You may have noticed the social shift in the last few years. You know, the one where the definition of gender and sexuality seem to change every day? And you may have wondered “why are people making gender so complicated?”. Or maybe you hear others struggle to understand how someone doesn’t fit into “male” or “female”. Maybe it is when people seem to “choose” to be the other gender from what they were born as. Humans seem to have a general struggle with understanding something that they may not have experienced, or something they have never learned about.
“Gender” can be described as both how someone expresses masculinity and femininity, and how they may relate to those concepts. A common misconception is that gender is based on what what a body may look like – this is called “sex”, not gender. Gender is actually more about how a person feels and identifies emotionally (internal), and what they express to the world around them (external). To break this down a little further, let’s explore some simplified definitions..
Definitions
- Gender: a person’s expression of and relation to masculinity and/or femininity
- Sex: physical sex characteristics a person is born with (including genitals, body shape, body hair, and hormone composition)
- Gender Identity: how a person defines their own gender (internal)
- Gender expression: how a person expresses their gender identity (external)
- Attraction: usually split into sexual and romantic attraction, usually towards another gender or sex
The Spectrum of Gender and Sex
One of the most important things to remember in conversations on gender and sex, is that they exist on a spectrum. Below, is an image of the Genderbread Person (version 3.3), that shows these spectrums, and how each of the above definitions differ from each other.
Sexualilty
This is someone experiences and expresses themselves sexually and, just like gender/sex/attraction, it exists on a spectrum.
Sexuality includes:
- self-esteem
- sexual preference
- sexual orientation
- gender and gender identity
- social scripts
- biological factors (such as physical sex and sexual dysfunction)
- what excites us sexually and what turns us off
- the frequency in which we desire sex itself
- past experiences
- how someone is raised to view sex
- religion
- culture
- and so on
It varies between people, so no two people will express or experience it quite the same.