Words matter

— Terms, pronouns and vocabulary to add to your everyday dictionary

By Sharla Brown-Ajayi

The glossary listed below is a list of terms used within the LGBTQIA community. This list is not completely comprehensive, as language is constantly evolving and new terms and identities are always forming. It is important to mirror the language someone uses to describe themselves to affirm their identity. When in doubt about a word, just ask!

advocate – ( verb) to actively support a particular cause, the action of working to end intolerance or educate others

agender – ( adj. ) a person with no (or very little) connection to the traditional system of gender, no personal alignment with the concepts of either man or woman, and/or someone who sees themselves as existing without gender. Sometimes called gender neutrois, gender neutral, or genderless.

androgyny/androgynous – ( noun ) a gender expression that has elements of both masculinity and femininity

aromantic – ( adj. ) experiencing little or no romantic attraction to others and/or has a lack of interest in romantic relationships/behavior. Aromanticism exists on a continuum from people who experience no romantic attraction or have any desire for romantic activities, to those who experience low levels, or romantic attraction only under specific conditions. Sometimes abbreviated to “aro” (pronounced like “arrow”).

asexual – ( adj. ) : experiencing little or no sexual attraction to others and/or a lack of interest in sexual relationships/behavior. Asexuality exists on a continuum from people who experience no sexual attraction or have any desire for sex, to those who experience low levels, or sexual attraction only under specific conditions. Sometimes abbreviated to “ace.”. For more information, click here.

bigender – ( adj ) a person who fluctuates between traditionally “woman” and “man” gender-based behavior and identities, identifying with both genders (or sometimes identifying with either man or woman, as well as a third, different gender).

binder – ( noun ) an undergarment used to alter or reduce the appearance of one’s breasts. Binding is often used to change the way other’s read/perceive one’s anatomical sex characteristics, and/or as a form of gender expression.

biological sex – ( noun ) a medical term used to refer to the chromosomal, hormonal and anatomical characteristics that are used to classify an individual as female, male, or intersex. Often referred to as simply “sex,” “physical sex,” “anatomical sex,” or specifically as “sex assigned at birth.”

biphobia – ( noun ) a range of negative attitudes (e.g., fear, anger, intolerance, invisibility, resentment, erasure, or discomfort) that one may have or express toward bisexual individuals. Biphobia can come from and be seen within the LGBTQ community as well as straight society.

bisexual – 1 ( adj. ) a person who experiences attraction to men and women. 2 ( adj. ) a person who experiences attraction to people of their gender and another gender. Bisexual attraction does not have to be equally split, or indicate a level of interest that is the same across the genders an individual may be attracted to. For more information, click here.

chosen name – ( noun ) a name that an individual chooses to be called that is different than their legal name. The term “chosen name” is usually favored over “preferred name” since preferred name may imply the name is just a preference, rather than a matter of identity.

cisgender – ( adj. ) a gender description for when someone’s sex assigned at birth and gender identity correspond (e.g., someone who was assigned male at birth, and identifies as a man). The word cisgender can also be shortened to “cis.”

cisnormativity – ( noun ) the assumption, in individuals and in institutions, that everyone is cisgender, and that cisgender identities are superior to transgender identities and people. Leads to invisibility of transgender or gender non-confomring identities.

closeted – ( adj. ) an individual who is not open to themselves or others about their (queer) sexuality or gender identity.

coming in – ( verb ) the process by which one accepts and/or comes to identify one’s own sexuality or gender identity (to “come in” to oneself).

coming out – ( verb ) the process by which one shares one’s sexuality or gender identity with others.

constellation – ( noun ) a way to describe the arrangement or structure of a polyamorous relationship.

dead name – ( noun ) the name given at birth/legal name of someone who has since changed their name or goes by a different name.

demiromantic – ( adj. ) little or no capacity to experience romantic attraction until a strong connection is formed with someone, often within a sexual relationship.

demisexual – ( adj. ) little or no capacity to experience sexual attraction until a strong connection is formed with someone, often within a romantic relationship.

drag king – ( noun ) someone who performs (hyper-) masculinity theatrically.

drag queen – ( noun ) someone who performs (hyper-) femininity theatrically.

emotional attraction – ( noun ) a capacity that evokes want to engage in emotionally intimate behavior (e.g., sharing, confiding, trusting, inter-depending), experienced in varying degrees (from little-to-none to intense). Often conflated with sexual attraction, romantic attraction, and/or spiritual attraction.

fluid(ity) – ( adj. ) generally with another term attached, like gender-fluid or fluid-sexuality, fluid(ity) describes an identity that may change or shift over time between or within the mix of the options available.

folx – ( noun ) a gender neutral term used to address a group

gay – 1 ( adj. ) experiencing attraction solely (or primarily) to some members of the same gender. Can be used to refer to men who are attracted to other men and women who are attracted to women. 2 ( adj. ) an umbrella term used to refer to the queer community as a whole, or as an individual identity label for anyone who is not straight.

gender binary – ( noun ) the idea that there are only two genders, man and woman.

gender confirmation surgery (GCS) – ( noun ) used by some medical professionals to refer to a group of surgical options that alter a person’s biological sex. “Gender confirmation surgery” is considered by many to be a more affirming term than gender reassignment surgery.

gender expression – ( noun ) the external display of one’s gender, through a combination of clothing, grooming, demeanor, social behavior, and other factors, generally made sense of on scales of masculinity, femininity, or another gender. Also referred to as “gender presentation.”

gender fluid – ( adj. ) a gender identity best described as a dynamic mix of multiple genders. A person who is gender fluid may feel like a mix of man or woman or another gender, but may feel more one gender on certain days.

gender identity – ( noun ) the internal perception of one’s gender, and how they label themselves, based on how much they align or don’t align with what they understand their options for gender to be.

gender non-conforming – 1 ( adj. ) a gender expression descriptor that indicates a non-traditional gender presentation (masculine woman or feminine man). 2 ( adj. ) a gender identity label that indicates a person who identifies outside of the gender binary. Often abbreviated as “GNC.”

gender normative – ( adj. ) someone whose gender presentation or gender identity aligns with society’s gender-based expectations.

genderqueer – 1 ( adj. ) a gender identity label often used by people who do not identify with the binary of man/woman. 2 ( adj. ) an umbrella term for many gender non-conforming or non-binary identities (e.g., agender, bigender, genderfluid).

gender variant – ( adj. ) someone who does not conform to gender-based expectations of society.

heteronormativity – ( noun ) the assumption, in individuals and/or in institutions, that everyone is heterosexual and that heterosexuality is superior to all other sexualities. Leads to invisibility and stigmatizing of other sexualities. Heteronormativity also leads us to assume that only masculine men and feminine women are straight.

heterosexual – ( adj. ) experiencing attraction solely (or primarily) to people of a different gender.

homophobia – ( noun ) an umbrella term for a range of negative attitudes (e.g., fear, anger, intolerance, resentment, erasure, or discomfort) that one may have toward LGBTQ people. The term can also connote a fear, disgust, or dislike of being perceived as LGBTQ.

homosexual – ( adj. ) a person primarily attracted to members of the same sex/gender. This historically medical term is considered stigmatizing (particularly as a noun) due to its history as a category of mental illness, and is discouraged for common use.

intersectionality – ( noun ) a term coined by Kimberle Crenshaw referring to the ways that systems of oppression are connected and overlapping

intersex – ( adj. ) term for a combination of chromosomes, gonads, hormones, internal sex organs, and genitals that differs from the patterns of male or female. Formerly known as hermaphrodite (or hermaphroditic), but these terms are now outdated and derogatory.

lesbian – ( adj. ) women who are primarily attracted to other women.

MSM / WSW – ( abbr. ) men who have sex with men or women who have sex with women, to distinguish sexual behaviors from sexual identities: because a man is straight, it doesn’t mean he’s not having sex with men. Often used in the field of HIV/Aids education, prevention, and treatment.

Mx. – ( noun ) an honorific (e.g. Mr., Ms., Mrs., etc.) that is gender neutral. It is often the option of choice for folks who do not identify within the gender binary

outing – ( verb ) involuntary or unwanted disclosure of another person’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or intersex status.

pansexual – ( adj. ) a person who experiences attraction for members of all gender identities/expressions. Often shortened to “pan.”

passing – 1 ( adj. & verb ) transgender individuals being accepted as, or able to “pass for,” a member of their self-identified gender identity (regardless of sex assigned at birth) without being identified as transgender. 2 ( adj. ) an LGB/queer individual who is believed to be or perceived as straight.

preferred pronouns – ( noun ) often used during introductions, becoming more common as a standard practice. Many suggest removing the “preferred,” because it indicates flexibility and/or the power for the speaker to decide which pronouns to use for someone else.

polyamorous – ( noun ) refers to the practice of, desire for, or orientation toward having ethical, honest, and consensual non-monogamous relationships (i.e. relationships that may include multiple partners). Often shortened to “poly.”

queer – 1 ( adj. ) an umbrella term to describe individuals who don’t identify as straight and/or cisgender. 2 ( noun ) a slur used to refer to someone who isn’t straight and/or cisgender. Due to its historical use as a derogatory term, and how it is still used as a slur many communities, it is not embraced or used by all members of the LGBTQ community. The term “queer” can often be use interchangeably with LGBTQ (e.g., “queer people” instead of “LGBTQ people”).

questioning – ( adj. ) an individual who or a time when someone is unsure about or exploring their own sexual orientation or gender identity.

