Gender (Reading)

As showed in Module 1 the first three letters in LGBTI+ refer to sexuality, while T and I are connected to gender identity and sex characteristics. “T” stands for the term ‘trans’ and it can be understood as an umbrella term for different situations. The letter I stands for the term ‘intersex’ .

Gender is a construct of socio-historical and cultural roles given to people, usually based on their sex assigned at birth.

Gender refers to everything that is associated with being a woman or a man in a particular society and in a given historical period: social norms, characteristics, behaviours, roles, clothes, etc.

Gender varies from society to society and can change over time.

Gender can be described as a combination of

• the sex assigned at birth
• gender identity
• gender expression.

The three aspect of gender all have variations beyond the binary:

• intersex persons are an example of the varitions in sex characteristics that can not be cathegorised as male or female;
• non-binary gender identities are an example of the variations of gender identities beyond male and female identities;
• and “femininie male”, “masculine female”, butch woman or a male representing himself with a metrosexual expression are all examples of variatons in gender expression beyond the feminine and masculine binaries.

Variations can also exist in the relationship between the three aspects of gender, as we will show in the next reading.

The common theme here is the insufficiency of binary categories. These binary categories are not something that nature “decided”, rather nature presents us quite a few variations of “penises”, “sex” chromosomes and other “sex” characteristics. Nature also presents us with variations of lived experiences of our bodies, motivations, inclinations and desires. Nature doesn’t decide where the category of “male” ends, and where the category of “female” begins; or where the category of “normal” sexuality starts and ends. Nature also doesn’t give any clues about what clothing and movements are “healthy” or “matching” expressions to our biological bodies. Humans decide these categories.