Sex Vs Gender

 

The meaning of sex and gender are very different. They are different parts of a person’s identity. Sex basically refers to the anatomy of one’s reproductive system and also the manifestation of their secondary reproductive characters. Simultaneously, gender refers to the social role that a person adopts based on their sex or internal awareness that might differ from their sex. When an individual’s sex and gender might not align, the person could be ‘transgender.’ We refer to a person as an ‘intersex’ when their biological sex characteristics complicate sex assignment. during our lives, we start to slowly recognize our identity through our experiences, intuitive actions and knowledge. Thus, the gender of a person becomes their personal choice and individuality.

We have been using sex and gender interchangeably, but with development, the distinction between the terms became clear. All in all, sex is the classification of a person as male and female on the basis of their bodily characteristics. On the other hand, gender is an internal, personal sense of being a man or woman. The sexual orientation of a person is linked with their sex and gender. Basically, sexual orientation is who a person finds romantically, emotionally and sexually attractive. As per the low societal standards, it is taken as default that a person will naturally be attracted to their opposite sex. However, that is a myth.

Each individual is free to express their own identities. When classifying gender, we mainly use terms like ‘nonbinary’, ‘transgender’, ‘agender’, ‘bigender,’ and ‘cisgender’. ‘Nonbinary’ refers to people whose gender identities do not align with the man-woman binary.