The Basics

The traditional understanding of gender and sex is that there are only 2, man and woman. Everyone is deemed to be one or the other. Further more there is no distinction between gender and sex, gender is just the word you use to avoid any juvenile sniggering about the word sex.

The reality, as is often the case is significantly more complicated. Most people will have an intuitive grasp of this to some extent or another. Very few people really expect most people they meet to fulfill the traditional stereotypes of what it is to be a man or a woman, either physically, emotionally or intellectually. Most people would admit that there are aspects of their character that are more feminine or masculine. They still identify as men or women though

For some people however, their own sense of their gender diverges so much from the traditional 2 they do not feel that they are either. They may identify as androgyne, polygender, genderqueer, 2 spirit, neutrois or one of many other genders. For short hand on this site we use the phrase 'gender variant person'

Gender and Sex

I've already implied that gender and sex are different things - but what is the difference? The short answer is that sex refers to you're physical body (biological) and genetic makeup (genetic). Doctors recognise only 2 sexes - male and female. When someone is born who does not physically fit into either of these boxes they are labeled as having a 'birth defect' and then more often than not have 'corrective' surgery to assign them one of the medically recognised sexes, more often than not female.

Gender however is what you identify as, there is no way you can tell someone's gender simply by looking at them. More often than not you can make a pretty much accurate guess, but a guess is all it is. The best way to discover someone's gender is to ask them! As such, it's not possible to identify the gender of a new born baby. Most people don't become aware of their gender, even subconsciously, until they are 4 or 5 years old.

What about Sexuality?

Gender, sex and sexuality are 3 different things that are often confused. At it's simplest, sexuality is who you're attracted to. Whilst your gender and sex have no bearing on your sexuality, they do have a bearing on the words used to describe your sexuality. For instance, if you had 3 people who were attracted men, one of whom was a woman, one was a man and one was an androgyne their sexualities would be variously described as straight, gay and ... well, there aren't any words to describe gender variant people's sexualities are there! The point is, you shouldn't mistake relationships between concepts that exist simply because of language with concepts that are actually related.

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