Gender: Difference between revisions

'''Gender''' is a term that encompasses various human traits that, in a given society, are traditionally grouped together.<ref name="who gender">{{Cite web|url=https://www.who.int/health-topics/gender|title=Gender and health|website=World Health Organization}}</ref> These traits can include learned behaviors and roles, biological traits (as understood by society), appearance, and more.<ref name="FYI gender">{{Cite web|url=https://genderdysphoria.fyi/en/what-is-gender|title=What is Gender?|website=The Gender Dysphoria Bible}}</ref> In Western societies, this notion traditionally corresponds to the binary sexes, [[man]] and [[woman]], though this is not always the case.<ref name=":0">https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/gender</ref> Many non-Western cultures have [[Gender-variant identities worldwide|traditional genders besides male and female]], and there is a growing number of people, including in Western society, who identify as [[nonbinary]] or [[genderqueer]].

[[Gender identity]] refers specifically to the internal sense of one's gender.<ref name="MorrowMessinger">{{cite book | vauthors = Morrow DF | chapter = Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Expression. | veditors = Morrow DF, Messinger L | title = Sexual orientation and gender expression in social work practice: working with gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people | date = 2006 | publisher = Columbia University Press | location = New York | isbn = 978-0-231-50186-6 | pages = 3–17 (8) | quote = Gender identity refers to an individual's personal sense of identity as masculine or feminine, or some combination thereof. | chapter-url = https://books.google.com/books?id=irs3BAAAQBAJ&dq=978-0-231-50186-6&pg=PA8 | access-date = 19 December 2021 | archive-date = 19 December 2021 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20211219122137/https://books.google.com/books?id=irs3BAAAQBAJ&dq=978-0-231-50186-6&pg=PA8 | url-status = live }}</ref> People who identify with their assigned gender at birth ([[AGAB]]) are referred to as [[cisgender]]; those who do not are referred to as [[transgender]]. People who identify as the other binary gender than what they were assigned at birth are sometimes called binary transgender; those who identify as something else are called nonbinary or genderqueer.<ref name="Reisner and Hughto">{{Cite journal|last=Reisner|first=Sari L.|last2=Hughto|first2=Jaclyn M. W.|date=27 August 2019|editor-last=Shiu|editor-first=Cheng-Shi|title=Comparing the health of non-binary and binary transgender adults in a statewide non-probability sample|url=https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6711503/|journal=PLoS One|volume=14|issue=8|doi=10.1371/journal.pone.0221583|pmid=31454395|quote=Non-binary-identified transgender people may have different sociodemographic characteristics than binary transgender people (e.g., those who identify with a binary gender such as transgender men or transgender women).}}</ref>

While the concepts of gender and [[sex]] are related, they are not the same. However, sex, understood as the system to organize certain biological traits (rather than the traits themselves) is also a social construct and a spectrum. While the traits themselves (such as chromosomes or hormones) are biological facts, how they are classified into distinct groups is a social construct.<ref name="Marston">{{Cite web|url=https://blogs.lshtm.ac.uk/depth/2020/03/16/biological-sex-is-social/|title=Sex is biological and gender is social – right?|last=Marston|first=Cicely|date=16 March 2020|website=LSHTM|access-date=26 June 2023}}</ref> People who don't fit either category of sex may be called [[intersex]], but the word refers to sex only, not to gender.<ref name="OHCHR intersex">{{Cite web|url=https://www.ohchr.org/en/sexual-orientation-and-gender-identity/intersex-people|title=Intersex people|website=OHCHR|access-date=26 June 2023}}</ref>

Etymologically speaking, "gender" derives from Old French ''gendre'' (in turn deriving from the Latin ''genus'') and used to mean "class or kind of persons or things sharing certain traits". In the 15th century it began to be used as a synonym for ''sex'' until the 20th century, when it began to adopt its current meaning.<ref name="etymonline gender">{{Cite web|url=https://www.etymonline.com/word/gender|title=gender (n.)|last=Harper|first=Douglas|website=Etymonline|access-date=28 June 2023}}</ref> Before then, although gender variance existed around the world, the abstract concept of gender itself didn't exist and was mostly associated with the grammar of certain languages.<ref name="holmes antiquity">{{cite book |last1=Holmes |first1=Brooke |title=Gender: Antiquity and its Legacy |date=2012 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0195380828 |pages=1–2 |chapter=Introduction |quote=For as it turns out, what we call gender is a fairly recent concept. It's not that people in Ancient Greece and Rome didn't talk and think and argue about the categories of male and female, masculine and feminine and the nature and extent of sexual difference. They did in [ways] both similar to and very different from our own. The problem is that they didn't have the concept of gender that has grown so influential in the humanities and the social sciences over the past four decades.}}</ref>

