| Privilege |
A special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group of people. |
| Oppression |
The socially supported mistreatment and exploitation of a group of individuals. Oppression occurs when established laws, customs, and practices systemically reflect and produce inequities based on one’s membership in targeted social identity groups. |
| Ally |
Person of a dominant or privileged racial, gender, sexual or other identity who supports and seeks to further the causes of those who lack such privilege (such as people of color or LGBT people). |
| Intersectionality |
The interconnected nature of social categorizations such as race, class, and gender as they apply to a given individual or group, regarded as creating overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage. |
| Institutional Racism |
Patterns of social institutions — such as governmental organizations, schools, banks, and courts of law — giving biased treatment to a group of people based on their race. |
| Queer |
An umbrella term sometimes used by LGBTQA people to refer to the entire LGBT community. The inclusivity of this term can help build community without demanding that individuals choose and represent a specific identity. |
| Transgender |
This term has many definitions. It is frequently used as an umbrella term to refer to all people who do not identify with their assigned gender at birth or the binary gender system. Most often we use it to refer to someone whose gender differs from the biological sex to which they were assigned at birth. Transgender people may identify as male or female, or they may feel that neither label fits them. |
| Non-Binary |
This term has some overlap with the term transgender, and there are many people who use both. A non-binary person feels that their gender does fit within the binary understanding of male of female. Non-binary people may choose to use gender neutral pronouns like they/them or or ze/zir pdf on preferred pronouns. |
| Cisgender |
Types of gender identity where an individual's experience of their own gender matches the sex they were assigned at birth. |
| Implicit Bias |
Unlike explicit bias (which reflects the attitudes or beliefs that one endorses at a conscious level), implicit bias is the bias in judgment and/or behavior that results from subtle cognitive processes (e.g., implicit attitudes and implicit stereotypes) that often operate at a level below conscious awareness and without intentional control. |
| Microaggression |
Everyday verbal, nonverbal, and environmental slights, snubs, or insults, whether intentional or unintentional, which communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative messages to target persons based solely upon their marginalized group membership. |