QPOC / QTPOC – initialisms that stand for queer people of color and queer and/or trans people of color.

romantic attraction – ( noun ) a capacity that evokes want to engage in romantic intimate behavior (e.g., dating, relationships, marriage), experienced in varying degrees (from little-to-none, to intense). Often conflated with sexual attraction, emotional attraction, and/or spiritual attraction.

sex assigned at birth (SAAB) – ( abbr. ) a phrase used to intentionally recognize a person’s assigned sex (not gender identity). Sometimes called “designated sex at birth” (DSAB) or “sex coercively assigned at birth” (SCAB), or specifically used as “assigned male at birth” (AMAB) or “assigned female at birth” (AFAB)

sexual attraction – ( noun ) a capacity that evokes want to engage in physically intimate behavior (e.g., kissing, touching, intercourse), experienced in varying degrees (from little-to-none, to intense). Often conflated with romantic attraction, emotional attraction, and/or spiritual attraction.

sexual orientation – ( noun ) the type of sexual, romantic, emotional/spiritual attraction one has the capacity to feel for some others, generally labeled based on the gender relationship between the person and the people they are attracted to.

skoliosexual – ( adj. ) being primarily attracted to some genderqueer, transgender, and/or non-binary people.

spiritual attraction – ( noun ) a capacity that evokes the want to engage in intimate behavior based on one’s experience with, interpretation of, or belief in the supernatural (e.g., religious teachings, messages from a deity), experienced in varying degrees (from little-to-none, to intense). Often conflated with sexual attraction, romantic attraction, and/or emotional attraction.

stealth – ( adj. ) a transgender person who is not “out” as transgender, and is perceived/known by others as cisgender.

straight – ( adj. ) a person primarily attracted to people who are not their same sex/gender.

third gender – ( noun ) a gender category that is used by societies that recognise three or more genders. A conceptual term meaning different things to different people who use it, as a way to move beyond the gender binary.

top surgery – ( noun ) this term refers to surgery for the construction of a male-type chest or breast augmentation for a female-type chest.

transgender – ( adj. ) an umbrella term for anyone whose sex assigned at birth and gender identity do not correspond (e.g., someone who was assigned male at birth, but does not identify as a man).

transitioning – ( verb ) the process of a transgender person changing aspects of themself (e.g., their appearance, name, pronouns, or making physical changes to their body) to be more congruent with their gender identity

transphobia – ( noun ) the fear of, discrimination against, or hatred of people who are transgender, the transgender community, or gender ambiguity. Transphobia can be seen within the queer community, as well as in general society.;

two-spirit – ( noun ) a term within Native American communities to recognize individuals who possess qualities or fulfill roles of both genders. This term is often conflated with sexuality, but was historically about gender identity.

ze / zir – ( pronoun ) pronouns that are gender neutral and preferred by some transgender people. They replace “he” and “she” and “his” and “hers” respectively.

Complete Article HERE!

Biological Science Rejects the Sex Binary, and That’s Good for Humanity

Evidence from various sciences reveals that there are diverse ways of being male, female, or both. An anthropologist argues that embracing these truths will help humans flourish.

Despite myths of “pink” brains and “blue” brains, human brains are mosaics of what have stereotypically been characterized as male and female traits.

By

At the recent U.S. Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Ketanji Brown Jackson, Sen. Marsha Blackburn triggered controversy when she asked Jackson to define the word “woman.” After Jackson declined, several Republican congresspeople chimed in with definitions for “woman” that ranged from dubious to shocking, including “the weaker sex,” “someone who has a uterus,” and “X chromosomes, no tallywhacker.”

Such notions haven’t evolved much since 1871, when naturalist Charles Darwin told the world that “man is more courageous, pugnacious, and energetic than women, and has more inventive genius.” Most 19th- and 20th-century evolutionary theories (and theorists) asserted that evolution created two kinds of creatures—male and female—and individuals’ behavior and nature reflected this biological binary.

Today a chorus of scientific-sounding claims about “blue and pink” brains, testosterone, and male primate aggression are offered up as natural explanations for masculine and feminine behavior, along with gaps in pay, jobs, political and economic leadership, and sexuality. In the political and legal realms, the belief that biology creates two types of humans is invoked in a range of attempts to mandate and enforce how humans should behave.

These assertions and beliefs are wrong. In addition, the commitment to a simple binary view creates a fictitious template for a “battle of the sexes” that manifests in miseducation about basic biology, the denigration of women’s rights, the justifications of incel and “men’s rights” violence, and the creation of anti-transgender laws.

Science points to a more accurate and hopeful way to understand the biology of sex. By recognizing the true diversity of the human experience, humanity can embrace an expansive and multifaceted way of envisioning and experiencing human nature. This evidence-based outlook is not only far more interesting than the simplistic and incorrect “tallywhacker versus no tallywhacker” perspective, but also more conducive to respect and flourishing.

Starting at the most basic level of animal biology, there are multitudes of ways to be female or male or both. The oceans are filled with species of fish that change from one sex to another midlife, and some who change back again. There are invertebrate hermaphrodites and ladies-only lizards who reproduce by recombining their own chromosomes. In some mammals, females are brimming with testosterone and have large “penises.” In various fish and mammals, males do all the caretaking of infants. And in a variety of species, females are authoritarian, promiscuous, and—yes, Darwin—pugnacious.

Of course, there are patterned differences between females and males in many species. But there is far more diversity, complexity, and collaboration than most people realize. When one looks closer at the biology of sex in animals, including humans, it is clear that Darwin, biologist E.O. Wilson, geneticist Angus Bateman, and various Republican politicians are minimally way off base and mostly flat out wrong.

Man/woman and masculine/feminine are neither biological terms nor rooted exclusively in biology.

Sex, biologically, is not simply defined or uniformly enacted. In humans, having two X chromosomes or an X and a Y chromosome does not create binary bodies, destinies, or lives. If we could crawl into the womb with a fetus at about six to eight weeks of age, we’d see a few clusters of cells in the emerging body get nudges by DNA activity and start to generate new organs, including the clitoris and penis, labia and scrotum, ovaries and testes. All genitals are made from the exact same stuff. Since they have a few differing end functions, their final form is different. But there is a lot of overlap.

In fact, of the 140 million babies born last year, at least 280,000 did not fit into a clear penis versus labia model of sex determination. Genitals, hormone levels, and chromosomes are not reliable determinants of sex. There are, for example, people with XY chromosomes who have female characteristics, people with ambiguous genitalia, and women with testosterone levels outside the typical “female” range.

Biologically, there is no simple dichotomy between female and male. As I demonstrate in my book Race, Monogamy, and Other Lies They Told You, brains are no more “sexed” at birth than are kidneys and livers. Rather, brains are “mosaics” of characteristically female and male features.

Of course, there are clear bodily differences in capacities to give birth and lactate, and ranges of patterns in the development and distribution of body size, strength, and myriad other processes. But such patterns are mostly overlapping, and only a few are distributed in clear or functional dichotomies. Numerous studies have found that the differences between adult men and women are overhyped and largely influenced by the dynamics of biology and culture. Humans are naturenurtural—a fusion of nature and nurture.

For example, many explanations for differences between males and females rest on assumptions about the disparate evolved costs of reproduction between them. But human reproduction is more complex than two individuals having sex, then the female giving birth and taking care of the offspring. While today it is common in many societies for women to raise children on their own or with a male (who often does not contribute equally to child-rearing), this setup developed very recently in human history.

More than a million years ago, humans developed collaborative child care involving female and male relatives, as well as adults and children in the community.

There is massive evidence that the genus Homo (humans) evolved complex cooperative caretaking more than a million years ago, changing the patterns and pressures of our evolution. Such “alloparenting” practices are still widespread among many human groups, in which mothers and fathers, grandparents, other female and male relatives, and boys and girls in the community all help feed, teach, and care for children. This complex overlap in social and reproductive roles is exciting and hopeful. When it comes to raising kids, humans don’t come in two kinds. Rather, we evolved to be a collaborative and creative community.

The data-driven bottom line is that “man/woman” and “masculine/feminine” are neither biological terms nor rooted exclusively in biology. The lack of an explicit binary is especially evident in humans given the complex neurobiologies, life histories, and morphological dynamics in our species. There are many successful, biologically diverse ways to be human, and millions of people embody this diversity. Growing up human means growing up in a world of varying gender expectations, body types, reproductive options, family structures, and sexual orientations.

