gender identity

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The gender pyramind

This is Trans* Jersey’s patented gender pyramid that explains how sex and gender are related.

Sex is at the top of pyramid because it has the smallest number of possible variations and is, therefore, the narrowest. It is also the least significant factor in all of this – although those who struggle with the issue of transgenderism would have you believe it is the most important. It is shown as either blue or pink – male or female. (We know blue and pink are a cliché, but had we used yellow and green, you would have had to remember that men were yellow and women were green, so we went with the accepted norm!) Currently, it is impossible to completely change your sex. You can go some way towards altering physical/cosmetic aspects, but no male can yet have a functioning uterus and ovaries implanted, and no female can yet have functioning testes implanted.

The middle layer of the pyramid is your gender identity. It represents where you feel you fit on the spectrum and how you would like to be perceived by the world. We’ve called this being a man or a woman. It is not quite as deeply embedded as sex and there is a greater blurring of the line between blue and pink on the pyramid.

The third layer of the pyramid we have called gender expression. By this, we mean the way that an individual is received by the world. Do they act, react, dress, in a more feminine or masculine way? It is the most fluid of all the layers, with a spectrum of pink to blue on which an individual may fall at any point.
Gender pyramidSo, let’s take a look at some famous faces and start a debate! We’ve selected Marilyn Monroe (A) and George W Bush (H) as polar opposites on the feminine-masculine scale. There is no doubt in the mind of the onlooker that their presentation, gender, and sex are aligned.

Moving in from them on the scale, we have selected Sharon Cohen (B) and Ian Harvie (G). Sharon is a glamorous, curvaceous brunette who won Eurovision in 1998. There is no doubt that she is a very feminine woman, but she was born male. Ian is a bearded, stand-up comedian who grew up in a rural mountain town in Maine. He is a masculine man, but he was born female. They are both transsexual.

Next on the scale are singers George O’Dowd (C) and k.d. Lang (F). When both singers first appeared on the music scene the fact that their presentation was at odds with their gender and sex caused confusion for the public at large. However, just because society was confused, it doesn’t mean that they are, and so cannot be considered transgender. As far as we are aware, they identify happily as homosexual, which by definition means George is a man who loves men and k.d. is a woman who loves women. They both happen to be homosexual, but, as someone like Grayson Perry proves, this is not a given when you queer your gender.

Finally, converging in the centre are Sue Perkins (D) and David Beckham (E). Sitting centrally on the scale indicates a level of androgyny in a person’s presentation. There is no doubt about Sue and David’s gender or sex, unlike that of George and k.d. However, David’s light voice, attention to his grooming, and soft features are, arguably, more feminine characteristics. Sue’s career, style of dress, and forthright views are, arguably, more masculine characteristics. It’s a grey area, but that’s the point.

Take a moment and consider where you sit on the sex and gender scales. Are you a straight down the line Marilyn or George, or does your sex/gender line weave about a bit?

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What is gender?

Firstly, your gender is not the same as your sex. It seems obvious but it is so deeply embedded in all of us that most people don’t think about it and use the terms interchangeably. According to the OED, sex is “either of the two main categories (male and female) into which humans and most other living things are divided on the basis of their reproductive functions”. A look at the reproductive organs or chromosomes of an animal will scientifically prove what sex they are. (There are a number of rare and specialist medical conditions where this is not the case. They are called intersex conditions, sometimes wrongly termed “disorders of sexual development” (DSDs), and occur before birth.) The OED defines gender as “the state of being male or female (typically used with reference to social and cultural differences rather than biological ones)”. There are two parts to gender: how you perceive yourself, i.e. man or woman, and how society receives your gender presentation, i.e. masculine or feminine. The genderbreadman (below) calls this your gender identity and your gender expression. To find out whether someone is a man or a woman, you have to ask them. Where sex is a physical state, gender is a mental state. It is about how you feel. Do you feel like a man or a woman? The answer to this question will, of course, be informed by the individual’s definition of what a man and a woman are, their life experiences, the society in which they live, etc. To decide what someone’s gender expression is you simply look at the way that an individual presents themselves to the world. Do they act, react, dress, in a more feminine or masculine way? This is all about society’s definition of what constitutes masculine/feminine behaviour and it changes as one moves around the world through other countries, tribes, and cultures. For a man to wear a skirt in Edinburgh is acceptable masculine behaviour but may not be so in Chelsea! It is about how an individual conforms to society’s norms for masculine/feminine behaviour, or chooses not to conform, and how other members of that society receive that individual’s presentation. genderbread So, to recap: Sex is biological – male or female Gender is psychological – man or woman Presentation or expression is an external representation of sex and/or gender – masculine or feminine Gender is how you would like to be perceived but, crucially, it is also how society receives your expression of that.