Transgendered people have clearly identified that they should be addressed based on the gender they present. Male to female transsexuals, transgenderists, and cross-dressers who present as women should be addressed as women. Female to male transsexuals, transgenderists and cross-dressers who present as men should be addressed as men.
- Cross-Dresser refers to people who dress in the clothes of the opposite sex for emotional satisfaction and psychological well being. Because of its association with medical identity, the diagnostic term ‘transvestite’ is not used favourably within the transgendered community.
- Gender identity refers to those characteristics that are linked to an individual's intrinsic sense of self that is based on attributes reflected in the person's psychological, behavioural and/or cognitive state. Gender identity may also refer to one’s intrinsic sense of manhood or womanhood. It is fundamentally different from, and not determinative of, sexual orientation.
- Gender reorientation occurs when an individual moves from birth assigned sex to the felt gender. The process includes the adoption of the felt gender role, ‘passing’ as the opposite sex among strangers, using an opposite sex name, obtaining new personal identity documents that reflect the person's felt gender and/or new name, working in the opposite sex role and undergoing hormone treatment or surgery. Persons who have completed a gender identity clinic program and undergo sex reassignment surgery are considered members of their felt gender (and are sometimes referred to as transsexual).
- Intersexed means being born with the (full or partial) sex organs of both genders, or with underdeveloped or ambiguous sex organs. About 4 per cent of all births are intersexed to some degree. This word replaces the term ‘hermaphrodite’.
- Sex refers to a person's genetic or anatomical sex; there are also associated psychological and behavioural norms related to a person’s sex.
- Sexual orientation refers to the choice of sexual partners and is distinct from gender identity. The ground of sexual orientation would likely not protect transgendered persons from discrimination based on gender identity.
- Transsexuals are those people who have a strong and persistent feeling that they are living in the wrong sex. A male transsexual has a need to live as a woman and a female transsexual has a need to live as a man.
- Transgendered describes individuals who are not comfortable with, or who reject, in whole or in part, their birth assigned gender identities. The term “transgendered” unifies people who identify as transsexuals, transvestites or "cross-dressers", drag queens, etc.
- Transgenderists identify as the opposite gender but have decided not to undergo sex reassignment surgery.