Sex Gender and Sexuality Sex and Gender Sex

Sex, Gender and Sexuality

Sex and Gender • Sex and Gender: what’s the difference?

Sex • Sex refers to the anatomical and physiological characteristics of maleness or femaleness. • Sex is determined by a combination of genetics and the presence or absence of hormones testosterone and estrogen.

Gender • Gender can be divided into a number of different components relating to ideas of masculinity and femininity: gender identity, gender presentation and gender role.

Gender Identity • Gender Identity: the sense of ourselves as men, women or other gendered beings.

Gender Presentation • Gender Presentation: The behaviors associated with masculinity and femininity: speech, dress, movement…etc.

Gender Roles • Gender Roles: the social roles expected of men and women in a particular society.

Gender: Biology and Culture • Gender is determined by a large variety of factors, both biological and cultural. • Gender socialization: the process of learning and internalizing the norms of our gender.

Transgender • Transgender: is a broad term used to describe individuals that identify with a gender that is NOT associated with their assigned birth sex… • i. e. Males that identify as women and females that identify as men.

Third Genders • Some societies recognize there being more than two gender categories…something other than “man” and “woman”. These Third gendered people have different roles in the societies they occupy.

Sexuality • Sexuality can be broadly defined as how people experience and express themselves as sexual beings. • Sexual orientation refers to established patterns of sexual attraction, to the same, opposite or both sexes.

Sexuality • Thinking about sexuality in the form of sexual orientation: (i. e. heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual) is fairly recent concept… • Karl-Maria Kerthbeny is responsible for coining these terms in the late 19 th century.

Heteronormativity • Normative is a term used to describe behaviors and actions considered to fit the “norm. ” • Heteronormativity is the idea that being heterosexual is natural and normal…and that other sexualities are Abnormal and Unnatural.

Heteronormativity • Heteronormativity, then is something found in SOME, but not all societies. • For example, for men in Ancient Athenian society, it was considered normal for men to be attracted to teenaged males as well as women. This was a society that would not be described as heteronormative.

Sex, Gender, Sexuality • Just like the terms “race”, “ethnicity” and “nationality” refer to different (though related concepts, sex, gender and sexuality are three different things. • It’s important to understand that there are many combinations of these three concepts.