So, instead of listening to people who are misogynistic, sexist, or homo/transphobic; incels; or politicians who base their ideologies on a biological sex binary and myths about its evolution, we can and should be open to a serious understanding of biology and its better options for human flourishing. The simple male/female binary does not effectively express the normal range of being human. Understanding this and incorporating it into our education, lives, and laws offers better possibilities, greater equity, and more joy for human society.

Complete Article HERE!

Gender Transitioning in the Workplace

— An Employer’s Guide

As workplace protections expand for the LGBTQ+ community, transgender and non-binary employees may feel more comfortable being their authentic self at work. As a result, you should be prepared to work with transitioning employees. Consider developing a plan with your human resources department to educate the workforce and foster an inclusive work environment by creating policies that prohibit discrimination on the basis of gender identity or expression, allow for employee self-identification, address access to bathroom facilities, and make dress codes gender neutral. What should you know if an employee in your workplace is transitioning?

Understand the Meaning of ‘Transgender’

An important first step for employers is to understand what “transgender” means. “Transgender” is a broad term that may apply to a range of gender-nonconforming people. In general, a transgenderperson is someone whose gender identity or gender expression is different than their sex assigned at birth, and they may identify as male, female, or some combination of both or neither. Many people who consider themselves transgender do not undergo gender-affirmation surgery.

Additionally, while many transgender people do identify as male or female, some do not. They may refer to themselves as non-binary or prefer other terms to describe their gender identity, such as gender fluid, genderqueer, agender, or bigender.

A person’s sexuality and gender identity are separate statuses, and transgender people may identify as straight, lesbian, gay, bisexual, asexual, or another sexual orientation. In order to foster an inclusive environment, and avoid potential claims, it is important to avoid making assumptions about anyone’s sexuality based on their gender identity.

Review the Evolving Legal Landscape

While some states have provided employment protections for LGBTQ+ workers for years, the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark 2020 decision in Bostock v. Clayton County changed the legal landscape nationwide.

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employers from discriminating against employees based on color, national origin, race, religion, or sex. In the Bostock case, the SCOTUS held that workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity is unlawful “sex” discrimination under Title VII. This means employers cannot lawfully make employment decisions – such as hiring, firing, promoting, or disciplining employees – based on a job applicant’s or employee’s LGBTQ+ identification.

The Supreme Court found that “it is impossible to discriminate against a person for being homosexual or transgender without discriminating against that individual based on sex.”

The Court provided a workplace example to illustrate its point: An employer fired a woman because she is insufficiently feminine and also fired a man for being insufficiently masculine. Even if the employer treated them equally, it fired each worker because of their sex. “Instead of avoiding Title VII exposure, this employer doubles it,” according to the Court.

You should also review guidelines from the Equal Opportunity Commission (EEOC) – the federal agency that enforces Title VII – on sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination in the workplace. The EEOC updated its guidance in 2021 in light of the Bostock ruling.

Be sure to also review state and local laws, which may provide additional rights to LGBTQ+ employees in the jurisdictions where they work.

Prepare a Transition Plan

If you are approached by a transitioning employee or otherwise become aware of an employee transitioning, you should consider developing a detailed plan that broadly focuses on three areas: communication, education, and accommodation.

At the outset, the plan should designate one or more specific points of contact, so that employees — both those transitioning and their coworkers — know to who to call with concerns and questions.

Consider the following three points as you develop your plan:

  1. Communication is Key You should create an inclusive and understanding environment to convey to your employees your acceptance and understanding. This includes distributing a written open-door policy for employees who wish to speak with management or human resources. If you invite employees with special circumstances to speak directly with someone in leadership, you may have a chance to respond to concerns before they escalate.Once you learn that an employee plans to transition, you should engage in an open dialogue with that individual. Encourage the employee to self-identify their pronouns and make name or pronoun changes easily accessible.You should also work with the employee to determine their anticipated timetable for the transition process. Discuss when and how the employee wants coworkers to become aware of the transition and when the employee wishes to switch names and use of pronouns. You should also review your dress and appearance policies, make them gender neutral by removing any standards based on gender stereotypes (such as requiring women to wear dresses and men to wear trousers), and allow transgender workers to follow standards that align with their gender identity and expression.All employees should be permitted to use bathrooms and locker rooms that correspond to their gender identity. Anyone who is uncomfortable sharing restroom facilities with other employees for any reason should be welcome to use single-person, all-gender facilities, if available. If single-person facilities are not available, you should consult your HR department and legal counsel to balance all considerations in a fair and non-discriminatory manner.Remember that coworker complaints or personal opinions do not supersede a transitioning employee’s rights to express their gender identity and to be free from discrimination and harassment for doing so.
  2. Educate Your Workforce Once those matters are addressed, you should educate your workforce and encourage an environment of tolerance and mutual respect. As part of the education process, make sure all employees know that they should use the transitioning employee’s new name, if applicable, and use the appropriate pronouns for the employee’s gender identity.One common issue many transgender people experience is misgendering, and if done intentionally over time could create potential for hostile work environment. A simple way to demonstrate inclusivity is to encourage all employees to specify their pronouns of choice on company email signatures or other personal identifying communication.Education is a key part of the plan. Open forums may encourage the respectful exchange of concerns and suggested approaches. If a transitioning employee reports any incidents of perceived harassment or discrimination, you should take immediate steps to investigate those concerns and remediate any confirmed instances of unlawful discrimination.
  3. Explore Reasonable Accommodations Finally, when possible, you should consider requests for reasonable accommodations from transitioning employee, such as flexibility or time off for doctor’s visits or to address the side effects of hormonal changes or gender reassignment surgery. Sometimes an accommodation has a minimal cost or burden and is well worth the effort. This is especially true if it prevents a costly discrimination claim and fosters an inclusive environment that focuses on retention of workforce talent.A good starting point is to simply ask what workplace accommodations the employee would like during the transition process. At a minimum, you should keep lines of communication open with transitioning employees and review their accommodation options. Workers are less likely to become disgruntled, and seek out counsel, if you acknowledge their concerns and work with them to find solutions.

    Conclusion

    You should review your policies and practices to ensure compliance with the Supreme Court’s Bostock ruling, the EEOC’s updated guidance, and applicable state and local laws.

    Complete Article HERE!

Busting Myths About Sex and Gender

In a newly revised book, an anthropologist dismantles harmful untruths about society, including notions about the nature of differences between men and women.

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A few decades ago, author and family therapist John Gray published the first edition of his book Men Are From Mars, Women Are from Venus, which argues that to make male-female romantic relationships work, one needs to realize the natural differences in communication, emotion, and behavioral styles between males and females. More than 25 years later, this ideology of difference still reflects a common way people think about men and women.

The belief that men are by nature aggressive and belligerent but protectors—like the Roman god of war, Mars—and women are emotive, beautiful, vain, and fertile—like the goddess of love, Venus—is common. Such a belief is often rooted in stories about human evolution and offered as an explanation of why men and women have different jobs, different capacities, and different participation in politics and industry.

This is a dangerous myth.

What we actually know about men and women, and the nature of sex in humans, challenges popular views of these differences and denies any simplistic take on this topic. To bust the myths about sex and gender, we have to test core assumptions and refute them.

It is a common assumption that parts of the male and female brain have evolved to focus on different things: that men seek sex, competition, and status, and women seek protection and security, to be social and caretaking. There is near total agreement in this view; men and women want different things out of life and sex. This is a basis for misogyny, incels, and hate.

Because of the assumptions about how males and females differ in behavior, there has been an intensive search for measurable biological differences in men’s and women’s brains. The results, as neuroscientist Lise Eliot points out, are negligible:

“What I found after an exhaustive search was surprisingly little solid evidence of sex differences in children’s brains. Sure, there are studies that do find differences, but when I looked closely at all the data—not just the research that confirms what we already know about boys’ and girls’ behavior but a truly balanced collection of findings—I had to admit that only two facts have been reliably proven: boys’ brains are larger than girls, and girls’ brains finish growing earlier than boys. Overall male/female brain differences appear trivial and population-specific. The human brain is not ‘sexually dimorphic.’”

For example, for over 100 years the corpus callosum was supposed to be the Holy Grail of brain differences between males and females. The corpus callosum’s nerve fibers reach out like tendrils into the parts of the brain, acting as the mediator of signals between the left and right hemispheres.

A bright yellow book cover features red lettering in the upper half of the frame and white letters bursting through the yellow background in the lower half.
University of California Press

In the 1990s, a number of publications purported to show size differences between men and women in the corpus callosum. Their assumption was that a larger splenium (the rear part of the corpus callosum, where it is at its thickest) would indicate a more robust set of connections and maybe reflect better kinds of social or empathetic skills. The argument was that women have a larger splenium than men, and thus better integrative, or holistic, thinking skills.

