Abel-ism

The belief that disabled individuals are inferior to non-disabled individuals, leading to discrimination toward and oppression of individuals with disabilities and physical differences.

Accessibility

The extent to which a facility is readily approachable and usable by individuals with disabilities, particularly such areas as residence halls, classrooms, and public areas.

Accomplice

The actions of an accomplice are meant to directly challenge institutionalized racism, colonization, and white supremacy by blocking or impeding racist people, policies and structures.

Advocate 

Someone who speaks up for themselves and members of their identity group; e.g. a person who lobbies for equal pay for a specific group.

Age-Ism 

Prejudiced thoughts and discriminatory actions based on differences in age; usually that of younger persons against older.

A-Gender

Not identifying with any gender, the feeling of having no gender.

Ally

A person of one social identity group who stands up in support of members of another group. Typically, member of dominant group standing beside member(s) of targeted group; e.g., a male arguing for equal pay for women.

Anti-Semitism 

The fear or hatred of Jews, Judaism, and related symbols.

Asexuality

Little or no romantic, emotional and/or sexual attraction toward other persons. Asexual could be described as non-sexual, but asexuality is different from celibacy, which is a choice to not engage in sexual behaviors with another person.

Assigned Sex

What a doctor determines to be your physical sex birth based on the appears of one’s primary sex characteristics.

Assimilation

A process by which outsiders (persons who are others by virtue of cultural heritage, gender, age, religious background, and so forth) are brought into , or made to take on the existing identity of the group into which they are being assimilated.

Bias

Prejudice; an inclination or preference, especially one that interferes with impartial judgment.

Bigotry

An unreasonable or irrational attachment to negative stereotypes and prejudices.

Bi-Racial

A person who identifies as coming from two races. A person whose biological parents are of two different races.

Bisexual

A romantic, sexual, or/and emotional attraction toward people of all sexes. A person who identifies as bisexual is understood to have attraction to male and female identified persons. However, it can also mean female attraction and non-binary, or other identifiers. It is not restricted to only CIS identifiers.

Cisgender

A person who identifies as the gender they were assigned at birth.

Classism

Prejudiced thoughts and discriminatory actions based on a difference in socioeconomic status, income, class; usually by upper classes against lower.

Coalition

A collection of different people or groups, working toward a common goal.

Colonization

The action or process of settling among and establishing control over the indigenous people of an area. The action of appropriating a place or domain for one’s own use.

Color Blind

The belief in treating everyone “equally” by treating everyone the same; based on the presumption that differences are by definition bad or problematic, and therefore best ignored (i.e., “I don’t see race, gender, etc.”).

Colorism

A form of prejudice or discrimination in which people are treated differently based on the social meanings attached to skin color.

Conscious Bias (Explicit Bias)

Refers to the attitudes and beliefs we have about a person or group on a conscious level. Much of the time, these biases and their expression arise as the direct result of a perceived threat. When people feel threatened, they are more likely to draw group boundaries to distinguish themselves from others.

Culture

Culture is the pattern of daily life learned consciously and unconsciously by a group of people. These patterns can be seen in language, governing practices, arts, customs, holiday celebrations, food, religion, dating rituals, and clothing.

Cultural Appropriation

The adoption or theft of icons, rituals, aesthetic standards, and behavior from one culture or subculture by another. It is generally applied when the subject culture is a minority culture or somehow subordinate in social, political, economic, or military status to appropriating culture.

Disability

An impairment that may be cognitive, developmental, intellectual, mental, physical, sensory, or some combination of these. It substantially affects a person’s life activities and may be present from birth or occur during a person’s lifetime.

Discrimination

The denial of justice and fair treatment by both individuals and institutions in many areas, including employment, education, housing, banking, and political rights. Discrimination is an action that can follow prejudiced thinking.

Diversity

The wide variety of shared and different personal and group characteristics among human beings.

Dominant Culture

The cultural values, beliefs, and practices that are assumed to be the most common and influential within a given society.

Ethnicity

A social construct which divides individuals into smaller social groups based on characteristics such as a shared sense of group membership, values, behavioral patterns, language, political and economic interests, history and ancestral geographical base.

Ethnocentricity

Considered by some to be an attitude that views one’s own culture as superior. Others cast it as “seeing things from the point of view of one’s own ethnic group” without the necessary connotation of superiority.

Eurocentric

The inclination to consider European culture as normative. While the term does not imply an attitude of superiority (since all cultural groups have the initial right to understand their own culture as normative), most use the term with a clear awareness of the historic oppressiveness of Eurocentric tendencies in U.S and European society.

Equality

A state of affairs in which all people within a specific society or isolated group have the same status in certain respects, including civil rights, freedom of speech, property rights and equal access to certain social goods and services.

