Understanding Sex and Gender: Definitions, Stereotypes, and Identities

1. CHAPTER 1 Sex and Gender: Stories and Definitions

2. Defining Sex: Is It a Boy or a Girl? • Sex refers to a person based on their anatomy • external genitalia • chromosomes • hormone levels • internal reproductive system • Choices for a baby’s sex are set up as either male or female • binary(only two options)

3. Chromosomal Makeup and Differences of Sex Development (DSD) • Differences of Sex Development (DSD)refers to people with a sex chromosomal makeup that varies from XX (female) or XY (male), and/or people who have hormonal levels that do not fit neatly in a male/female binary, and/or people who have genitals that are usually associated with both the male sex and the female sex • Examples: • XXY (also known as Klinefelter syndrome) • XYY (also known as Jacob syndrome) • XXX (triple X or trisomy X) • Sex is not binary!

4. Historic Terms and Healthcare Issues for People with DSD • Hermaphroditewas one of the first words used to describe people who have DSD • comes from Greek mythology • Hermaphroditus was the child of Hermes and Aphrodite • Hermaphrodite should be used only in a historical context • it is no longer considered a respectful designation • Intersexhas been and continues to be used as a term for people with DSD • Intersex is not a self-determined definition, but rather a label applied to persons by Western medicine • Intersex and DSD are used interchangeably throughout the textbook • many participants self-identify as intersex

5. Secondary Sex Traits • Secondary sex traits: variations in hormone levels, which often do not begin to become noticeable until puberty • include hair, body fat, hip and shoulder width, and breasts • informs the ways that an individual’s sex gets read by others in society • Libido(the sexual drive) • tied to hormone levels

6. Defining Gender: Is the Baby Male or Female? • Gender: the ways culture and society reinforce what is masculine to go with the male sex and what is feminine to go with the female sex • It’s a girl = pink • It’s a boy = blue • Many people do not identify solely as male or female • Gender is not binary! • Gender is often confused with sex

7. Discussion Questions • If you go to a preschool class on dress-up day, you will see that some of the boys gravitate toward the princess dress and some of the girls want the pirate costume. What message might these kids receive if the adult in charge gets upset and demands that the little girl wear the princess dress or that the boy put on the pirate suit? • In contrast, what message might these kids receive if the adult in charge is happy that they are all playing dress-up in whatever costume they choose?

8. Gender Roles • Gender roles: cultural set of behavioral expectations assigned to individuals on the basis of their sex • Biological sex becomes the marker for the ways that culture and society will reinforce gender roles • e.g., a girl’s family may encourage her to play with dolls, speak softly, and wear feminine clothes, such as pastel-colored dresses

9. Gender Norms, Stereotypes, and Intersecting Identities • Norm: something that is seen as normal or typical • e.g., boys play with trucks and girls play with dolls • confused with what is natural • Intersecting identitiesmeans to truly understand people, it is important to take all their identities into consideration • Intersecting identities can inform gender stereotypes

10. Discussion Questions • If you go to a toddler park or indoor play area in a mall and observe the ways that people in public talk to or react to two little girls from different ethnic and/or racial backgrounds, what might you observe? • If you watched the ways people react to two little boys who are clearly from different religious backgrounds, what might you observe?

11. Gender Identity • Gender identity: someone’s deeply felt sense of their own gender • All gender identities are very personal, situated in time and space, and complex • There is no one specific way of being masculine or feminine • Terms that people who embrace a gender identity outside the binary include: • nonbinary • non-gender • third gender • gender variant • gender fluid • androgynous/andro • agender • gender expansive • genderqueer • gender nonconforming • Two-Spirit

13. The Problem with Pronouns • Language both shapes culture and is changed by culture • language always evolves • Gender-neutral pronoun: a pronoun that is not specifically she or he but a pronoun that resists the gender binary • e.g., they/them/theirs • zeand hir: examples of pronouns outside the gender binary • coined by Leslie Feinberg

14. How Do You Look? Gender Expression Gender expression: someone’s outer appearance in public, which often focuses on clothing choices, cosmetics, hairstyle, and gender identity Kumu Hina, by Cameron Rains

15. Discussion Questions • When you get dressed to leave your home for the day, how much do your choices express your identity? • As you get dressed, do you consider where you are going and the ways you would like others to see you? • Do you express your gender in the same way you identify your gender?

16. Cross-Dressing and Drag • Cross-dressing: dressing in clothing deemed appropriate for a different gender • involves a crossing of gender categories understood to be masculine or feminine • modern term that has mostly replaced the older term transvestism • Cross-dressing can have different meanings for the cross-dresser and for the culture or observer • Dragis distinguished from cross-dressing because drag is purposefully done as a performance • the manner of dress exaggerates the gender expression • drag illustrates how constraining gender norms can be

17. Transgender: Across and Beyond the Binary • Transsexual: someone whowants to surgically change their body • came into popular use in the 1950s • now considered an “old-school” term • some people still prefer this identity • it no longer necessarily means any type of body modification has taken place

18. Transgender: Across and Beyond the Binary • Transgenderencompasses “the widest imaginable range of gender-variant practices and identities” (Stryker) • the terms are constantly evolving, and people use them differently • Trans: an umbrella term to note gender diversity in the broadest sense • includes transgender, transsexual, nonbinary, and multiple gender identities • Some people who feel trapped in the wrong body decide to transition from one side of the gender binary to the other • MTF (male to female) • FTM (female to male) • Transwoman • Transman

19. Cisgender • Cisgender:a person whose gender identity is in line with their assigned sex at birth • someone who does not identify on the transgender spectrum • cis means “on the same side as” • trans means “on the opposite side of” • Coined in the 1990s

20. Cisgender Continued • Cissexism: the assumption that all people are or should be cisgender • Transphobia: the fear of and/or dislike of anyone who is trans • Privilegeis not something that you ask for, but is something socially and culturally given