It’s common for people to confuse sex, gender, and gender identity. But they’re actually all different things. Sex is a label — male or female — that you’re assigned by a doctor at birth based on the genitals you’re born with and the chromosomes you have. It goes on your birth certificate.
Gender is much more complex: It’s a social and legal status, and set of expectations from society, about behaviors, characteristics, and thoughts. Each culture has standards about the way that people should behave based on their gender. This is also generally male or female. But instead of being about body parts, it’s more about how you’re expected to act, because of your sex. Gender identity is how you feel inside and how you express your gender through clothing, behavior, and personal appearance. It’s a feeling that begins very early in life. Continue reading from Planned Parenthood
People often use “sex” and “gender” interchangeably, but they are two different things. Sex is a biological term based on body parts, chromosomes, and hormones. Sex is not as binary as many think it is. There are some people (known as intersex) whose sex is not strictly male or female, but instead falls on a spectrum between these. Gender, in comparison to sex, refers to our internal sense and understanding of ourselves relative to the social and cultural associations and roles that we grow up with.
As we grow up and get to know ourselves, each of us tends to develop a personal sense and experience of our gender identity. Some of us fall into a binary gender category (male or female), while others of us are somewhere in between (nonbinary) or don’t feel connected to either gender (agender). Those whose gender identities match their sex assigned at birth are referred to as cisgender, while those whose identities do not match their sex assigned at birth may identity as transgender. Continue reading from The Jed Foundation
Gender congruence is the feeling of harmony in our gender:
Finding congruence is an ongoing process throughout each of our lives as we continue to grow and gain insight into ourselves. It is most often found through exploration. For some, finding congruence is fairly simple; for others, it is a much more complex process. But the fundamental need to find gender congruence is true for us all, and any degree to which we don’t experience it can be distressing. Continue reading from Gender Spectrum
