Introduction to the Guide 19 sex men and women, intersex people who are both, and those with other identities. Intersex is a lived experience of the body. Many forms of intersex exist, mostly genetic in origin5. Lesbian Used to describe a woman whose physical, romantic and/or emotional attraction is to other women. Sex characteristics Refers to each person’s physical features relating to sex, including genitalia and other sexual and reproductive anatomy, chromosomes, hormones, and secondary physical features emerging from puberty. Sexual orientation Refers to each person’s capacity for profound emotional, affectional and sexual attraction to, and intimate and sexual relations with, individuals of a different gender or the same gender or more than one gender. Transgender (sometimes shortened to “trans”) Describes persons whose gender identity and/or gender expression differs from the sex they were assigned at birth. Transgender refers to gender identity (not sexual orientation) and a transgender individual may be heterosexual, gay, lesbian, or bisexual. Transphobia Describes an irrational fear, hatred or aversion towards transgender people. 5 Definition drawn from Morgan Carpenter, in Intersex: Intersectionality, Epistemic and Strucutral Violence, Presentation to the Mental Health Services conferences in Perth, Australia, in August 2014, September 2015.