Gay Weddings are Good for Business

Gay Wedding Glossary

Cross-Dressing: To occasionally wear clothes traditionally associated with people of the other sex. Cross-dressers are usually comfortable with the sex they were assigned at birth and do not wish to change it. Cross-dresser should NOT be used to describe someone who has transitioned to live full-time as the other sex or who intends to do so in the future. Cross-dressing is a form of gender expression and is not necessarily tied to erotic activity, nor is it indicative of sexual orientation.

Gay Wedding Glossary

Transition: For transgender people, altering one’s birth sex from male to female or vice versa is not a one-step procedure; it is a complex process that occurs over a long period of time. Transition includes some or all of the following cultural, legal and medical adjustments: telling one’s family, friends and/or co-workers; changing one’s name and/or sex on legal documents; hormone therapy; and possibly (though not always) sex reassignment surgery.

If you are working with transgender clients, they may be at any stage of this transition and it's important for you as a professional to respect however that individual currently identifies, even if he or she is not necessarily believable or passable in his or her gender identity.

Gay Wedding Glossary

FTM: A transgender person who was born female but lives as a male.  You should use male pronouns with this person and never ask about his former name or former life as a woman.  This client will want to wear male clothing at his wedding.  This client may be marrying a man or a woman.  

Gay Wedding Glossary

Transvestite: Old, and now derogatory term for people who cross-dress.  You should not use this term.

Gay Wedding Glossary

Transgender: An umbrella term for people whose gender identity and/or gender expression differs from the sex they were assigned at birth. Transgender people may or may not decide to transition their bodies to the opposite gender through hormonally and/or Sex Reassignment Surgery.  Some transgender individuals were born male and are now female.  Some were born female and are now male.  Some will marry women and some will marry men.  Transgender is the T in LGBT.

It is always important to treat transgender clients as the gender they identify with, even if they are not necessarily passable in that new gender.  The process of transition is a long and difficult one but a journey that you must respect.

If you have any transgender clients, or if your clients have friends who are transgender, you may be asked to create gender neutral restroom signs.  

Gay Wedding Glossary

Gender Identity: An individual’s internal sense and experience of gender. Includes male, female, transgender, genderqueer, queer etc. For transgender people, their birth-assigned sex and their own internal sense of gender identity do not match.