In 1997, psychologists Katherine Bishop and Douglas Wahlsten examined studies on the corpus callosum and came to the following conclusion: “A meta-analysis of 49 studies published since 1980 reveals no significant sex difference in the size or shape of the splenium of the corpus callosum, whether or not an appropriate adjustment is made for brain size.”

In addition, over the past few centuries there have been many studies of the brains of cadavers, and since the 1980s, researchers have been able to use various imaging technologies to examine the brains of living individuals. The end result is that aside from size (on average), there does not seem to be any clear pattern or consistent indication of structural differences that can be tied to biological male-female distinctions.

The bottom line is, as Eliot and colleagues note, the structures of the brain are no more “male” or “female” than are the liver or kidneys or heart. However, there are some patterns of differences in some ways in which brains respond to stimuli, especially in adults. This is because, as neuroscientist Gina Rippon notes, “a gendered world will produce a gendered brain.”

WHAT ARE SEX AND GENDER?

Recent work in biology and genetics clearly demonstrates that biological sex is not best envisioned as a binary (XX versus XY) but rather as a broad spectrum of developmental patterns and processes. To varying extents, many of us are biological hybrids on a male-female continuum.

Most of the variation is minor, and individuals more or less conform to a general division based on which genitals one has (which is not a definition of biological sex), but with a range of variation in things like hormone levels and function, physical developmental patterns, hair growth, and other physiological processes. This is a normal part of the biological processes of being human and reflects a flexible system of reproductive development.

Gender is a culturally influenced perception of the roles the range of sexes are expected to play. In many societies, gender is best conceived of as a continuum, not a dichotomy. “Gender” and “sex” are related, entangled even, but not the same thing.

Most recently the term gender/sex is used by researchers because the term recognizes that the biological and the sociocultural are typically inseparable. Humans are naturenurtural—a true synthesis and fusion of nature and nurture. It is best to think of gender/sex as a dynamic system of interaction rather than one physical part (biological sex) and one cultural part (gender); in humans, you can’t have one without the other.

BUSTING MYTHS ABOUT MALE AND FEMALE BEHAVIORS

Researchers know that men, on average, are taller and heavier. But are men and women really different when it comes to IQ or mathematical and scientific ability? Can evolutionary differences explain male-female differences in skill and behavior?

In groundbreaking work, psychologist Janet Shibley Hyde analyzed psychological studies to find out how much men and women actually differ in their abilities. In her 2005 study, she conducted an overview of psychological and standardized assessments of cognitive variables (math, verbal, spatial), communication (verbal and nonverbal), social and personality variables (aggression, negotiation, helping, sexuality, leadership, introversion/extroversion), psychological well-being, motor behaviors (throwing, balance, flexibility, et cetera), and a few others (moral reasoning, cheating behavior, et cetera.).

According to meta-analyses, one of the few large differences between men and women is in their grip strength.

Shibley Hyde examined 46 meta-analyses of male-female differences (published between 1980 and 2004), consisting of nearly 5,000 reports. In comparing the reports, Shibley Hyde used the d measure, which reflects how far apart the male and female averages are in standardized units. She found that in 78 percent of the meta-analyses, the d measures are close to zero or small.

Where are the large gender differences? Males scored noticeably higher in grip strength, sprinting, throwing velocity and throwing distance, masturbation, views on casual sex, physical aggression, and mental rotation of objects. Females scored higher on indirect aggression, agreeableness, and smiling.

Recently, psychologist Ethan Zell and colleagues retested and expanded on Shibley Hyde’s key assessments. They analyzed data from more than 20,000 studies involving over 12 million participants, and they concluded that “across most topic areas in psychological science, the difference between males and females is small or very small.”

WHERE DO GENDER DIFFERENCES COME FROM?

While we see infants through gendered eyes, infants do not have full-blown gendered behavior and perceptions at birth; instead, they have to acquire gender as they develop. In all societies, this process begins very young. By about 1 1/2 years of age, the gender schemata begin to develop, with gendered play patterns emerging by about 2 years of age.

The details of these patterns differ by culture, but one consistency is related to size and strength. Males start to play in a more rough-and-tumble manner than females at about this age (on average; there is a lot of overlap). By ages 3 to 4, children begin to display consistent culturally structured gendered behavior, and at 6 to 7 years, children form relatively fixed gender stereotypes and behave more or less in accord with them.

Each child develops their gender in the context of a given society, so the specifics of masculinity or femininity (or other gender characteristics not in a binary context) vary for children depending on societal norms.

Psychologists Wendy Wood and Alice H. Eagly looked at anthropological records of hundreds of societies and examined the gender roles, divisions of labor, and patterns of gender/sex differences over time. They found that there is variation in the roles males and females play across societies, with high degrees of overlap in many areas. There are greater differences in aspects of those societies that deal very directly with size and strength or giving birth and taking care of young children. Other patterns then become associated with, or emerge from, these differences.

Wood and Eagly suggest that many of the current social divisions of labor typically associated with gender emerge from both the biological facets of being human and human evolutionary histories, combined with our histories of resource use and distribution. However, these assertions are not fully supported by the fossil and archaeological record.
Data from many studies show few major differences between males and females in sexual activity.

Recent work makes it clear that at least some percentage of those individuals we would classify biologically as females did engage in the kinds of physically demanding hunting often thought to be “men’s” domain. Archaeological evidence demonstrates that the bodies and capacities of those we classify as female show physical characteristics in some areas (such as upper arm strength in some early agricultural populations) that map to elite athletes of today, suggesting substantial physical exertion and likely different sets of gendered expectations around them.

It is highly likely that gender roles and divisions of labor have undergone substantial changes over the last few centuries as societies have transformed both structurally (through industrialization and technology) and socially (with shifts in politics, economy, and education).

In the areas of gendered aggression differences, it seems clear that males’ size and strength are important factors in their increased likelihood of exhibiting physical aggression. However, the details are quite complicated. Women also use physical aggression, at even higher rates than men, at least within heterosexual couples. However, males typically have potential to do greater harm. Might this be a reflection of our evolutionary past?

Yes and no. Male size and muscle mass are part of our evolutionary heritage, but this pattern did not evolve so that males could beat up or intimidate females. However, this difference can have an effect in our societies and our gender systems. In social structures where males have political and economic power, they can exploit this physical difference to help maintain these patterns of control. In this case, males’ use of physical aggression toward females is a cultural co-option of a biological potential and not a specific evolutionary adaptation in our species.

BUSTING MYTHS ABOUT SEXUAL ACTIVITY

The myth of male and female differences in sexual behavior is a dominant one. But the data from many studies show few major differences between males and females in sexual activity. However, one might argue that the real differences between males and females are not in sexual activity but in the expression of interest in the pattern of sexual behavior as it relates to mating.

This concept is called sociosexual orientation. It is measured via the sociosexual orientation inventory (SOI), a self-reported measure of individual differences in human mating strategies. These scores range from low (preferring monogamy) to high (preferring promiscuous mating). The assumption is that men should rate higher or more unrestricted on sociosexuality than women because of their evolutionarily based tendency to want to reproduce as much as possible and females’ tendency to look for the best mates rather than mate with many males.

Two people sitting at a table in a brightly lit room hold brown drink cups and smile at each other. People sit at other tables in front and behind the pair.
When one looks closely at data about how many partners men and women want to have during their lifetimes, the numbers are remarkably similar.

In general, the major datasets reporting on this variable show that men across the globe tend to score higher than women on the SOI. In studies of the United States, men do tend to report higher interest in sexual activity and sexual fantasies, higher numbers of preferred or actual sexual partners, and desire for short-term versus long-term mating opportunities (on average).

But are those differences as great as many make them out to be? Psychologists David Buss and David Schmitt argued that there is a radical difference in male and female mating strategies based on self-reported ideal partner number over time. Males reported wanting an average of about 10 partners over their lifetimes, and females reported wanting about four.

However, if we look closely at the data and ask what the median was (the absolute true middle of the distribution of responses), the answer is around one for both males and females! No real difference. In fact, the large average differences seem to be brought about mostly by more males reporting much higher numbers (100 partners or more) than females; these outliers increased the average. Also, much of this data comes from college students across the globe—not really a great representative sample of humanity.

MOVING BEYOND MYTHS ABOUT GENDER/SEX

Men and women do not naturally want different things from life; we are all humans. However, some biological patterns combine with specific cultural and experiential contexts to create different desires, expectations, and patterns of behavior. We must realize that each individual may or may not match the ideas society has for gender/sex but that such variation is normal for humanity.

Understanding how humans are similar and different and the range of human variation gives us a broader notion of what is natural. There is no evolved battle of the sexes in humans. Nor are gender differences and similarities unimportant. But understanding how humans do and do not vary can help people move forward toward better societies.

Complete Article HERE!

