The Gender Spectrum [Cross-Posted from #CSP 19]

Today I decided to start working on our first writing assignment about gender, mostly just thinking of different expressions of gender and trying to determine where in the spectrum I fell, and how I wanted to identify myself. Feeling a little overwhelmed by the choices I could make and the different ways this assignment could go, I called a friend, and we had a discussion about gender that quickly turned into a debate about the differences between sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, and sexual orientation. After our conversation, I came away having tried to communicate the following things:

• Sex is what you are biologically: male, female, or intersex.
• Gender is how you identify in terms of sex. Most people who are biologically female identify as female, and same for males. However, if you choose to identify outside of the gender binary ( i.e. a man or boy expressing their gender as female), that is your gender identity.
• Gender expression is how you choose to communicate your gender.
• The way that you express your gender is not indicative of your sexual orientation (i,e. a man can choose to express their gender as female and still be heterosexual).

I looked up "gender expression" on Google to try to find a simple website that would help explain my point of view to my friend, and this was the simplest one that I could find: http://www.gendersanity.com/diagram.shtml. It's not extremely thorough, but it makes the same points as I was trying to.

I didn't really have the questions that I had answered at the end of the conversation, but it was still a conversation well-spent.