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Gender-diverse

'Gender-diverse' is an umbrella term for variation in gender experience, expression and identity — everything that deviates from the standard cisgender male/female categories. It is used by governments, care organisations and research to speak about the whole group without writing out each individual term.

What is meant by it?

Gender-diverse includes transgender persons, non-binary persons, people with a fluid gender experience, intersex persons (insofar as they identify with the broader category) and in some definitions anyone who presents themselves outside common gender norms. It is a statistical and organisational collective term, not an identity label people often give themselves.

Distinction and overlap

Gender-diverse overlaps with terms such as 'LGBT+', 'transgender' and 'non-binary', but is broader and is mainly used in official documents and policy papers. The term is sometimes also used for young people exhibiting gender-questioning behaviour, regardless of whether there is a defined identity.

Social and practical context

In care guidelines, research and policy documents, 'gender-diverse' (or the English equivalents 'gender diverse', 'TGD' — transgender and gender diverse) has become a common collective term. It makes it possible to speak about different groups at once, but sometimes conceals substantive differences between those groups.

Critical perspectives

The broad umbrella 'gender-diverse' can lump together groups that in reality have very different needs and outcomes. A 50-year-old trans woman, a 14-year-old girl who suddenly calls herself 'non-binary', and an intersex person have little in common except that they do not fit into a standard cisgender category. Policy that treats them as one group often fails to do justice to the individual situation. Careful differentiation remains necessary.