CISGENDER
The term is usually credited to Dana Leland Defosse, a biologist at the University of Minnesota, to describe when a person’s gender identity conforms to the social expectations that is associated with their sex assigned at birth. The term gained wider popularity after it was discussed in transgender theorist Julia Serano’s book, Whipping Girl. To be a cisgender is not the same as being a heterosexual—the latter refers to sexuality rather than gender. However, the two identities can overlap: A person can be cisgender and heterosexual. The term not only helps to distinguish between sexual identity and gender identity, but also the act of naming the normative category of sex identification can potentially allow us to see with more clarity the diversity of human experience.
ENGENDER
To engender is to look through the prism of gender to analyze spaces, processes, policies, practices, and institutions. This helps create more inclusive, accessible, and just structures and spaces. For instance, to engender an educational space would be to question whether all parts of the campus are equally accessible to people of all genders or whether there are clean and accessible toilets available for people of all genders. An economic policy that is engendered would take account of the significant role women play in the economy or how the economy might be exclusionary towards women and other genders. An engendered policy would address these concerns and attempt to create gender-just alternatives. To engender would also result in moving beyond a limiting binary understanding of gender (as male and female) but would instead recognise that gender is a spectrum.
GENDER
Gender is a social construct that is complex, layered, and has an impact on our everyday lives. This impact can be seen in the way we dress, occupy space, use our voices, interact with one another, or in what we expect of one another. This allows for a differentiation between men and women and accordingly assign roles and values based on this distinction. For instance, men may be expected not to display their emotions easily, while women may be expected not to be ambitious. Gender and what it implies can vary from time to time and society to society and is fluid in nature. It can be changed. Gender is no longer seen as a binary and is instead seen as a spectrum of gender identities.
GENDER AUDIT
Gender Audit is essentially a ‘social audit’, and belongs to the category of ‘quality audits’ that distinguishes it from traditional financial audits. It considers whether internal practices and related support systems for gender mainstreaming are effective and reinforce each other and whether they are being followed. It establishes a baseline and identifies critical gaps and challenges and recommends ways of addressing them, suggesting possible improvements and innovations. It also documents good practices towards the achievement of gender equality.
GENDER DYSPHORIA
Gender Dysphoria refers to the experience of physiological distress caused due to the dissonance between a person’s experienced gender and the sex that they were assigned at birth. Gender Dysphoria replaced the diagnostic term GID (gender identity disorder) in the 2004 edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM. The replacement of ‘disorder’ with ‘dysphoria’ in the diagnostic label has been a welcome change for trans activists as it removes the connotation that trans people suffer from mental ‘disorder’.
INTERSECTIONALITY
The term intersectionality was coined by Kimberle Crenshaw, an African American legal scholar and civil rights activist, to explain the compounded nature of discrimination faced by African American women on account of both their gender and their race. She argued that the discrimination faced by African American women was greater than the sum of the sexism and racism they faced. Instead, the discrimination they faced was a complex, compounded set of obstacles that led to a very specific kind of subordination of African American women. Intersectionality results in being aware of this complex, compounded set of obstacles. In South Asia, specifically in India, to view experiences through an intersectional prism would be to take into account religion, race, class, caste, ability, gender identity, and sexual orientation.
LoSHA
Soon after the #MeToo allegations against Hollywood producer Harvery Weinstein came to light in October 2017, a similar movement emerged in Indian academia. This was a crowd-sourced list published on Facebook by Raya Sarkar, an Indian student at law school in America. This list named over 70 prominent Indian male academics (within and outside Indian universities) who students identified as predatory and as sexual harassers. Popularly referred to as LoSHA (or List of Sexual Harassers in Academia) this list has raised questions about privilege and cultures of silence and impunity within the academy.
MASCULINITY
Masculinity can be understood as a set of attributes, roles, or behaviours that are associated with boys and men. These are attributes that are ‘expected’ of men and boys. Although the concept of masculinity varies across time and space, some roles and behaviours that are expected of men and boys across different locations is an avoidance of whatever is understood as femininity, a display of strength, the ability to provide, and restriction of emotions. The understanding of masculinity (and the performance of the same) varies across age, nationality, caste, race, and class.
NON-BINARY
Non-Binary is used as an umbrella term used to refer to a number of gender identities. A non-binary person may not self-identify as a man or a woman or identifies sometimes as a man and sometimes as a woman. The existence of non-binary identities are a rejection of the assumption that gender must be male/man/masculine or female/woman/feminine. The term includes those individuals who identify as agender, bigender, gender fluid, genderqueer, and various other genders. While many also identify as transgender, not all non-binary people do.
REFLECTIVE JOURNALING
Reflective Journaling is an activity in which an experience is recalled, considered, and evaluated – reflected upon – mindfully. This is usually done in relation to a broader purpose, such as to inculcate better practices or to chart a journey towards learning or growth. It is a process of conscious recall and examination of an experience that serves as a source for decision making, planing, and action. Reflective journaling helps develop critical reflection in the learning process. It helps record learnings and moments of self-discovery, while also providing an avenue for dynamic self-expression.
SOGI
SOGI stands for Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity. All people have a sexual orientation and gender identity. Thus, everyone is included under the term SOGI. People understand and express their gender in different ways, and are interested in activities and make choices that are common or less common for their biological sex. More inclusive in nature, the term SOGI understands that gender identity and sexual orientation operate on a large spectrum of identities with man, woman, transperson; or homosexuality and heterosexuality as only some of the possible identities and orientations. It provides space for all identities, beyond the letters LGBTQI+.
TRANSFORMATIVE PEDAGOGY
Transformative pedagogy is defined as an activist pedagogy that empowers students to reflect on and critically examine their beliefs, values, and knowledge to develop an appreciation for multiple perspectives, a sense of critical consciousness, and agency. It is a pedagogy that recognizes inequities and endeavors to create a more just society and is based on the idea that educators can choose to either maintain and perpetuate or resist and overcome coercive relations of power. It also promotes personal experiences, dialogical pedagogy, and aligning education with social justice. Transformative pedagogy seeks to transform both students and society. It is transformative in that the learner becomes aware of the social, political and/or personal barriers that produce oppression and attempts to inform and equip learners with the capacity to effect change in their environment.