Umbrella term

An umbrella term is a word that refers to a category of things. For example, "binary gender" is an umbrella term that encompasses "man"/"boy" and "woman"/"girl".

Gender umbrella terms

There are three major umbrella terms for people who are not cisgender.

• Transgender is probably the most well-known term. It refers to a person who does not identify with the gender they were assigned at birth.
• Nonbinary (also non-binary) refers to a person who does not or does not always identify with a binary gender.
• Genderqueer refers to a person "whose gender identity is neither man nor woman, is between or beyond genders, or is some combination of genders".

Although a person may technically belong to one or more of these categories, they may not describe themselves using all of them. "Transgender" can pose problems for self-identification because it is often used as a synonym for transsexual.