Gender dysphoria is an umbrella term that covers feelings of unhappiness and incongruity concerning an individual’s physical sex and/ or gender role.
To ensure that transgender members of staff feel supported at work, the University's policy outlines steps which can encourage employees to be themselves, encourage the retention of transgender men and women and minimise the potential for discrimination.
This is a condition where the individual feels that he or she is "trapped" in a body of the wrong sex, causing him or her anxiety and discomfort.
A transsexual person has a deeply held belief that his or her gender identity does not accord with the gender that was assigned to him or her at birth.
A transsexual person is likely to undergo hormone therapy and/or surgery to change his or her body to reflect his or her inner gender identity.
The process of moving permanently from living in one gender to living in the other is known as "transitioning" or "gender reassignment".
This describes someone who chooses, some of the time, to wear clothes associated with the opposite gender to the one that he or she was assigned at birth.
Many transvestites or cross-dressers are comfortable with their birth gender and do not intend to live permanently in the opposite gender.
However, according to a report commissioned by the Equalities Review, many trans women spend a significant period as a cross-dresser before they decide to transition.
This is an umbrella term describing people who feel the need to present themselves in a gender that differs from the one that they were assigned at birth. It can encompass individuals who are transsexual, transvestite (or cross-dressers) or intersex.
Gender identity and sexual orientation are not interchangeable terms. Gender identity is about the internal sense of one's gender. Sexual orientation is about a person's preference for sexual partners and encompasses attraction towards persons of the same sex, persons of the opposite sex, and persons of both sexes.
Transgender people can be bisexual, gay, heterosexual or lesbian, and no assumption should be made that a transgender man or woman has a particular sexual orientation. Some trans people's sexual orientation will change if they transition.