The TeenSource Sex Education Glossary has definitions for the terms we use on the site.

Glossary

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T-Cells

Special kind of white blood cells that are part of the immune system. They help kill germs in the body. Doctors can count a person's T-cells. Most healthy adults have about 1000 of them. If someone has HIV and a T-cell count lower than 200 a doctor can tell the person they have AIDS. Counting T-cells is a way doctors try and measure how the immune system is working. T-cells can go up and down. They do not tell a person how they are feeling or when they will die. People can have a low number and still feel perfectly healthy.

Tampon

A long skinny tube made of cotton with a string attached to one end. A female can put it inside her vagina during her period to soak up any blood that will come out of her body. The vagina walls hold it in place. Tampons don't hurt if they are put in properly. They can easily be pulled out by the string that hangs out of the vagina.

Testicles

Two small egg-shaped organs. They are soft and squishy and are covered and protected by the scrotum. They hang behind the penis of a male. The testicles are what make sperm. They need to be kept at a certain temperature. When it is hot they get larger and when it is cold they shrink closer to the body. Slang terms: Balls, family jewels.

Transfusion

A transfusion is donated blood from one person given to another person when a loss of blood has occurred through surgery, an accident, or other medical needs. The donated blood supply in the United States is screened (or tested) for HIV, hepatitis, and other types of blood diseases before it is used by others.

Transmission

The ways that any kind of disease, including a STD, can be spread. Having unprotected oral, anal, or vaginal sex, are the main ways STDs are transmitted. STDs can't pass through human skin. They can get through open cuts or sores and through places that have mucous membranes like in someone's mouth, anus, vagina or penis tip. Blood, semen, pre-seminal fluid, vaginal and cervical secretions and breast milk are all fluids that can transmit STDs.

Trichomoniasis (TRICH)

An STD which can cause Vaginitis in women and Urethritis in men. Trichomoniasis can be cured with antibiotics.

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