Equity

Takes into consideration the fact that the social identifiers (race, gender, socioeconomic status, etc.) do, in fact, affect equality. In an equitable environment, an individual or a group would be given what was needed to give them equal advantage. This would not necessarily be equal to what others were receiving. It could be more or different. Equity is an ideal and a goal, not a process. It insures that everyone has the resources they need to succeed.

Feminism

The advocacy of women’s rights on the ground of the equality of the sexes.

Femme

A person who expresses and/or identifies with femininity.

First Nation People

Individuals who identify as those who were the first people to live on the Western Hemisphere continent. People also identified as Native Americans.

Gay

A person who is emotionally, romantically or sexually attracted to members of the same gender. Refers to a man who has a romantic and/or sexual orientation towards men. Also a generic term for lesbian and gay sexuality – some women define themselves as gay rather than lesbian.

Gender

The socially constructed concepts of masculinity and femininity; the “appropriate” qualities accompanying biological sex.

Gender Expression

How a person chooses to outwardly express their gender, within the context of societal expectations of gender. A person who does not conform to societal expectations of gender may not, however, identify as trans.

Gender Fluid

A person who does not identify with a single fixed gender; of or relating to a person having or expressing a fluid or unfixed gender identity.

Gender Identity

Your internal sense of self; how you relate to your gender(s).

Gender Non-Conforming

A broad term referring to people who do not behave in a way that conforms to the traditional expectations of their gender, or whose gender expression does not fit into a category.

Gender Queer

Gender queer people typically reject notions of static categories of gender and embrace a fluidity of gender identity and often, though not always, sexual orientation. People who identify

as “gender queer” may see themselves as both male or female aligned, neither male or female or as falling completely outside these categories.

Harassment

Unwanted conduct related to a protected characteristic that has the purpose or effect of violating a person’s dignity or creates an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment. It may also involve unwanted conduct of a sexual nature or be related to gender reassignment or sex.

Hate Crime

Hate crime legislation often defines a hate crime as a crime motivated by the actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, ethnicity, gender, disability, or sexual orientation of any person.

Heterosexual

Attracted to members of other or the opposite sex.

Homophobia

The fear or hatred of homosexuality (and other non‐heterosexual identities), and persons perceived to be gay or lesbian.

Inclusion

Authentically bringing traditionally excluded individuals and/or groups into processes, activities, and decision/policy making in a way that shares power.

Inclusive Language

Refers to non-sexist language or language that “includes” all persons in its references.

Institutional Racism

It is widely accepted that racism is, by definition, institutional. Institutions have greater power to reward and penalize. They reward by providing career opportunities for some people and foreclosing them for others. They reward as well by the way social goods are distributed, by deciding who receives institutional benefits.

Internalized Oppression

The process whereby individuals in the target group make oppression internal and personal by coming to believe that the lies, prejudices, and stereotypes about them are true. Members of target groups exhibit internalized oppression when they alter their attitudes, behaviors, speech, and self-confidence to reflect the stereotypes and norms of the dominant group. Internalized oppression can create low self-esteem, self-doubt, and even self-loathing. It can also be projected outward as fear, criticism, and distrust of members of one’s target group.

Internalized Racism

When individuals from targeted racial groups internalize racist beliefs about themselves or members of their racial group.

Intersectionality

An approach largely advanced by women of color, arguing that classifications such as gender, race, class, and others cannot be examined in isolation from one another; they interact and intersect in individuals’ lives, in society, in social systems, and are mutually constitutive. Exposing [one’s] multiple identities can help clarify the ways in which a person can simultaneously experience privilege and oppression.

Intersex

A term used to describe a person who may have the biological attributes of both sexes or whose biological attributes do not fit with societal assumptions about what constitutes male or female. Intersex people may identify as male, female or non-binary.

Lesbian

A woman who is attracted to other women. Also used as an adjective describing such women.

LGBTQIA+

Acronym encompassing the diverse groups of lesbians, gay, bisexual, transgender populations and allies and/or lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender alliances/associations.

Marginalized

Excluded, ignored, or relegated to the outer edge of a group/society/community.

Microaggressions

Commonplace daily verbal, behavioral, or environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory racial slights. These messages may be sent verbally, (“You speak good English”), non-verbally (clutching one’s purse more tightly around people from certain race/ethnicity) or environmentally (symbols like the confederate flag or using Native American mascots).Such communications are usually outside the level of conscious awareness of perpetrators.

Model Minority

Refers to a minority ethnic, racial, or religious group whose members achieve a higher degree of success than the population average. This success is typically measured in income, education, and related factors such as low crime rate and high family stability.

