Gender

Gender refers to different but connected aspects of sex and gender, depending on context. In academic contexts, gender often means the social, cultural, and socially constructed dimension of being gendered: expectations, roles, norms, and meanings associated with “masculinity,” “femininity,” or other gender categories. Bodily sex characteristics and medical or legal assignments are distinct from this, but not entirely separate from it.

In activist, queer, and personal contexts, gender is often understood as gender identity: a person’s own experience, knowledge, or sense of their gender. This may include whether someone describes themselves as a woman, a man, non-binary, agender, genderfluid, or in another way. Gender also includes how people express or present their gender, for example through clothing, language, behavior, names, pronouns, or body language.

Socially, gender functions as an ordering system that shapes ideas about status, appearance, roles, life plans, desire, sexuality, family, and work. These ideas vary across history and cultures and are not experienced in the same way by everyone. A respectful use of the term recognizes that gender describes both social structures and personal self-determination.