Gender, Gender Identity And Gender: What Is Gender?

What is gender?

Gender is the intersection of the relationships between sex, gender identity, sexuality and gender expression; gender is an achieved status

Gender is not just sex, gender identity, gender expression and sexuality. These aspects are a basis for gender, but they do not determine gender.

Sex is the measurable organs (anatomies), hormones and chromosomes that determines us as male, female or intersex. It is what we are born with, a product of biological processes (DNA, evolution, mutation, replication, reproduction, and selection). Sex is a biological construct, as opposed to gender which is a social and cultural construct.

Gender identity is one’s self perception, sense of belonging to being woman, man or a genderqueer (both

Gender differences are best understood as a process of socialization, to organize the roles each individual have to fulfil in society. From parents to teachers, religions, media, and peers; we observe and make sense of the behaviors exhibited by the people around us since young. We imitate and construct our own understanding of how to be of a particular gender, and of how to position ourselves. Parents socialize their children based on their biological sex, and this process starts as soon as the sex of the baby is known. Gender is hence socially constructed.

Gender differs in meanings across cultures. There are many different ways to organize society, and to interpret our sexual reproductive biology across cultures. In different cultures, there are various classification systems and interpretations. There are binary and plural systems, as well as the idea of genderless. Androgyny is the cultural ideal of genderlessness, where it is neither masculinity nor femininity. Binary systems categorizes the world into only two genders – man and woman, while plural systems recognizes that there can be more than two genders