Gender identity

Although this page discusses gender identity, a somewhat delicate subject, it has been written with the aim of being safe reading for people born before approximately 1950. If you find any objectionable content, please feel free to post on the discussion page and the editors will attempt to ameliorate it.

Gender 101

The first thing you need to understand is that "gender" is not the same thing as "(which) sex". They are often used interchangeably, and indeed in most people they are intercorrelated to a very high degree, but there is a significant portion of the population for which this is not true.

• sex (as in the attribute, not the act) is most commonly used to mean the physical, genetic, or biological male-ness or female-ness of a person. It is a common misperception that this is entirely caused by the presence or absence of a Y chromosome, though the misperception is understandable because this is certainly true in the overwhelming majority of cases. But there are clear exceptions. "Sex" in this meaning might be less misleadingly called physical gender.
• gender refers to all attributes which are commonly thought of as "masculine" or "feminine" traits. This technically includes "sex", so you might define "sex" as "one's physical/genetic/biological gender". However, even leaving out "sex", there are many separate aspects to "gender". Again, these aspects are highly correlated in most people -- but not in everyone.

attributes

The next thing you need to understand is that there are many attributes, both physical and behavioral, which make up what we call "gender". These attributes do tend to cluster into two groups which we call "male" and "female", but these convenient labels are inadequate to describe the true situation for many people.

Some gender attributes:

• physical:
  • chromosomes (XX, XY, or other)
  • skin tone (adult females tend to have softer, lighter skin with a layer of subcutaneous fat)
  • skin padding (adult females typically have additional fatty deposits in certain areas, giving them a more "curvy" shape)
  • body & facial hair (adult males tend to have more hair everywhere except the top of the head, especially on the face)
  • genital configuration (inny vs. outy, with a few other variations generally (and questionably!) viewed as birth defects)
  • back of the skull (adult males have a bump which children and adult females lack)
  • musculature (adult males tend to have greater upper-body strength)
• behavioral
  • sexual attraction: males tend to prefer females and vice-versa, but this is reversed for a large percentage of the population ("homosexuality"). Some people are attracted to members of both genders ("bisexual"), while some are best described as "asexual" (not feeling sexual attraction for anyone)
  • play affinity: juveniles tend to prefer to play with members of the "same" physical gender; to some extent this is socialized, but it also seems to be a genuine preference -- boys have a notable tendency towards very different and incompatible styles of play than girls do (see next item)
  • play preferences: "girls" tend to prefer dolls, role-play involving housekeeping and nurturing, and more gentle games; "boys" tend to prefer sports, role-play involving violence (fighting and killing), and other competitive and kinetic activities
• other
  • body map: the internal wiring which tells you what shape your body "should" be also seems to have an opinion about what physical gender traits you should have
  • sense: the sense or feeling of which gender you "are" inside your head; it's not clear what generates this, but it seems to be a combination of factors and is sometimes felt quite strongly -- and sometimes in sharp disagreement with physical gender. (This sense is also sometimes referred to as "gender identity", though I am here using that term in a broader way to refer to all the various components of gender, in sum.)