Gender includes the beliefs, feelings, and behaviors that a specific culture associates with an individual based on the individual’s apparent sex. The terms gender and sex are often used interchangeably. However, a person’s sex concerns such biological characteristics as chromosomes, hormones, internal reproductive systems, and genitalia. Gender, on the other hand, involves a complex interplay among sex, personal identity, and social and cultural customs.
There are many different aspects to a person’s gender. Children are generally labeled male or female at birth based on physical characteristics. This process is often referred to as gender assignment. Gender attribution, on the other hand, refers to other people’s perception of the individual’s gender. How individuals perceive and name their own gender is called gender identity.
Two important concepts related to gender are gender expression and gender roles. Gender expression consists of the ways in which individuals indicate their gender to others. Gender may be expressed through behavior, clothing, hairstyle, and other aspects of a person’s presentation. Gender roles are the set of social expectations imposed on individuals based on their perceived gender. In many societies, for example, caring for children is traditionally considered part of the female gender role, while fighting is considered part of the male gender role. However, gender roles vary across cultures.
People often think of gender as a binary (two-part) system consisting of only males and females. However, some individuals are born with a genetic pattern, reproductive system, or sexual anatomy that does not fit the standard definitions of male and female. In the United States and many other countries, physicians have historically operated on such intersex individuals in cases in which gender could not readily be determined. The operations were conducted without the patient’s consent to place individuals into male or female gender categories. Many people today view the surgical assignment of gender without consent as inhumane.
Transgender individuals often fit the biological definitions of male or female. However, their identity or self-expression does not match the gender assigned to them at birth. They may identify with another gender, or they may feel that no particular gender matches their identity. Many such individuals choose to express their gender identity by adopting a different name and asking others to address them using different pronouns. Some individuals also modify their physical appearance through the use of hormones and surgery.
Throughout history, many societies have recognized cross-gender roles or additional genders beyond male and female. For example, some Native American cultures have formally acknowledged genders that combine male and female elements. They have recognized males who partially or completely assume culturally defined female roles. Likewise, they have recognized females who assume men’s roles. Such individuals have been referred to by different names in different Native American societies. Today, such individuals are known collectively as two-spirit people.
Individuals who assume different genders have also become more visible in modern society. For example, Hindu and Muslim cultures on the Indian subcontinent have long reserved a special social place for hijras. Hijras are males by sex who dress as women and take on feminine characteristics but do not seek to pass as female. Hijras identify as neither women nor men. In 2014, the Supreme Court of India granted official recognition to hijras as a third gender, with rights equal to those of men and women. Other countries and cultures have also begun to acknowledge and accept a wider range of gender identities and expressions.
Today, transgender and gender nonconforming people have grown more visible in many societies. The larger population of individuals whose gender identity matches their gender assignment, often referred to as cisgender, has increasingly begun to acknowledge and accept a wider range of gender identities and expressions.
