Gender

Overview

Human beings have biological characteristics such as reproductive organs, chromosomes, hormones, and secondary physiological features that allow a large majority of people to be classified as either male or female. These characteristics define a person’s sex, a term that is sometimes incorrectly used interchangeably with gender.

While a person’s sex is determined by their physiology and biology, gender is generally considered to be socially determined, and a reflection of the behavioral expectations and roles associated with people of each respective sex in the context of the societal standards in which they were raised. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), “[g]ender refers to the characteristics of women, men, girls, and boys that are socially constructed. This includes norms, behavi[o]rs, and roles associated with being a woman, man, girl, or boy” (“Gender and Health,” n.d.). The WHO additionally notes that “[a]s a social construct, gender varies from society to society and can change over time” (“Gender and Health,” n.d.).

For much of human history, many societies considered gender both immutable and binary. People were either women or girls, or men or boys, and their classification into one category or the other was not considered fluid or changeable. However, in recent decades, these standards have been both problematized and challenged and as a result, prevailing views on gender have shifted in the twenty-first century. Gender is now widely considered a spectrum or continuum rather than a binary. People can self-define shifts along that continuum according to their own experiences and self-perception, a model that reflects subjective complexities and nuances that have historically been overlooked and marginalized. Contemporary gender paradigms also recognize the closely related but distinct concepts of gender identity and gender expression.

Gender identity refers to a person’s own “internal sense of self and their gender, whether that [gender] is man, woman, neither, or both” (Wamsley, 2021). It is “not outwardly visible to others” (Wamsley, 2021), but most people adopt a gender identity that conforms to their biological sex. The alignment between gender identity and biological sex common to most people is the reason the two terms are sometimes used interchangeably despite referring to different things. Gender expression relates to “how a person presents gender outwardly, through behavior, clothing, voice, or other perceived characteristics. Society identifies these cues as masculine or feminine, although what is considered masculine or feminine changes over time and varies by culture” (Wamsley, 2021). A person’s gender identity is a personal, internal experience while gender expression is external, outward, and public-facing.

Contemporary notions of gender also recognize important distinctions between people who do and do not conform to traditional gender binaries. People whose gender identity and gender expression both align with their biological sex are known as cisgender, while various terms are used to describe nonconforming people, depending on the nature of their nonconformity. Key examples include transgender and gender nonbinaryor gender noncomforming. Transgender people are individuals whose gender identity does not align with their biological sex as it was assigned at birth. For example, a person may have the physical and reproductive characteristics of a male but subjectively self-identifies as a girl or woman, or vice-versa. Gender-nonbinary individuals, who sometimes self-identify as genderqueer, genderfluidor gender nonconforming,do not view their gender identity as a binary but rather as a subjective and fluid continuum on which a person’s position may change over time.

As the WHO notes, “[g]ender is hierarchical and produces inequalities that intersect with other social and economic inequalities” (“Gender and Health,” n.d.). Historically, hierarchical power imbalances have favored men while disadvantaging women and marginalizing transgender and gender nonconforming individuals. In many countries, and particularly in liberal democracies, gradual legal and social reforms have sought to address and remediate these imbalances, albeit with variable levels of success. Hierarchical gender-based power imbalances persist in many other parts of the world, especially in countries with highly religious and/or socially conservative societies, and in lower-income countries and regions with lesser levels of economic development. Human Rights Watch (HRW), an international non-governmental organization (NGO), notes that law enforcement officials and government agencies in some countries openly persecute and discriminate against individuals known or suspected of being transgender or otherwise deviating from cisgender standards.

The WHO and other stakeholder groups note multiple risks faced by both cisgender and non-cisgender individuals and communities. Among cisgender people, gender-based discrimination and inequalities continue to primarily work to the disadvantage of girls and women. As the WHO notes, girls and women are more likely to be adversely affected by “restrictions on mobility, lack of access to decision-making power, lower literacy rates, [and] discriminatory attitudes of communities and healthcare providers” along with “greater risk of unwanted pregnancies, sexually transmitted infections including HIV...and unacceptably high levels of violence rooted in gender inequality” (“Gender and Health,” n.d.). For cisgender boys and men, gender-related physical and mental health risks are largely rooted in socialization and social expectations. They “may encourage boys and men to smoke, take sexual and other health risks, misuse alcohol, and not seek help or healthcare” (“Gender and Health,” n.d.).

