flexibeast

So you've just referred to 'gender', perhaps in the phrase "gender is a social construct". Do you mean:

1. 'sense of gender', i.e. the "gut feeling" one has about one's gender, or lack thereof?


2. 'gender identity', i.e. the label(s) used to describe to others one's sense of gender / lack of gender?


3. 'sociocultural gender roles', i.e. the roles that society tends to assign to people who publicly present as 'female', 'male', or other (non-)genders?


4. ETA 2013.07.09: 'gender expression', i.e. the way that one 'does' gender behaviourally, visually etc. [Thanks to jessie-c for noting this.]

To me, as two-gendered transgenderqueer woman, it is critical that discussions about gender make at least these distinctions. Because in my experience, when these distinctions aren't made, discourse can quite quickly end up in places that have negative real-world impacts on trans and genderqueer people.

(Related: my blog post "So you've just said 'gender is fluid'".)

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