A person’s sex and gender are not the same thing. Check out this graphic called the Genderbread Person for some helpful tips on understanding this better.
What does sex mean?
Sex refers to how your body is formed. What kind of gonads do you have? Do you have a uterus (womb)? What about your genitals? And chromosomes? All of these questions are talking about a person’s sex – it is describing how a body is put together. There are so many ways in which our bodies can grow. When you have a DSD (difference of sex development)/intersex variation), your body took a unique pathway to becoming you—an alternative to what people usually see.
(Please note: in the Genderbread person, it calls that different formula of sex “intersex,” which is another way people may refer to differences of sex development (DSD.)
What does gender mean?
When people talk about how you feel and identify yourself to others (as a male, female, non-binary or other), they are talking about GENDER. People are used to putting genders into two big boxes: male and female.
Sometimes, people confuse a person’s feeling and identity (gender) with gender role behaviours. Gender role behaviours are stereotypes of how men and women ‘should’ act. For example, stereotypically people may expect women and girls to wear feminine clothes, cry easily, and listen to love songs. Whereas boys and men might be expected to like watching football, wearing sports clothes, playing sports and never crying. Thankfully the world is changing and so are these rigid gender roles that used to exist.
We know that no two people are exactly alike. Being a boy or a girl doesn’t mean you have to act in a certain way or like certain things at all. You should feel free to like what you like, dress how you like and do what feels right for you. It doesn’t make you any less of a male or female if it is not what the majority of other people of your gender around you are doing. You can make your own choices about what activities you want to take part in and how you want to explore your identity through the way you look.
It’s okay to think about it; about who you are and how you feel. It is also okay to identify in a different way than simply as a boy or girl or a male or femal.
There are lots of terms anyone can use to identify themselves and their gender(s). For more about gender identities, click here for a resource (from the organization Gender Spectrum) on the many ways people identify and what it means to them.