Self-Descriptor: Identity Labels, Self-Identification, and Language
A self-descriptor is a word or label a person uses to describe their own identity, experiences, sexuality, gender, relationships, or other personally meaningful characteristics.
Compulsory Heterosexuality: Social Pressure, Comphet, and Sexual Identity
Compulsory heterosexuality is the social pressure to treat heterosexual attraction and relationships as universal, natural, or required, even when a person’s actual orientation differs.
Pride Movement: LGBTQ+ Visibility, Equality, Community, and Activism
The Pride movement promotes LGBTQ+ visibility, dignity, equality, community, and rights while challenging shame, discrimination, violence, and restrictive sexual and gender norms.
Queer Activism: LGBTQ+ Rights, Liberation, and Social Change
Queer activism promotes equality, safety, bodily autonomy, visibility, and social change for people with diverse sexual orientations, gender identities, and relationships.
Asexual Activism: Ace Visibility, Recognition, and Sexual Equality
Asexual activism promotes recognition, visibility, equality, and accurate understanding of ace-spectrum identities while challenging acephobia, erasure, allonormativity, and sexual pressure.
Homophile Movement: Early Gay and Lesbian Rights Activism
The homophile movement was an early gay and lesbian rights movement that challenged discrimination, criminalization, medical stigma, and social prejudice before gay liberation.
Gay Liberation: Sexual Freedom, Equality, Visibility, and Activism
Gay liberation is a social and political movement challenging anti-gay laws, stigma, discrimination, medicalization, and restrictive sexual norms while promoting equality and visibility.
Amatonormativity: Romance as a Social Expectation
Amatonormativity is the assumption that everyone should want and prioritize a central romantic relationship, often treating couplehood as necessary for a complete adult life.
Ace Erasure: Asexual Invisibility, Invalidity, and Recognition
Ace erasure is the denial, invisibility, or misrepresentation of asexuality, often through assumptions that everyone experiences sexual attraction or must want sex.
Bi Erasure: Bisexual Invisibility, Invalidity, and Identity Recognition
Bi erasure is the denial, dismissal, or invisibility of bisexuality, often occurring when people assume sexual orientation solely from a person’s current partner.