Research shows that non-cisgender people, and especially transgender and gender nonconforming young people, “are more likely to face violence and bullying, engage in substance use and high-risk sexual behaviors, and struggle with poor mental health” (Eisenberg et. al., 2017). A 2022 study also reported that 82 percent of transgender individuals have considered suicide and 40 percent have attempted it, with rates of suicidal ideation and suicidal behavior highest among young transgender individuals (Austin et. al., 2022). Gender researchers and healthcare professionals stress that these elevated rates of suicidal ideation and suicidal behavior are not inherently rooted in a person’s gender identity or sexual orientation, but rather derive from the discrimination, stigmatization, and rejection they tend to experience from mainstream society in their daily lives.

Gender also has a pronounced impact on economic outcomes, with cisgender people tending to benefit when compared to transgender and gender nonconforming individuals. Within cisgender groups, boys and men tend to achieve higher economic standing than girls and women, with critical gaps favoring men and disadvantaging women persisting across multiple levels of the global employment and economic landscape, including high-income countries with advanced economies. Research into the economic outcomes of transgender and gender nonconforming individuals and groups remains in its infancy in the early 2020s. However, a 2022 study covering the economic status of US gender minorities found that “individuals who are not cisgender have significantly lower employment rates than cisgender individuals,” and that “differences in economic outcomes differ significantly across individuals who were assigned male at birth versus individuals who were assigned female at birth” (Carpenter, Lee, and Netuno, 2022).

Further Insights

Beyond such broad distinctions as “cisgender" and “gender nonconforming,” progressive gender reform advocates also recognize many niche categories defining specific gender identities and gender expressions. Some sources cite a specific number of established and accepted gender identities, while others acknowledge the subjective and mutable nature of the issue in eschewing a rigid list of definitions and classifications. However, both approaches note a common set of prevalent minority gender identities, with major examples including agender, demigender, gender-apathetic, gender-expansive, intergender, multigender,and Two-Spirit.

An agender person is defined as a person who identifies as having no gender. A similar classification, known as gendervoid, describes similar subjective perceptions but with the specific connotation of “loss or lack” of gender (Abrams and Ferguson, 2022). Demigender individuals partially identify with a specific gender identity but remain more firmly rooted in the nonbinary continuum. Gender-apathetic people do not “strongly identify with any gender or with any gender labels” (Abrams and Ferguson, 2022), while gender-expansive people reject cisgender-normative views of gender and instead identify with alternative or subversive identities such as transgender or other forms of gender nonconformity. Intergender individuals can have mixed gender identities that combine both masculine and feminine elements, or gender identities that “[fall] somewhere in between woman and man” (Abrams and Ferguson, 2022). The multigender category describes people who identify as more than one gender, with examples including bigender (two genders), trigender (three genders), polygender (multiple genders), and pangender (all genders).

The Two-Spirit gender identity is exclusively associated with North American Indigenous communities, which have long recognized and accepted alternative gender identities. The British Columbia Provincial Health Services Authority describes the Two-Spirit gender identity as representing “complex Indigenous understandings of gender roles, spirituality, and the long history of gender diversity in Indigenous cultures.” It further states that “[d]ue to its cultural, spiritual, and historical context, the concept of ‘Two-Spirit’ is to be used only by Indigenous peoples,” while also noting that “[b]efore colonization, Two-Spirit people were included and respected as valued community members, often holding revered roles such as healers, matchmakers, and counse[l]ors” (“Two-Spirit,” n.d.).

The concept of gender dysphoriaplays a high-profile role in conceptions of gender and the accompanying sociopolitical debates. The American Psychological Association (APA) defines gender dysphoria as “psychological distress that results from an incongruence between one’s sex [as] assigned at birth and one’s gender identity” (Turban, 2022). Debate as to whether gender dysphoria constitutes a mental illness or merely describes the subjective perceptions of the people who experience it continues among medical and psychiatric researchers and experts. The APA’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders,Fifth Edition, Text Revision (DSM-5-TR), released in 2022, updated the language in its entry on gender dysphoria in a bid to improve cultural sensitivity and reduce the stigma associated with the condition.

Transgender people and others who experience gender dysphoria sometimes elect to undergo a process known asgender transitioning. A gender transition may involve medical interventions, such as the use of hormones, hormone blockers, other pharmaceutical therapies, and/or surgeries, that are designed to “bring [individuals] and/or their bodies into alignment with their gender identity” (Wamsley, 2021). It can also include “telling one’s friends, family, and coworkers; changing one’s name and pronouns; [or] updating legal documents” (Wamsley, 2021).

Personal pronouns comprise an important part of the culture surrounding gender nonconformity and alternative gender identities for both gender-expansive people and sympathetic members of the cisgender community. For example, some people adopt gender-neutral pronouns such as “ze/zir” or “xe/xir” to reflect their non-identification with conventional concepts of gender, while others prefer to be addressed as “they/them” rather than with default pronouns such as “he/him” or “she/her.” Some cisgender individuals choose to show solidarity with the gender-expansive community by specifying that their pronouns conform to the usual standards of “he/him” for boys and men and “she/her” for girls and women.

