Sex, attraction and gender

What does it all mean?

Gender identity

Gender refers to how you, in your head, define your gender, based on how much you align (or don’t align) with what you understand to be the options for gender. This might be ‘man’, ‘women’, ‘gender queer’, or any other way you want to identify yourself.

Gender expression

Gender expression is the way you present gender, through your actions, dress and demeanour, and how those presentation are interpreted by others based on gender norms.

Biological sex

This refers to the physical sex characteristics that you’re born with and develop, including genitalia, body shape, voice pitch, body hair, hormones, chromosomes, etc.

Attraction

Attraction also referred to as ‘sexuality’, refers to who you are sexually attracted and romantically attracted to. This is all about how you feel towards other, not necessarily how you label yourself.

The Genderbread Person provides a simple, easy to understand model for understanding the social construction of gender. There’s also a number of educational images, articles and classroom activities surrounding gender available here.