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Chapter One: What Does LGBT Mean?

Stereotypes about how girls and boys “should” behave or play are changing.

identity. Do you dress and act in a way that makes others see you as male or as female? That’s your gender expression. The last term on our list is sexual orientation . That just means what type of person is attractive to you in a romantic way. Now, you yourself may not be inter- ested in anybody in “that way” at the moment. That’s totally fine! But chances are, sometime in the next few years, some cute person is going to catch your eye. Who you choose will be influenced by your orientation. As you can see, these terms all describe very different things. But it can be easy to forget that the terms are different. That’s because, for a lot of people, all the terms overlap. In other words, their sex matches up with their gender, and their orientation is what’s traditionally expected of that sex.