‘200 Words to Help You Talk About Sexuality & Gender’

By Rory Bristol

Do you ever feel lost when it comes to the countless phrases coming out of LGBTQ+ spaces? Are you straight and trying to be a better ally, or are you LGBTQ+ yourself but don’t know how to describe yourself to others? There is good news, Kate Sloan’s new book 200 Words to Help You Talk About Sexuality & Gender is a resource that dives deeply into modern language and highlights the various interpretations of each word or phrase, along with the ways each word might be hurtful or misrepresentative when used in the wrong context.

For starters, Sloan tackles a huge range of topics from the basic concepts of gender and sex, along with the more niche ideas of stigma, biology, Kink & BDSM terminology, and words that just help with the use of the English language, such as pronouns, culture, and gender identities/roles. Each entry looks at the origin of the word (when it’s relevant), who might use that word, who might be upset if you use that word incorrectly, and much more.

For LGBTQ+ Folks

As a queer+trans person, I was struck by many entries in this book that helped me understand words I was using poorly. Some things were easier for me to learn over the years, like how “Gold Star Gay” can feel invalidating to bisexual people, people who have been victims of sexual assault, and people who came out later in life after having sexual relationships with someone of another gender. Other things, like the term “boi” originating in Black culture and being a facet of that culture were news to me, but explain why Black and Hispanic friends of mine would respond poorly when I used that word. There are so many ways our dearly beloved queer language has grown over the last few decades that it’s impossible for everyone to know the history of every word. But, thanks to resources like 200 Words, we can hope to better understand the context from which these phrases came.

Ultimately, this isn’t an attempt to “police” terms or phrases, merely an opportunity to learn the context of words we might have picked up while frequenting discreet websites in the ’90s, or even on Tumblr, Reddit, or Google more recently.

For Allies

If you are (or want to be) an ally for LGBTQ+ people in your life (or even the world at large), I vigorously encourage you to get your hands on a copy of this book. Partly, this is because there are just so many darn words to learn. Even more important, though, is that the English language cannot help us improve equity if we do not help it grow through its use. By discussing issues using proper language, we empower ourselves and those we discuss things with to lift LGBTQ+ people and voices to a better place in society.

One note, though: Many times, this book may caution you to consider whether to use a word for another person. For example, a nonbinary person might dislike the term “enby” and not identify with it. If you refer to them as an enby, they may think you are belittling their experience, even if you are trying to be supportive. So, to be safe, always ask someone what words they use to describe themselves and never, ever, ever correct someone’s use of those words. If you think someone is using a word in a harmful way, share your copy of the book with them so they can see another side to that word or phrase in that context. You should never, however, tell them they are using it wrong or try to get them to use a different word for themselves. That’s on them.

For Sex Ed

Sex education is a topic we feel strongly about at GeekDad. You can see our Top 10 Sex Ed Books post for reference (now updated to include this resource!), and we have covered various graphic novels and other media from an LGBTQ+ perspective over the years. The unfortunate truth is there is no such thing as a single resource to learn everything about the human body or our sexual, romantic, or gender identities. This book is an excellent starting point, but it doesn’t really cover the details of physical and emotional health that are vital to sexual education, so we encourage you to check our Top 10 post for more resources if you are looking for more holistic educational resources.

TL;DR

200 Words to Help You Talk About Sexuality & Gender is a fantastic reference for those wanting to learn more about how to discuss LGBTQ+ topics, regardless of your own level of experience or involvement with the LGBTQ+ community. You will find information on what each word means, who might use it, and how it might be inappropriate if used in the wrong context. It makes an excellent gift or an excellent accompaniment to sex education materials whether or not you’re a member of the LGBTQ+ community.

Complete Article HERE!

When Sex and Gender Collide

Studies of transgender kids are revealing fascinating insights about gender in the brain

By Kristina R. Olson

  • The TransYouth Project is an ongoing research study following more than 300 transgender and gender-nonconforming kids for 20 years to learn how their gender identity develops.
  • Results so far show that trans children have just as firm a sense of their own gender as nontrans kids at very early ages, both when asked directly and when tested. Furthermore, trans kids follow different trajectories than children who simply prefer toys and clothes associated with the opposite gender.
  • In addition to helping uncover the roots of gender, early results of these studies suggest that trans kids who are supported through early social transitions have strong mental health and self-esteem.

On arrival at a friend’s house for dinner one night in the fall of 2008, I joined the evening’s youngest guest, five-year-old Noah, who was playing on the couch. Little did I know he would single-handedly change the course of my career.

As a professor of developmental psychology, hanging out at the kids’ table is not unusual for me. I study how children think about themselves and the people around them, and some of my keenest insights have come from conversations like this one. After some small talk, I saw Noah glance around the room, appear to notice that no one was looking and retrieve something from inside his pocket. The reveal was slow but the result unmistakable: a beloved set of Polly Pocket dolls.

Over the next few years I got to know Noah well and learned more about his past (all names of children here are pseudonyms to protect their privacy). Noah’s parents had first noticed that he was different from his brother in the preschool years. He preferred female playmates and toys more commonly associated with girls, but his parents were unfazed. As he got older, Noah grew out his previously short hair and replaced his fairly gender-neutral wardrobe with one that prominently featured Twinkle Toes—shoes that lit up in pink as he stepped. Unlike many similar kids, Noah’s family, friends and school fully accepted him. They even encouraged him to meet other kids like himself, boys who flouted gender norms. Along with the other adults in Noah’s life, I couldn’t help but wonder: What did Noah’s behavior mean? Was he gay? Could he just be a kid who paid less attention to gender norms than most? At the time I had no idea that these questions would soon guide my scientific research.

Life for Noah started to change when he hit third and fourth grade. Noah recently explained how at this time, it became increasingly apparent that although people accepted his preferences and befriended him nonetheless, the way he saw himself—as a girl—was at odds with the way others saw him. When people used his name and male pronouns, he realized that they thought of him as a boy. Noah remembers that this awareness made him increasingly unhappy—a feeling that had been rare just a few years earlier. According to his mom, previously cheerful and high-spirited Noah became sad and melancholy. This is when his family, after consulting with local therapists, reached a big decision that had been in the making for years. Noah came out as transgender, and accordingly Noah’s friends, family and school community were asked to use a new name, Sarah, and to refer to Sarah as a girl.

Fourteen-year-old Sarah, photographed at home, knew from a young age that she was a girl rather than the boy she seemed to be at birth.

At this point I had been studying developmental psychology for a decade, mostly looking into how young children think about the social categories—race, gender, social class—around them. In my free time, I looked for research about kids such as Sarah. Not a single quantitative study had investigated young children who had “switched” gender. (“Sex” refers to the biological categories male and female, whereas “gender” references one’s identification with the social and cultural attributes and categories traditionally attached to each sex.) At that time nearly all adults who were transgender had transitioned much later in life, and almost no one had supported their early gender nonconformity (their desire to express preferences or behaviors that defy societal expectations for their sex). I wondered what we could learn about gender from such young pioneers as Sarah. What was the impact of transitioning on children’s mental health and identity? What would this decision mean for their future?

How We Learn Gender

When most people hear about trans children, they are surprised. How could a three-year-old have such a clear sense of gender identity? People frequently compare early-identifying trans children with those who go through phases of believing they are cats or dinosaurs or who have imaginary friends. They use this comparison as evidence that no young child knows his or her identity or what is real or not real. Yet decades of work on gender development suggests these are precisely the ages at which nearly all kids are coming to understand their own and others’ gender identities.

In Western cultures (where most of this research has been done), within the first year of life infants begin to distinguish people by sex, seeing individuals as either male or female. By about 18 months toddlers begin to understand gendered words such as “girl” or “man” and associate those words with sex-matched faces. By 24 months children know of sex stereotypes (such as associating women with lipstick), and before their third birthday nearly all kids label themselves and others with gender labels that match their sex.

During the preschool years, large numbers of young people go through what gender researchers May Ling Halim of California State University, Long Beach, and Diane Ruble of New York University call the “pink frilly dress stage”: most girls become obsessed with frilly princess dresses or similarly “gendered” clothing, whereas many boys prefer superhero gear or formal wear and actively avoid pink. Around this time children also often exhibit strong preferences for the company of same-sex friends, engage in activities stereotypically associated with their sex and show a developing understanding that their sex is an enduring quality—believing that girls develop into women and boys into men.

Through the elementary school years, most children continue to associate themselves strongly with their sex group when asked both directly and indirectly. One experiment involves asking young participants to sort photographs of children on a computer screen into “boys” and “girls” while categorizing a set of words as either “me” words (like “me” and “myself”) or “not me” words (like “they” and “them”). Researchers measure how quickly kids can make these categorizations when “boys” and “me” share one response key and “girls” and “not me” share another, compared with how quickly they can make the opposite pairings (“girls” with “me” and “boys” with “not me”). Past studies have found that an overwhelming majority of girls are faster at pairing “girls” with “me” and boys are faster at pairing “boys” with “me.” Although scientists debate which aspects of development are innate or culturally constructed, or a combination of both, and not every child goes through the same gender pathway, most—including those children raised in families who vary in their parenting style, political beliefs, and racial and ethnic group membership—show the pattern we have described. And most parents, teachers and other adults never give it a second thought—except when kids start asserting that their gender is not what others expect it to be.

