Sex, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation

After some confusion amongst friends today whilst discussing sex and gender (they seemed to be confusing or conflating the terms), please see below for a whistlestop tour of definitions:

Sex refers to a person’s biological status and is typically categorized as male, female, or intersex.

Gender refers to the attitudes, feelings, and behaviours that a given culture associates with a person’s biological sex. Behavior that is compatible with cultural expectations are referred to as gender-normative or cisgender; behaviors that are viewed as incompatible with these expectations may be referred to as gender non-conformity, transgender or genderqueer.

  • FAAB: Female assigned at birth i.e. the doctors looked at you and on the basis of sex-cues such as having a vagina, assigned your gender for you as female.
  • MAAB: Male assigned at birth i.e. the doctors looked at you and on the basis of sex-cues such as having a penis assigned your gender for you as male
  • FAAB and MAAB both draw attention to the idea that the gender that you have been raised as might not necessarily be the gender that you identify as (and the whole process of assuming ‘vagina / feminine / femme = female’ or ‘penis / masculine / butch = male’ is totally whack)

Gender identity refers to “one’s sense of oneself as male, female, or transgender” (American Psychological Association, 2006) [or genderqueer, or genderless / third gender]

Gender expression / gender performance refers to the “…way in which a person acts to communicate gender within a given culture; for example, in terms of clothing, communication patterns and interests. A person’s gender expression may or may not be consistent with socially prescribed gender roles, and may or may not reflect his or her [or their] gender identity” (American Psychological Association, 2008, p. 28).

Sexual orientation refers to the sex or gender of those to whom one is sexually and romantically attracted. 

As ever, please let me know if I’ve erred anywhere: I’m certainly no expert!

Notes

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  14. toad-sweat reblogged this from mindovermatterzine and added:
    A handy reminder!
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  21. drunken-rambling reblogged this from mindovermatterzine and added:
    Gender is actually usually used as a synonym for sex. When talking about how one perceives his gender, it’s gender...