Equity, Diversity, & Inclusivity: Library Resources

LGBTQ: an acronym for "lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer." Other acronyms used are LGBTQ2S+ (including "Two-Spirit" and "+" which is meant to acknowledge additional identities not listed in the acronym), LGBTQIA (including "intersex, asexual/aromantic/agender"), or simply LGBT.

Queer: a term people often use to express a spectrum of identities and orientations that are counter to the mainstream. Queer is often used as a catch-all to include many people, including those who do not identify as exclusively straight and/or folks who have non-binary or genderexpansive identities. This term was previously used as a slur, but has been reclaimed by many parts of the LGBTQ movement.

See below for further resources and definitions organized by sexual orientation:

Lesbian: a woman who is emotionally, romantically or sexually attracted to other women. Women and non-binary people may use this term to describe themselves.

Gay: a person who is emotionally, romantically or sexually attracted to members of the same gender. Men, women and non-binary people may use this term to describe themselves.

Bisexual: a person emotionally, romantically or sexually attracted to more than one sex, gender or gender identity though not necessarily simultaneously, in the same way or to the same degree. Sometimes used interchangeably with pansexual.

Pansexual: someone who has the potential for emotional, romantic or sexual attraction to people of any gender though not necessarily simultaneously, in the same way or to the same degree. Sometimes used interchangeably with bisexual.

Asexual: the lack of a sexual attraction or desire for other people. Also included on the asexual (or "ace") spectrum are orientations demisexual and grey-asexual (or "grey-a"). See What Does It Mean To Be Asexual?

Romantic Orientation: While some asexual people also identify as aromantic (or "aro ace"), many other asexual people do desire romantic relationships. For asexuals who do not experience sexual attraction, romantic orientations can clarify who they prefer to date or form relationships with (eg. homoromantic, biromantic, panromantic, heteroromantic, and others).

Polyamory: the practice or condition of participating simultaneously in more than one serious romantic or sexual relationship with the knowledge and consent of all partners.

Although not a sexual orientation, polyamory is included in this guide because of the overlap between members of the poly community and members of the LGBTQ2S+ community.

Starting your search can seem daunting, but we can help you break things down into steps and give you some tips:

• Check out our Foundational Tutorials (available in English et en Français!)
• Use "quotation marks" to keep your search terms together (e.g. "coming out" will search for instances where those two words appear next to each other).
• Use *asterisks to search for words that have the same root (e.g. heteronormativ* searches heteronormative as well as heteronormativity).
• If you have more specific questions, just Ask Us! Our library staff are more than happy to help you out.

The following are keyword search results from 300+ databases. Results include academic journal articles, ebooks, books, magazine/news articles, reviews, etc. These keywords, and any others you are interested in for your research, can also be searched in the journals and databases listed on this page.

• lgbt* or 2slgbt*
• “Sexual orientation*”
• “Sexual minorit*”
• homosexual*
• lesbian*
• "gay men" or "gay man"
• gay*
• bisexual*
• pansexual*
• asexual*
• aromantic
• polyamor*
• "non monogam*"
• queer*
• "queer theory"
• queer of colo*r
• "coming out"
• heteronormativ*
• homophob* or "sexual prejudic*"