Early Differences

When I began the TransYouth Project in 2013, I wanted to understand whether, when and why young people such as Sarah do and do not behave like their peers in terms of their early gender development. The TransYouth Project is an ongoing study of hundreds of transgender and gender-nonconforming children. We focus on kids in the U.S. and Canada who are three to 12 years old when they begin the study, and we plan to follow them for 20 years.

What has been most surprising to me about our findings so far are the myriad ways in which trans kids’ early gender development is remarkably similar to that of their peers. That is, children like Sarah look like other girls at every age but nothing like boys on measures of gender identity and preferences. Similarly, transgender boys (children who identify as boys but at birth were considered to be girls) perform like other boys on our tests. For example, one common observation in the preschool years is a strong hypergendered appearance—girls who love princess dresses; boys who avoid pink like it’s the plague. We find the same thing in our youngest transgender children. The degree of their preferences for stereotypical clothes, as well as their tendency to prefer to befriend those of their self-identified gender and the degree to which they see themselves as members of their gender group, is statistically indistinguishable from their peers’ responses on the same measures throughout the childhood years.

Charlie prefers clothes and toys associated with girls but identifies as a boy. He is pictured here at age 10.

Furthermore, when predicting their identities into the future, trans girls see themselves becoming women and trans boys feel that they will be men, just as other girls and boys do. Even when we present children with more indirect or implicit measures of gender identity—the measures that assess reaction times rather than children’s more explicit words and actions—we have found that trans girls see themselves as girls and trans boys see themselves as boys, suggesting that these identities are held at lower levels of conscious awareness. All this research combines to show that transgender identities in even very young children are surprisingly solid and consistent across measures, contradicting popular beliefs that such feelings are fleeting or that children are simply pretending to be the opposite gender.

The Roots of Gender

But where does the feeling of gender come from in the first place? The science is still far from conclusive. Because of how early this sense of identity can emerge, researchers have been looking for genetic and neuroanatomical signs in transgender people. One approach scientists often use in studying genetics is to look at twins. A major difference between identical and fraternal twins is that the former share more of their genetic material than the latter. If researchers find more agreement in transgender identity among identical twins than in fraternal twins, they infer that genetics play some role. And in fact, this is exactly what early studies are finding (although identical twins may also share more aspects of their socialization and environment). For example, in one 2012 review of the literature, Gunter Heylens of Ghent University in Belgium and his colleagues looked at 44 sets of same-sex twins in which at least one twin identified as transgender. They found that in nine of the 23 identical twin pairs, both siblings were transgender, whereas in no case among the 21 same-sex fraternal twin pairs were both twins transgender, suggesting transgender identity has some genetic underpinning. Despite these results, however, which particular genetic variations are involved is an open question.

Similarly, although some neuroscience studies have shown that brain structures of trans people resemble those of individuals with the same gender identity, rather than people with the same sex at birth, these findings have often involved small samples and have not yet been replicated. Further complicating interpretation of neuroscience results is the fact that brains change in response to experience, so even when differences appear, scientists do not know whether structural or functional brain differences cause the experience of a particular gender identity or reflect the experience of gender identity. Muddying the already murky waters, neuroscientists continue to debate whether even among people who are not transgender, there are reliable sex (or gender) differences in brains [see “Is There a ‘Female’ Brain?”]. Thus, whereas the topic is an active line of work in many research laboratories around the world, definitive conclusions about genetic and neural correlates of gender identity remain elusive.

Perhaps the most critical questions about transgender children, however, are about their well-being. Transgender adults and teens who did not go through the early social transition of kids such as Sarah and who were often rejected by peers and even their own families tend to have highly elevated rates of anxiety and depression. Estimates suggest that more than 40 percent of these largely unsupported trans teens and adults will attempt suicide. Many families like Sarah’s report that these heartbreaking statistics are why they supported their children’s early transitions.

My colleagues and I are finding—both in reports from parents and from kids themselves—that trans youth who make the social transition at a young age are doing remarkably well. They have depression rates comparable to their peers and only slightly elevated rates of anxiety. They also show very strong self-esteem. Whether these indicators of mental health stay strong as our cohort of trans children moves into the teen years remains to be seen, and certainly our all-volunteer sample is unlikely to be fully representative of all trans children alive today. Yet paired with work suggesting that interventions in adolescence (that involve not only social transitions but also hormonal therapy) are associated with improved mental health, these findings suggest that the high rates of depression, anxiety and suicide seen in earlier studies are not inevitable. Instead, as the world becomes more educated about transgender people, as rejection and bullying decrease, and as these youth receive support and intervention at earlier ages, we are optimistic that mental health risks will decrease.

“Pink Boys” and Tomboys

The first question I typically get when talking about transgender kids is something like, “Are you saying tomboys are actually transgender?” or “I used to be a boy who loved princess dresses. Are you suggesting I was transgender?” Of course, not all children who defy sex stereotypes as Sarah did are transgender. In fact, I would venture to say that most of them are not.

Sarah’s decision to transition genders was made in elementary school. Sarah is shown with her parents here.

One such kid is Charlie. On the surface Charlie seemed a lot like Sarah early in life. Both were assumed to be boys at birth, and both showed signs by the preschool years that they were different. As with Sarah, Charlie loved all things feminine. His mom recalls that by age two, Charlie loved pink sparkly clothing and would put a towel over his head pretending it was hair. Much like Sarah’s family, Charlie’s family introduced him to other boys who loved feminine stuff. And over the years some of these children, like Sarah, socially transitioned. But Charlie did not. I recently asked Charlie about his decision not to transition. He explained that his family (sometimes with the help of a therapist) spent a lot of time talking about social transitions and made it clear that they were onboard if that was what he wanted. Charlie said he considered this possibility in the back of his mind for several years but ultimately decided that although he unabashedly liked stereotypically “girl” things (in fact the very day I interviewed him, Charlie was wearing pink shorts, a purple T-shirt and a pink scarf to school) and even if he occasionally uses a girl’s name at camp, at the end of the day Charlie feels that he is a boy. As his mom explained, Charlie said that what he really wanted was for the world to accept him as he is—to let him wear what he wanted to wear and do what he wanted to do. But he did not truly feel he was a girl.

My work with children such as Charlie is ongoing, but preliminary data from others suggest that distinctive developmental trajectories may differentiate Sarah and Charlie. For instance, the degree to which a child gravitates to toys and clothes associated with the opposite gender may distinguish kids who ultimately identify as transgender from those who do not—on average, children like Sarah show even more gender nonconformity than children like Charlie. Other studies have suggested that the way kids talk about their gender identity—feeling you are a girl versus feeling that you wish the world was okay with your being a feminine boy (what Charlie’s mom calls a “pink boy”)—predicts the different paths of children like Sarah versus Charlie.

Researchers are also increasingly recognizing and studying people with nonbinary identities. Put simply, these are individuals who do not feel as if they are boys or girls, men or women, nor do they feel fully masculine or feminine. Instead many nonbinary people fall somewhere in the middle of a spectrum from masculine to feminine. To date, our research team has worked with several children who see themselves this way, but this group is not yet large enough from which to draw any strong conclusions.

What is undoubtedly true is that scientists have much to learn about children such as Sarah and Charlie. What does it mean to have a sense of yourself as a boy or a girl or something else? What makes a child more or less likely to identify that way? And how can we help all kids to be comfortable with themselves? Finding answers is especially difficult because gender is defined by culture, which constantly changes. In 1948, for instance, only 32 percent of adults believed women should wear slacks in public. Certainly feminine boys and masculine girls are not new; they are widely recognized in many indigenous cultures.

Today 14-year-old Sarah and 13-year-old Charlie are self-confident, smart and hardworking teens. Sarah plays piano, varsity field hockey and recently took up track. Charlie plays in a band and performs in theater. Both kids are popular and spend more of their time worrying about doing well in school and the complexities of adolescent social networks than about their gender. Both look to the future, excited about the possibilities that await them in college and beyond. Sarah says she wants to raise children with her future husband and aspires to make the world better for trans young people like herself. Charlie has dreams of moving to New York City to perform on Broadway. Both teens hope one day kids like them will be accepted for who they are regardless of the gender labels they use. In that hope, surely all of us can agree.

Complete Article HERE!

A guide to the words we use in our gender coverage

By Anne Branigin

Over the last few years, the rights of transgender people — and those within the LGBTQ community more broadly — have increasingly become the subject of legal and political debate. School districts across the country have proposed book bans that strike the work of LGBTQ writers from reading lists. Florida has moved to forbid instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in kindergarten through third grade. As of April 1, more than a dozen states in the last two years have passed bills that limit the ability of trans youths to participate in sports or access gender-affirming health care.

