Gender identity
On the image, you can see that gender identity has the rainbow symbol next to it, and that the unicorn is thinking about the symbol. This is because gender identity is inside us; it’s how we feel about our own gender. How much do you feel like a man, a woman, or something else? This is your gender identity. This is a spectrum, because you could feel a little like a man, a lot like a woman, and maybe also a bit like something else. Or you could feel like none of these. That would make you agender, meaning that you don’t feel any of these gender identities fit you.
Gender expression
You can see that the green dots that symbolise ‘gender expression’ are outside the unicorn (i.e. not in its thoughts). This is because your gender expression is what’s visible about your gender to other people. How much do other people read you as masculine, feminine, a bit of both, something else, or perhaps nothing at all? This could depend on how you dress, walk, talk or act, or on your body shape. Some of your gender expression – like your haircut, clothing or makeup – could change from day to day.
Sex assigned at birth
Most people are assigned ‘male’ or ‘female’ when they’re born, based on their external genitalia. Some people might be classified as ‘intersex’ (or something else) when their sex characteristics, chromosomes or hormones are a bit ambiguous and don’t fit neatly into what we designate as ‘male’ or ‘female’.
Physical and emotional attraction
Physical attraction refers to the characteristics of a person that might make you physically or sexually attracted to them. Physical attraction can come from a variety of factors, including someone’s gender identity, gender expression, or the sex they were assigned at birth. Emotional attraction relates to the characteristics of a person that might make you emotionally or romantically attracted to them. This can also come from a variety of factors, including gender identity, gender expression, or the sex they were assigned at birth. Both physical and emotional attraction can also come from a lot of other places, like someone’s personality or even the things you have in common. Some people might be attracted to the same gender as them (gay people and lesbians), and others might be attracted to people of the opposite gender to themselves (straight people). Attraction is presented as a spectrum because some people (like bisexual or pansexual people) are attracted to multiple genders, and could be attracted to different genders in different ways, or to one gender more than another. Many people find that these labels don’t fully explain their attractions. Some of these people might call themselves ‘queer’. Thinking of attraction as a spectrum allows us to fully explore our attractions without boxing them into a category that might not feel quite right. Some people don’t feel any kind of physical attraction to other people, and that’s called being asexual. Similarly, aromantic describes those who don’t feel emotional attraction to people.
How do all these concepts overlap?
While the sex you were assigned at birth is a fixed category, your gender identity and gender expression could be a much more fluid combination of masculine/feminine and other genders. Some people, known as cisgender people, have a gender identity that matches the sex they were assigned at birth. Transgender people have a gender identity that is different from the sex they were assigned at birth.
- Navnidhi Sharma