Gender identity

Although this page discusses gender dysphoria, a somewhat delicate subject, it has been written with the aim of being safe reading for people born before approximately 1950. If you find any objectionable content, please feel free to post on the discussion page and the editors will attempt to ameliorate it.

Gender

The first thing you need to understand is that "gender" is not the same thing as "(which) sex". They are often used interchangeably, and indeed in most people they are intercorrelated to a very high degree, but there is a significant portion of the population for which this is not true.

• sex (as in the attribute, not the act) is most commonly used to mean the physical, genetic, or biological male-ness or female-ness of a person. It is a common misperception that this is entirely caused by the presence or absence of a Y chromosome, though the misperception is understandable because this is certainly true in the overwhelming majority of cases. But there are clear exceptions.
• gender refers to all attributes which are commonly thought of as "masculine" or "feminine" traits. This technically includes "sex", so you might define "sex" as "one's physical/genetic/biological gender". However, even leaving out "sex", there are many separate aspects to "gender". Again, these aspects are highly correlated in most people -- but not in everyone.

The next thing you need to understand is that there are many attributes, both physical and behavioral, which make up what we call "gender". Yhese attributes do tend to cluster tightly into two groups which we call "male" and "female", but this convenient oversimplification is inadequate to describe the true situation for many people.

Some gender attributes:

• physical:
  • chromosomes (XX, XY, or other)
  • skin tone (adult females tend to have softer, lighter skin with a layer of subcutaneous fat)
  • skin padding (adult females typically have additional fatty deposits in certain areas, giving them a more "curvy" shape)
  • body & facial hair (adult males tend to have more hair everywhere except the top of the head, especially on the face)
  • genital configuration (inny vs. outy, with a few other variations generally viewed as birth defects)
  • back of the skull (adult males have a bump which children and adult females lack)
  • musculature (adult males tend to have greater upper-body strength)
• behavioral
  • sexual attraction: males tend to prefer females, but this is reversed for a large percentage of the population. Some people are attracted to members of both genders, while some are best described as asexual (not sexually attracted to anyone much)
  • play affinity: juveniles tend to prefer to play with members of the "same" gender, but this is not always the case
  • play preferences: "girls" tend to prefer dolls, role-play involving housekeeping, and more gentle games; "boys" tend to prefer sports, role-play involving fighting and killing, and other competitive and kinetic activities

this essay is still under construction