Depending on one’s life experiences, it can be challenging to navigate some of the terms of the debate. Informed by the guidance of a number of organizations, including GLAAD, the Trans Journalists Association, InterAct, the American Medical Association and the Association of LGBTQ Journalists, The Washington Post has compiled a glossary of the terms and concepts that show up in our coverage.

The glossary below is not comprehensive, and there is ongoing conversation about which language is most appropriate and accurate. This guide is intended to be a clear and accurate starting point to help readers better understand gender issues.

Some of these terms may seem new — due in large part to increased visibility of LGBTQ communities — but the existence of different gender identities and sexual orientations is not. As with all language, these terms are reflected by our time and culture. This list is specific to the United States; other cultures have different labels and understandings of gender.

“Language is always evolving,” Blazucki said. “We’re always coming up with new words and new ways to talk about things as our lives change, as society changes.”

1 The basics

Sex is usually assigned at birth and based on the appearance of external anatomy. Sex is typically categorized as male, female or intersex.

Intersex applies to people born with the reproductive or sexual anatomy and/or chromosomes that don’t fit into traditional conceptions of male or female bodies. As InterAct notes, there are a number of naturally occurring intersex variations, some that are identified at birth and others that may be discovered at puberty or later in life.

Intersex is not a gender identity. Intersex people are assigned a sex at birth, one that may or may not match their gender identity as they grow up. Intersex people may have any gender identity or sexual orientation.

Gender covers the behavioral, cultural or psychological traits associated with one’s sex, which can vary widely depending on the time period and place. It is widely held now among medical professionals and gender experts that the terms sex and gender are not interchangeable, though this has not always been the case.

Gender is frequently categorized as male, female or nonbinary.

Gender identity is your internal knowledge of your own gender. For many people, their gender identity will align with the sex they were assigned at birth, but this is not true for everyone — some people’s gender identity may line up with their assigned sex, and others may identify with neither or multiple genders (see cisgender, transgender and nonbinary).

What’s important to remember is that gender identity is not always outwardly visible to others, experts say.

Gender expression is how you present your gender outwardly, including through your behavior, mannerisms, clothing, name, pronouns and other characteristics.

Gender expression in the United States tends to fall on a spectrum from “masculine” to “feminine.”

While gender expression is very specific to the individual, it is heavily influenced by culture, peers and upbringing, said Gillian Branstetter, press secretary with the National Women’s Law Center.

“If you’re a cisgender man and you grow a beard, you’re communicating something about your gender to the world,” Branstetter said. “You’re doing the same thing with your name and pronouns, even if you don’t necessarily realize it.”

No matter what their gender identity is, most people express their gender in a way that aligns with their identity to better communicate to the world how they see themselves.

2 Gender identity

Cisgender describes someone whose gender identity lines up with the sex they were assigned at birth (this can also be shortened to “cis”). “Cis” comes from Latin, meaning “the same side as.”

Transgender describes someone whose gender identity is different from the sex they were assigned at birth (this can also be shortened to “trans”). For example, a transgender woman is someone who was listed as male at birth but whose gender identity is female.

“Trans” also comes from Latin, meaning “across” or “beyond.”

In its media guidance, GLAAD notes that being transgender is not dependent on physical appearance or medical procedures: “A person can call themself transgender the moment they realize that their gender identity is different than the sex they were assigned at birth.”

As Branstetter said: “Transgender people are not a monolith in how we express or navigate our identities.”

Nonbinary is a term used by people whose experience of gender identity and gender expression do not align neatly as either “man” or “woman,” the two categories Western countries have generally used to classify gender. Both cis and trans people can identify as nonbinary.

In the United States, nonbinary (or non-binary) is a newer term for a concept with a long history. People have also used the term “genderqueer” to describe nonbinary identity. And terms like “agender,” which describes a person who does not identify as any gender, and “pangender,” which describes someone whose identity may encompass all genders at once, may help further describe how someone is nonbinary.

Genderfluid refers to someone whose gender identity is not fixed, but may appear to others as flowing through different gender categories. Imara Jones, founder and chief executive of TransLash Media, describes it as a “weaving together” of different gender identities: “This is just how they experience gender.”

Gender nonconforming, frequently abbreviated to GNC, is a broad term that describes a person who defies gender norms and expectations in their gender expression. This can apply to all gender identities: trans, cis, nonbinary and beyond.

Transphobia refers to prejudice or hatred shown, in speech or actions, toward transgender or gender-nonconforming people. This bias is centered on gender identity.

3 Sexual orientation

Sexual orientation describes an enduring physical, romantic and/or emotional attraction to a person of the same and/or other genders. It is separate from gender identity, but like gender identity, it is innate.

A cisgender or transgender person can be straight, lesbian, gay, bisexual, asexual, etc. (For example, “lesbian” could apply to both cisgender women and transgender women who are exclusively attracted to other women.)

Pansexual describes someone who is capable of forming enduring physical, romantic and emotional attraction to people of any gender identity.

Asexual, which is sometimes shortened to “ace,” is an umbrella term for people who do not experience sexual attraction. This can also include people who are demisexual — experiencing some sexual attraction, but only in certain situations; for example, only after establishing a strong emotional connection.

Out describes a person who self-identifies as gay, lesbian, bisexual, queer, transgender or nonbinary in their personal, public and professional lives.

Queer is an overarching term describing anyone whose sexual orientation isn’t exclusively heterosexual. It’s not unusual for older generations of LGBTQ members to reject the term, which was once considered a pejorative, said Branstetter. But in recent years, younger members have sought to reclaim the word.

“The word ‘queer,’ I think, is increasingly embraced in terms of expressing your own sexuality because it speaks to an openness. It speaks to growing comfortable with ambiguity,” Branstetter said.

For some people, “queer” carries with it an additional meaning as a political identity, Jones said — one that challenges the ways LGBTQ marginalization and inequality are upheld by legal, political and social systems. In recent years, some heterosexual people have also embraced this identity.

Homophobia refers to prejudice or hate expressed, in speech or actions, toward gay, lesbian, bisexual or queer people. The intolerance is based on sexual orientation.

4 Terms in the news

Gender transition refers to the multilayered process of aligning one’s life with one’s gender identity. While much of the news focuses on the medical process of transitioning (in large part because of the states that have proposed or enacted bills that restrict these treatments), transition can and does happen on many other levels.

“There’s a wide range of things that involve transition, and they’re not the same for everyone,” said Jones

Social transition includes actions like coming out to family and friends, and changing how one dresses or talks, the name they go by and the pronouns they use. Legal transition involves updating documents like birth certificates and identification cards to reflect one’s name and gender marker. Medical transition includes hormone replacement therapy and could include additional surgical procedures as well.

Transition is a highly individualized, personal process. A person who is transitioning could employ all — or none — of these methods.

Gender dysphoria is the medical term for the psychological and physical distress that happens when one’s sex assigned at birth does not align with their gender. How people experience gender dysphoria — and its severity — varies from person to person, noted Jones.

In a clinical context, a psychiatric diagnosis of gender dysphoria is often necessary to access medical treatment. This practice is controversial on a couple of fronts: Some say that it inappropriately pathologizes gender incongruence, and some also critique it as a form of medical gatekeeping.

According to the Trans Journalists Association, gender dysphoria can also happen in a social context and can refer to the discomfort many trans people feel when their correct gender is not recognized by others.

Gender euphoria refers to the satisfaction and happiness people feel when their gender is affirmed. A trans person may experience this kind of euphoria when their correct names and pronouns are recognized or when their physical appearance aligns with their gender identity.

Branstetter adds that this kind of feeling is something cis people experience, too: “Cis women oftentimes will enjoy feeling feminine, whatever that may mean to them, in the same way cis men will oftentimes enjoy feeling masculine in whatever way that may mean to them.”

Gender-affirming care describes medical care that affirms or recognizes the gender identity of the person receiving medical care. Also known as “gender-affirmative” or “gender-confirming” care, such medical care for minors can include puberty or hormone blockers and is closely monitored by their doctors. For adults, this could mean hormone therapy and various surgical procedures, such as breast reconstruction (also known as “top surgery”), speech therapy, genital reconstruction and facial plastic surgery.

These treatments have been linked to better health outcomes for the transgender, nonbinary and gender-nonconforming people who seek them, and can help protect them against discrimination and violence.

But gender-affirming care goes beyond medical treatments that assist people in transitioning, said Jones. She views gender-affirming care as care that recognizes and values the gender identity of the patient, no matter what they’re seeking treatment for.

Jason Rafferty, a child psychiatrist and pediatrician at Hasbro Children’s Hospital in Providence, R.I., described it similarly to the American Medical Association: It is “a model of care and an approach to the patients and families that we work with,” he said.

“It’s not necessarily a protocol. It’s not guided steps,” Rafferty added.

