What is the difference between Sex and Gender?

What is the difference between Sex and Gender?

This is a question I have asked thousands of people to discuss when attending my workshops and keynote presentations.?

It seems such an easy question - but the more you think about it, and especially if you discuss it with other people, you quickly discover that it is a difficult question to answer.?

Just take a moment now to think about this question. ?What is Sex??What is Gender? How are they different??

Just to put things into perspective - I have a masters degree in gender research. Two years of intense study and much of that time was spent exploring the difference between sex and gender.

The most common responses to the question I hear are:

Sex is about Biology - Gender is about Psychology

Sex is what you are born with - Gender is how you feel

Sex is physiology - Gender is a social construction

Sex is in the body - Gender is in the mind

None of these responses are wrong - but they mostly ignore the fact that both words have multiple meanings, and they especially ignore the elephant in the room.

First and foremost - Sex is about Sexual Activity.?We do sex; have sex; engage in sex.?If you search google “sex”, most links are about sexual activity or sex education. And you certainly won’t go home to have “gender” with your partner.

Sex, in this sense, has little to do with whether you are male or female.?You can have sex with men, with women, with people who are neither men nor women. ?You can have sex alone or with another person or in groups. You can have sex online, it’s called cybersex. There a huge number of laws and regulations regarding every conceivable form of sexual activity.

So why is this important here??

Well, if we include the word sex within any compound word like - HomoSEXual - what is the first thing that comes to mind? I really have to drag this out of people at my workshops.

We immediately think about men having sex with other men or a man who is primarily attracted physically to other men.?It is clear from a number of documentaries on the subject over the past few years that what people think about when they hear the word homosexual is “anal sex.”?I so often hear it described euphemistically as gay sex.

In 1533, Henry the VIII passed a law called the Buggery Act.?This act made anal sex a capital offence irrespective of whether that was with a “man, woman or beast.” According to recent research, about 75% of gay men report having engaged in anal sex. ?

However, 51% of heterosexual men and 43% of heterosexual women also report having engaged in anal sex. Given that more that 90% of people are heterosexual, by a long margin the practice of anal sex is mostly amongst heterosexual couples.

What about the term TransSEXual.?Although this term is less common today, it is still referenced in equalities law and refers to trans people who are “planning to undergo, are undergoing or have undergone,” genital reconstruction surgery or gender reassignment surgery or as it more commonly referred to today, “gender confirmation surgery.”

The reason trans people tend not to use the term now is because when it is used, people are immediately inclined to ask personal questions about surgery. Most transgender people never undergo any surgery.

That all said - when someone asks, “is it a boy or a girl?” - they are asking “what sex is the baby?” The answer to that question is determined by a quick glance between a baby’s legs. If it has a penis, it’s a boy, if not, it’s a girl.?We don’t check hormone levels or chromosomes to determine a baby’s sex unless it is not possible to determine sex by looking at the genitals. We “sex” a child by the presence or absence of a penis - just as we do most other animals.?

However, by announcing that a child is a “Boy or a Girl,” we are also declaring how the child should be treated and behave. We even host gender reveal parties now after the 12 week scan to let everyone know and start the gendering process before the child is even born.

The term Gender is often referred to as a social construct. While the terms sex and gender and often used interchangeability, they are not the same. Gender was introduced and popularized in the 50s and 60s to describe those aspects of our sex that are socially determined.

So, while sex refers to aspects of being male or female, gender refers to masculinity and femininity and therefore our social identity. The first popular use of the term gender was in 1955 by sexologist John Money in referring to Gender Roles, and largely to the way in which we stereotype the behaviours of men and women.

Most cultures predominately promote a gender binary where society is divided into two categories, based upon our sex. But because gender refers to the way we perceive ourselves or society perceives us, our gender is not necessarily determined by our assigned sex.

Society’s expectation is that if you have a male body, you will dress and behave in a masculine way and if you have a female body, you will dress and behave in a feminine way. To do other than that is to open yourself up to discrimination and harassment, even violence. As a society we often enforce gender more rigorously than some of our worst criminal offences.

Even today those gender stereotypes are still quite rigidly enforced.

By the age of about three most children are aware of gender roles. They know that women mostly look after the children and men go out to work. They know the difference between men’s and women’s clothing and boys know that if they wear girls’ clothes, people will laugh at them.

Changing gender brought to my attention just how differently I was expected to behave as a woman, compared to as a man, and how differently I was treated. Gender affects the language we use, and the kind of education we receive.

Men and women are drawn or pushed towards different roles and jobs. Our clothing, appearance and behaviour are completely different. Women grow up in a different culture to men and have totally different expectations regarding their place in society.

This is changing slowly, very slowly. Western society is moving steadily towards more equal treatment of men and women, but more importantly the space between the binary genders is expanding. Generation Z, those born after 1996, are clearly less influenced by binary restrictions and we are seeing an explosion in young people identifying as non-binary, neither men nor women, or gender fluid, moving between masculine and feminine. ?

Sex and gender are clearly related, but different aspects of our identity. There is a campaign receiving considerable attention at present that would like to see the erasure of gender and a return to a binary model based on sex. This seems to me odd, given that we have spent so much time and energy trying to shift to a more equal society and that equality has been as a result of eroding the differences between men and women.

The driver behind the anti-trans campaign is a fear that men will enter women’s single sex spaces and abuse women. If we are going to create a more equal society then what we need to do is stop the bad behaviour of abusive and misogynistic men, not pick on a vulnerable minority who are in the main, champions of equality.

The changes taking place are not going to be easy, because we have lived through thousands of years where the gender binary has been the dominant cultural split. When a baby is born the first question asked is still “is it a boy or a girl.” ?And the moment the answer to that question is not clear, confusion reigns.

I changed gender at the age of 52 and immediately noticed how flustered people became the moment they were unable to clearly determine my gender and then proceeded to question me to ascertain if my sex was different. Now that I identify as non-binary people are even more confused because they have no model to draw understanding from.

One of the problems is that our language is structured heavily around a gender binary. I am writing article this in English and the English language doesn’t have pronouns to refer to people unless they are either male or female.?In fact, most languages are even more divided by gender. In most European languages it is not just pronouns that are gendered, but nouns, verbs and adjectives as well.

I really didn’t have any idea just how different life was for girls until, at the age of 52 I decided to change gender. I could see the constant gender inequality that limited women’s ability to progress in work, and I was acutely aware of the rules about how I was supposed to dress and behave as a man.?I just didn’t realise how much being a boy or a girl impacted every aspect of life.

The underlying principle of Human Rights is that we all “Treat Everyone with Dignity and Respect.” When it comes to sex and gender that means that we all need to respect the way others chose to present themselves.

Diversity is all about difference, respecting difference and there re a growing number of organisations, like Virgin Atlantic who are showing the world that respecting gender is not difficult. We all need to lean from these role models and work to create more inclusive workplaces where everyone no matter what their sex and gender is, can bring their whole selves to work and feel that they belong.

Over the next month as we approach and celebrate Transgender Awareness Week, I am writing posts and articles every day to help to encourage more LGBTQ inclusive workplaces. If you would like to be notified about posts and articles, follow this link and click on the bell at the top right of my profile under the banner.?https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/rikkiarundel

I will also be delivering keynote presentations, lunch and learn sessions and workshops to staff in organisations both in person and virtually, especially during Trans Awareness Week, and I am very happy to answer any questions people may have. ?

If you would like to discuss how I can help you make your organisation more LGBTQ inclusive check out some examples of my speeches and media appearances on my Link Tree?https://lnkd.in/gQhGZwAe?- and book a no obligation call.?

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