I believe in a future where we don’t have anyone telling us how to express ourselves , be that the bullies at school, the police, or even our own friends and families.
Alok Vaid-Menon
It is more common than not to see the words SEX and GENDER used interchangeably. In order to understand the various gender terms you must first know the one basic rule; SEX is assigned to an individual at birth by the doctor based on the Reproductive system and chromosomes. Where as GENDER is assigned based on behavior and sociocultural aspects that the society expects from men and women.
Now that we are clear on the distinction between sex and gender, Let us try and understand various gender related terms.
The reason why we say “try and understand” is because we are sadly still in the neonatal stage of understanding what GENDER means to different people, who were deliberately overlooked as they didn’t fit into the binary male and female roles based on their SEX.
#1 Transgender
Let us start with the fairly well known term. Transgenders are the people who do not align with the Sex assigned to them at birth. For example an individual assigned as male at birth identifies as female and has either transitioned or transitioning to be their female identity are called as Transgender Woman. Transgender men are those who were assigned female at birth but have transitioned or in the process of it in order to be their male identity.
#2 Intersex
For people who find it hard to accept and comprehend how an individual born male end up identifying themselves to be female should find it fairly simple to understand the Intersex individuals. Intersex are those who are born with ambiguous genitalia.
#3 Cisgender
People who confirm with the gender similar to the sex they have been assigned are called as Cis, short for cisgender. If a female with vagina considers herself a woman and a male with penis accepts that he is a man, they are Cisgender woman and Cisgender man respectively.
#4 Cishet
Cishet short for Cisgender Heterosexual are people who are cisgender and straight.
#5 Genderfluid
GenderFluid people will feel as a man or identify themselves as a male one day and the very next day might identify themselves as female. They keep ‘flowing’ through the genders and may prefer neutral gender pronouns like they/them.
