Gender Identity

What is Gender?

Gender refers to the socially constructed characteristics of women and men – such as norms, roles and relationships of and between groups of male and female such as norms, roles and relationships and expectations of each other. It varies from society to society and can be changed. While most people are born either male or female, they are taught appropriate norms and behaviours – including how they should interact with others of the same or opposite sex within households, communities and work places. When individuals or groups do not “fit” established gender norms they often face stigma, discrimination and exclusion which can affect your health and wellbeing.

Understanding Gender

While our gender may begin with the assignment of our sex, it doesn’t end there. A person’s gender is the complex interrelationship between three dimensions:

– Body: our body, our experience of our own body, how society genders bodies, and how others interact with us based on our body.

– Identity: our deeply held, internal sense of self as male, female, a blend of both, or neither; who we internally know ourselves to be.

– Expression: how we present our gender in the world and how society, culture, community, and family perceive, interact with, and try to shape our gender. Gender expression is also related to gender roles and how society uses those roles to try to enforce conformity to current gender norms.

Gender and Sexual Orientation

Gender and sexual orientation are two distinct aspects of our identity. Gender is personal (how we see ourselves), while sexual orientation is interpersonal (who we are physically, emotionally and/or romantically attracted to). Why is it so critical to distinguish these two concepts? When we confuse gender with sexual orientation, we are likely to make assumptions about a young person that have nothing to do with who they are.

Body

Most societies view sex as a binary concept, with two rigidly fixed options: male or female, both based on a person’s reproductive functions (genitals, sex chromosomes, gonads, hormones, reproductive structures). But a sex binary fails to capture even the biological aspect of gender. While most bodies have one of two forms of genitalia, which are classified as “female” or “male,” there are naturally occurring Intersex conditions that demonstrate that sex exists across a continuum of possibilities.