQ+-led and aggregator guides. The transgender relevance rule (only identify when materially relevant) tightens. Singular they becomes standard, no explanation required.

Most differences across the in-scope corpus collapse to these three breaks. Read date markers as chronology, not as objection.

Cross-cutting principles

1. Self-identification is paramount. Every source in this chapter that addresses identifying an individual lands on the same rule: defer to how the subject identifies, then write accordingly. The rule is sharpest in TJA and NLGJA (use the pronouns the source gives you; identify someone as transgender only when they have publicly identified that way) and runs through SumOfUs's queer guidance and Sierra Club's 'self-identified queer activist' construction. The defaults the guides offer are answers to the question of what to do when preference isn't known; they never override stated preference.
2. Identity terms are adjectives, not nouns. Transgender, gay, queer, and bisexual are all adjectives in the post-2020 corpus — never singular nouns. Don't write 'a transgender,' 'a gay,' or 'a queer.' Use 'transgender person,' 'transgender man,' 'transgender woman,' 'gay people,' 'queer people,' or the specific noun (man, woman, person). TJA, NLGJA, DSG, SEIU, SumOfUs all converge here. The grammatical rule carries substantive content: noun forms objectify the identity, treating it as a thing rather than an attribute of a person.
3. Drop 'preferred pronouns'. APA, DSG, NLGJA, and TJA all explicitly reject 'preferred pronouns' on the same logic: 'preferred' falsely implies an alternative exists. DSG extends to 'chosen pronouns' for parallel reasons — pronouns aren't always chosen. Use 'pronouns' or 'the pronouns she/he/they uses for themself.' TJA's framing carries the deepest reasoning: 'There is no such thing as a preferred spelling of someone's name, for example.' The 2022 Color of Change stylebook still uses 'preferred pronouns'; that's a chronology marker, not a divergence — the post-2023 set has converged on dropping the qualifier.
4. Singular they is standard. Singular they is standard usage across the post-2020 corpus and doesn't require parenthetical explanation. NLGJA's 2025 stylebook is the sharpest: 'Use of they/them/their as singular, gender-neutral pronouns is common enough to not require explanation. Do not avoid or write around these pronouns.' TJA cites AP Stylebook (56th edition) as the authority. The recasting-as-workaround move is explicitly rejected by both: if a passage is genuinely ambiguous, recast the sentence — don't avoid the pronoun the person uses.
5. Don't conflate gender identity with sexual orientation. Being transgender does not predict whether someone is gay, straight, lesbian, or bisexual. HRC, RET, NLGJA, and TJA are explicit on this: gender identity and sexual orientation are separate axes, and conflating them is one of the most common cross-axis errors in non-LGBTQ+ writing about LGBTQ+ communities. The same caution extends to intersex, which interACT names as distinct from transgender — individuals can hold both identities, but the categories should not be collapsed in coverage.
6. Restrict 'homophobia' to relevant usage; don't label persons. DSG and NLGJA converge on a specific journalistic practice: 'homophobia' is acceptable in quotations, opinion writing, or broad references to the concept; 'homophobe' as a label for an individual is not. The substitute is 'LGBTQ+ rights opponents' or similar descriptive constructions that name the verifiable position rather than the contested internal state. Sierra Club takes a more activist position — name homophobic patterns in writing choices (jokes, implications) even when no slur appears. Both rules describe the same writer-side accountability: precision about what's being named.
7. Don't disclose history without consent. TJA, NLGJA, GCJT, and SumOfUs all treat deadnaming (publishing a transgender person's prior name) and disclosing gender history as ethical violations requiring explicit consent. The corresponding rule for sexual orientation: outing — publicly disclosing someone's LGBTQ+ identity without consent — is a parallel violation in both GCJT and SumOfUs. Even when the source is comfortable being identified, specific historical details (prior names, prior identities, transition timelines) require separate consent.

Terms in this chapter