Oppression

Results from the use of institutional power and privilege where one person or group benefits at the expense of another. Oppression is the use of power and the effects of domination.

Pansexual

A term referring to the potential for sexual attractions or romantic love toward people of all gender identities and biological sexes. The concept of pan-sexuality deliberately rejects the gender binary and derives its origin from the transgender movement.

Persons of Color

A collective term for men and women of Asian, African, Latin and Native American backgrounds; as opposed to the collective “White” for those of European ancestry.

Prejudice

A prejudgment or preconceived opinion, feeling, or belief, usually negative, often based on stereotypes, that includes feelings such as dislike or contempt and is often enacted as discrimination or other negative behavior; OR, a set of negative personal beliefs about a social group that leads individuals to prejudge individuals from that group or the group in general, regardless of individual differences among members of that group.

Privilege

Unearned access to resources (social power) only readily available to some individuals as a result of their social group.

Queer

An umbrella term that can refer to anyone who transgresses society’s view of gender or sexuality.

Race

A social construct that artificially divides individuals into distinct groups based on characteristics such as physical appearance (particularly skin color), ancestral heritage, cultural affiliation or history, ethnic classification, and/or the social, economic, and political needs of a society at a given period of time. Scientists agree that there is no biological or genetic basis for racial categories.

Racial Equity

Racial equity is the condition that would be achieved if one’s racial identity is no longer predicted, in a statistical sense, how one fares. When this term is used, the term may imply that racial equity is one part of racial justice, and thus also includes work to address the root causes of inequities, not just their manifestations. This includes the elimination of policies, practices, attitudes and cultural messages that reinforce differential outcomes by race or fail to eliminate them.

Racial Profiling

The use of race or ethnicity as grounds for suspecting someone of having committed an offense.

Racism

Prejudiced thoughts and discriminatory actions based on a difference in race/ethnicity; usually by white/European descent groups against persons of color. Racism is racial prejudice plus power.

Religion

A system of beliefs, usually spiritual in nature, and often in terms of a formal, organized denomination.

Sex

Biological classification of male or female (based on genetic or physiological features); as opposed to gender.

Sexism

Prejudiced thoughts and discriminatory actions based on a difference in sex/gender; usually by men against women.

Sexual Orientation

One’s natural preference in sexual partners; examples include homosexuality, heterosexuality, or bisexuality. Sexual orientation is not a choice, it is determined by a complex interaction of biological, genetic, and environmental factors.

Social Identity

Involves the ways in which one characterizes oneself, the affinities one has with other people, the ways one has learned to behave in stereotyped social settings, the things one values in oneself and in the world, and the norms that one recognizes or accepts governing everyday behavior.

Social Justice

A broad term for action intended to create genuine equality, fairness, and respect among peoples

Stereotype

Blanket beliefs and expectations about members of certain groups that present an oversimplified opinion, prejudiced attitude, or uncritical judgment.

System of Oppression

Conscious and unconscious, non‐random, and organized harassment, discrimination, exploitation, discrimination, prejudice and other forms of unequal treatment that impact different groups.

Tokenism

Hiring or seeking to have representation such as a few women and/or racial or ethnic minority persons so as to appear inclusive while remaining mono-cultural.

Transgender

An umbrella term for people whose gender identity differs from the sex they were assigned at birth.

Transphobia

Fear or hatred of transgender people.

Two Spirit

An umbrella term for a wide range of non-binary culturally recognized gender identities and expressions among Indigenous people.

Unconscious Bias (Implicit Bias)

Refers to the attitudes or stereotypes that affect our understanding, actions, and decisions in an unconscious manner.

Undocumented

A foreign-born person living in the United States without legal citizenship status.

White Fragility

Discomfort and defensiveness on the part of a white person when confronted by information about racial inequality and injustice.

White Privilege

White Privilege is the spillover effect of racial prejudice and White institutional power. It means that as a member of the dominant group a White person has greater access or availability to resources because of being White. It means that White ways of thinking and living are seen as the norm against which all people of color are compared. Life is structured around those norms for the benefit of White people. White privilege is the ability to grow up thinking that race doesn’t matter. It is not having to daily think about skin color and the questions, looks, and hurdles that need to be overcome because of one’s color. White Privilege may be less recognizable to some White people because of gender, age, sexual orientation, economic class or physical or mental ability, but it remains a reality because of one’s membership in the White dominant group.

White Supremacy

White supremacy is a historically based, institutionally perpetuated system of exploitation and oppression of continents, nations and individuals of color by white individuals and nations of the European continent for the purpose of maintaining and defending a system of wealth, power and privilege.

Xenophobia

Hatred or fear of foreigners/strangers or of their politics or culture.