Viewpoints

In many parts of the world, and particularly in democratic Western countries, many institutions such as schools and governments have moved toward the conscientious adoption of inclusive gender policies. These policies generally include standards requiring institutions to interact with individuals in a manner that affirms their gender identity and/or gender expression. While such policies are mainly designed to protect gender-expansive people from discrimination and foster their inclusion, some observers have criticized them for being prescriptive, authoritarian in nature, and weaponized to force institutional conformity to politicized gender ideology. University of Toronto psychology professor Jordan B. Peterson (1962–) gained a high global profile for resisting attempts to legislate the compulsory use of nonstandard gender pronouns in institutional settings, becoming a widely recognized figurehead for the highly polarizing political debates.

Gender has become a heavily politicized topic in the twenty--first century. In the United States, viewpoints on gender and politicized gender ideology are complex and represent a myriad of perspectives. However, on some gender-related questions, opposing viewpoints largely align along partisan lines, with those who identify with the Democrat-associated cultural left wing generally holding more progressive positions while those who identify with the Republican-associated cultural right tend to hold more conservative views. Though viewpoints within each of these blocs vary considerably, those who hold left-wing views generally support subjective treatments of gender that affirm an individual’s own gender identity and/or gender expression, while those who hold right-wing views generally consider gender nonconformity to be a manifestation of gender dysphoria. They are also more likely to consider gender dysphoria to be a form of mental illness.

In 2022, the Pew Research Center conducted extensive polling on gender-related questions. One key finding noted that while a significant majority (64 percent) favors or strongly favors laws to protect transgender individuals from discrimination, a rising share of respondents believe that gender is primarily or exclusively determined by the sex that an individual is assigned at birth. In 2017, 54 percent of poll respondents indicated a belief that gender is determined by a person’s sex as assigned at birth, which rose to 56 percent in 2021 and 60 percent in 2022. Meanwhile, the proportion of respondents who said that a person’s gender can differ from the sex they were assigned at birth fell from 44 percent in 2017 to 41 percent in 2021 and 38 percent in 2022.

Emerging research suggests that an individual’s gender identity may be more strongly influenced by a much wider and more complex set of factors than previously believed. In a contribution to the 2020 book The Plasticity of Sex: The Molecular Biology and Clinical Features of Genomic Sex, Gender Identity, and Sexual Behavior,researchers cited “growing evidence” in support of a “new conception of psychosexual development as a result of genetic, hormonal, and psychosexual influences” (Fisher and Cocchetti, 2020). The researchers wrote that “[r]ecent studies have shown the possible role and interaction of neuroanatomic, hormonal, and genetic factors” (Fisher and Cocchetti, 2020). Their findings conflicted with the long-held viewpoint that gender is “influenced only by social and familial factors” (Fisher and Cocchetti, 2020).

Another polarizing and contentious debate extends to the question of what is widely known as gender-affirming care,a term that describes a confluence of medical, social, behavioral, and psychological interventions designed to certify and validate an individual’s subjective gender identity. A 2021 study presented to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) found that individuals who received gender-affirming care experienced a 60-percent decline in symptoms of moderate to severe depression and a 73 percent reduction in suicidal ideations or behavior. However, difficult and polarizing debates over whether such care should be extended to minors, and what type of gender-affirming care should be offered to them, continue without resolution in the United States and other countries. By mid-2024, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges, twenty-three US states had partially or fully banned gender-affirming care for minors, including Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Georgia, Iowa, Kentucky, Mississippi, Tennessee, Utah, South Dakota, and West Virginia. Notably, a large majority of those states host electorates that tend to be more conservative and lean toward the Republican Party.

Certain forms of gender-affirming medical treatments, such as surgical interventions and puberty-suppressing drugs, have long-term effects that can be difficult or impossible to reverse. Advocates of extending gender-affirming care to minors generally believe that offering such treatments earlier in life can dramatically improve a patient’s mental, emotional, and physical well-being and protect their long-term mental health. Opponents often counter by stating a belief that minors lack the faculties, experience, and maturity needed to make such profoundly life-altering decisions. Instead, critics generally believe that irreversible gender-affirming interventions should be reserved exclusively for people who are legally considered adults.

About the Author

Jim Greene is a Canadian-born, European Union-based freelance writer, editor, and researcher specializing in academic research and student reference materials covering the social sciences and humanities. An editorial professional since 2001, he holds a BA from Toronto Metropolitan University and an MFA from the University of Southern California.

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