In 1945, psychologist Madison Bentley defined gender in ''Sanity and Hazard in Childhood'' as the "socialized obverse of sex",<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Bentley|first=Madison|date=April 1945|title=Sanity and Hazard in Childhood|url=https://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1417846|journal=The American Journal of Psychology|volume=58|issue=2|pages=212–246|doi=10.2307/1417846|jstor=1417846|issn=0002-9556|access-date=17 August 2021}}</ref> and Simone de Beauvoir's 1949 book ''The Second Sex'' is often seen as the beginning of the distinction between the terms ''gender'' and ''sex''.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Witt|first=Charlotte E.|url=https://worldcat.org/oclc/780208834|title=Feminist metaphysics: explorations in the ontology of sex, gender and identity|date=2011|publisher=Springer|isbn=978-90-481-3782-4|pages=48|oclc=780208834|access-date=6 September 2021|archive-date=17 February 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220217115729/https://www.worldcat.org/title/feminist-metaphysics-explorations-in-the-ontology-of-sex-gender-and-identity/oclc/780208834|url-status=live}}</ref> In current times, ''gender'' and ''sex'' are frequently used interchangeably, although preserving the distinction is useful, especially for educational purposes.

Gender is generally assigned at birth based on the infant's genitalia. Infants with penises are assigned male and infants with vulvae are assigned female. [[Intersex]] infants with ambiguous genitalia are often subjected to surgery meant to give them the appearance of a [[dyadic]] (non-intersex) person. Then they are assigned a gender accordingly.<ref name=":1">https://www.genderspectrum.org/quick-links/understanding-gender/</ref>

Transgender people often experience [[dysphoria]], a dissatisfaction with or disconnect from things associated with their [[AGAB]]. This includes (but is not limited to) desires to have different sex characteristics. It is unclear how much of these desires are due to the conflation of sex and gender in society, and how much is inborn. The treatment for physical dysphoria is physical [[transition]]. Transition for trans women often involves hormone therapy with androgen blockers, estrogen, and/or progesterone;<ref name=":2">http://transhealth.ucsf.edu/trans?page=guidelines-feminizing-therapy</ref> voice training; facial reconstruction surgery; vaginoplasty; and/or hair removal techniques. Transition for trans men often involves hormone therapy with testosterone; top surgery (breast removal); and/or phalloplasty. Transgender children sometimes go on puberty blockers until they decide whether to undergo hormone therapy, to avoid going through undesirable physical changes during puberty.<ref name=":3">http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/when-transgender-kids-transition-medical-risks-are-both-known-and-unknown/</ref> Not all trans people choose to undergo all or any of these treatments, and nonbinary people may also undergo any number of these treatments. Some trans people choose to physically transition despite having no physical dysphoria in order to be socially recognized as the gender they are. This includes acknowledgement from friends, family, coworkers, and strangers, as well as legal documentation.<ref name=":4">http://www.goodtherapy.org/blog/what-does-it-mean-for-transgender-person-to-transition-0629167</ref>

Gender expression refers outwardly visible traits that are related to one's gender identity. This includes pronouns, clothes, hairstyle, movements, inflection, speech patterns, and more. People's gender expression generally functions to communicate that person's gender to others via similarities to other people of the same gender, but there are exceptions.<ref name=":5">http://www.lgbtss.dso.iastate.edu/library/education/gi-ge</ref> People whose gender expression differs from what is expected given their gender are called [[gender nonconforming]]. Sometimes transgender people have gender expressions similar to people of their [[AGAB]] because it is how they grew up presenting, and sometimes transgender people are closeted, and have a gender expression that specifically does not convey their gender to others. Many people simply enjoy playing with gender norms.