Gender Identity

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    Revision as of 15:56, 23 February 2017 by Ondo (talk | contribs) (→‎Fluidity)

    Gender identity is an internal sense of belonging to or being a gender, regardless of physical sexual characteristics. Most people identify as the gender that they were assigned at birth. They are described as 'cisgender' by the transgender community, who do not identify with their assigned birth genders.

    Binary gender

    As the term implies, there are two binary genders, male and female, or man and woman. These genders are the only ones recognized in Western society. There is an assumption that people will come to identify as their assigned gender- those assigned female at birth as women and male at birth as men. Binary transgender people subvert this assumption in that they identify as the binary genders they were not assigned: female-assigned trans people as men and male-assigned trans people as women.

    Non-binary gender

    Nonbinary gender is any gender that exists outside of the gender binary. That is, any gender not described by just "male" or "female". Even in societies that recognize only two genders, there are still people who find that they don't fit into those two. Despite the lack of recognition of nonbinary genders in Western binarist society, nonbinary genders are still valid identities.

    Fluidity

    Gender identity can remain the same or change over the course of an individual's life. Genderfluid people experience frequent changes in their gender identity, as often as monthly, weekly, or even several times a day. Other people, however, have the same gender identity throughout their entire life, with little to no change. It depends on the individual.