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 19th
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.