Misgender refers to an action in which someone addresses or refers to another person by the wrong gender — either accidentally or intentionally. This can include referring to someone by the wrong pronouns or honorifics or using a trans person’s deadname (the name they used before transitioning).

To understand and avoid misgendering, it’s important to recognize how often we gender the world around us, said Branstetter: We project gender onto animals, objects and even weather events.

“It’s something that people do and they don’t realize that they do it. It happens very swiftly,” Branstetter said.

For many transgender people, misgendering can feel like a form of violence, Jones added: “It’s violent because it’s a form of erasure.”

Marginalized gender is an umbrella term, most frequently used in academic and activist circles, describing anyone who is not a cis man. The term points toward the ways cisgender women and LGBTQ individuals, historically and currently, have experienced systemic inequities and greater regulation over their rights.

“It’s not just that their bodies are regulated,” Branstetter said, “but their bodies are regulated as a means of regulating their life path.”

Complete Article HERE!

Understanding Gender Identity

Gender exists on a spectrum, with several gender identities to choose from

There’s so much diversity in how we identify ourselves and the way we express love for one another. Just as there are different kinds of love, we can become sexually and romantically attracted to our partners in different ways (if we experience sexual or romantic attraction at all).

The relationship we have with our own bodies as it relates to gender and sexual orientation can also be a complicated one. Everyone is built differently, and many of us come to realize aspects of our own gender in ways that can be challenging, exciting and complex.

Over time, as language has evolved and we’ve learned more about gender identity, gender expression and sexual orientation, healthcare providers and organizations like the American Counseling Association have determined multiple ways someone can identify in terms of how they feel about themselves and how they feel about others. One example of gender inclusivity might be, rather than refer to someone of Latin American descent as Latina or Latino, a more gender-inclusive term we use now is Latinx.

Sometimes, this search for understanding how we identify can happen later in life, but often, this journey begins when we’re young.

“Most teens struggle with figuring out who they are as a person. That’s part of what teenage years are meant to be, exploring your identity as a person,” says pediatric psychologist Vanessa K. Jensen, PsyD, ABPP.

There’s no right answer for determining how you identify related to gender and sexuality, but discovery usually begins with internal awareness and may include exploring how you can express your gender identity and sexual orientation with others. However you arrive at your identity, it’s important that you do so safely and you check in with yourself often along the way.

“It’s so much easier when you have a path in almost anything,” says Dr. Jensen. “Having a group you can identify with can be very comforting. Having a label can give us a place to be in our own head, and at times, in our social lives and what we do day-to-day. That’s true for many people, but it’s especially true in our teen and young adult journeys.”

Here, Dr. Jensen helps us walk through several common terms used to describe gender identity and gender expression.

Gender identity and how we talk about who we are

Gender identity is typically expressed in the way you label yourself, how you physically present yourself to others and how you feel about your own body.

Discovering your gender identity is a journey we all take. Some of us arrive at and understand our gender identity quickly — some of us know on Day One where we’re going, and some of us take the most direct path to get there. Some of us might take a more scenic route with a few stops along the way until we arrive at our final destination. And that’s OK. You are valid, no matter how you arrive at understanding your gender identity.

“For a lot of people, these things happen very organically and naturally,” says Dr. Jensen. “This is about more than just our bodies. This is about who we are. And that includes external and internal aspects of ourselves.”

As language continues to evolve, we’re coming up with new ways to explain how we feel about who we are every day. This list, though not all-inclusive, is a good first step in understanding the various ways we and those around us identify gender, keeping in mind that not everyone agrees on the definition of each label and that they’re continually changing.

Agender

This term describes someone who feels like they don’t fit any gender. They may not ascribe to (identify with) the gender binary of males and females (someone who doesn’t identify with the polar opposites of male or female). They also don’t feel comfortable with other gender-variant terms.

Androgynous

This term describes someone who feels comfortable expressing themselves in a more gender-neutral way. They may express varying aspects of masculinity and femininity. How they express themselves may vary day to day, but they don’t generally appear dramatically male or female.

Bigender

People who are bigender experience characteristics of two genders at the same time. Though this typically means the male/female gender binary, you could experience aspects of other genders, too.

“If you’re bigender, you don’t want to label yourself as just one or the other, but you don’t want to reject either one, so you identify with both,” explains Dr. Jensen.

Butch

Some may see this as a derogatory label, while others may claim this term to define how they identify in an affirming way. This term is often reserved for those who identify strongly with masculine cultural traits physically, sexually, mentally and/or emotionally. Historically, this term has been used by lesbian women who express more masculine characteristics. Similar to a few other labels listed here, this should be a self-identification, not a label you ascribe to other people.

Cisgender

This term describes someone whose gender identity matches their assigned sex at birth. If you were born female and identify as female, you’re cisgender. If you were born male and identify as male, you’re also cisgender.

Femme

Femme has often been reserved for those who identify strongly with feminine cultural traits physically, sexually, mentally and/or emotionally. Historically, this term has been used within the lesbian community; however, it also commonly applies to people who are male-identifying in gender and express more feminine characteristics. This can also be used by anyone of any gender who identifies with feminine traits.

FTM (female-to-male)

This is typically a medical abbreviation to describe a transition for a transgender person. The first letter indicates someone’s assigned sex at birth and the last letter indicates someone’s gender identity and expression. FTM indicates a female transition to male.

“This is one of those medical abbreviations that can be perceived as pejorative [has negative connotations],” notes Dr. Jensen. “But people may see that in a medical document or journal.”

Intersex

This is an umbrella term that technically means “between the sexes.” People who are intersex carry variations in their reproductive and sexual anatomy that differ from what’s fully male or female. For example, a baby might be born with genitalia that is not completely male or completely female, or they might have variations of XX and XY chromosomes. Medically, these rare conditions are referred to as disorders of sex differentiation (or differences of sex development). Language is evolving. Some people may find the term DSD controversial, as it implies intersex is a disorder in need of treatment rather than a biological variation. However, the term intersex continues to be recognized by the LGBTQIA+ community and has gained more traction as an identity within the last decade.

MTF (male-to-female)

This is typically a medical abbreviation to describe a transition for a transgender person. The first letter indicates someone’s assigned sex at birth and the last letter indicates someone’s gender identity and expression. MTF indicates a male transition to female.

Nonbinary

If you’re nonbinary, you don’t ascribe to the male/female binary. Instead of identifying as male or female, you identify as being somewhere else on the gender spectrum.

“If you identify as nonbinary, you see gender as a spectrum,” says Dr. Jensen. “You’re basically saying, ‘I don’t buy into the two ends of the poles, people can be anywhere on that spectrum.’”

Pangender

A synonym of omnigender and polygender, this umbrella term describes anyone whose gender identity carries varying aspects of multiple identities and expressions.

Pronouns

Historically, we’ve been pretty binary (male/female) in the way we approach using pronouns to talk about those around us. Luckily, as our language evolves, we’ve created new ways of identifying how we feel about who we are. Our use of pronouns has expanded to include interchangeable gender-neutral pronouns like they/them/their, xe/xem/xyr, zie/zim/zir and others.

“Names and pronouns have meaning, and people take them seriously,” says Dr. Jensen. “It’s very personal.”

Transgender

This term describes someone whose gender identity does not match their assigned sex at birth, and it’s inclusive of both binary (male/female) and nonbinary gender identities. Some individuals are very open about being transgender; however, some may prefer to avoid that term entirely and simply exist as the gender they are (what’s sometimes referred to as “passing”). And that’s OK. How you choose to present yourself is entirely up to you.

“There are a lot of transgender individuals whose goal is to just be and be seen as the gender they identify as,” says Dr. Jensen. “So, they don’t want to be called transgender, a trans man or a trans woman.”

The process of transitioning from your sex assigned at birth to your identified gender looks different for every person based on your individual experiences.

In many cases, the first step to transition is called social transitioning. During this step, you may express your gender identity by changing the way you present yourself at home or in public. This gender expression can be evidenced in the clothing and accessories you wear, your body language, or your interests and activities. You may also ask friends and family to refer to you by a different name or pronoun that better fits your gender identity. You can also legally change your name. This period of social transitioning may last months, years or a lifetime.

You may want to go through a physical transition, too, with the help of hormone replacement therapy and/or gender confirmation/affirming surgery. In many cases, according to WPATH guidelines, centers require some period of social transition prior to receiving these healthcare services. In some cases, puberty blockers are used to put a hold on puberty to allow more time for a young person to understand their gender identity.

For some folks, hormone replacement therapy can be enough for someone to feel like they’ve fully transitioned.

“Some people can’t take hormones with certain medical conditions, and some choose not to for personal reasons,” says Dr. Jensen.

You can use different interventions like chest binders, voice therapy or hair removal to improve your gender expression. But you may still want gender confirmation/affirming surgery to modify your chest (sometimes called “top surgery”), modify your genitalia (sometimes called “bottom surgery”) or other surgical procedures that modify your face, voice, body hair or other physical aspects of your body.

Whatever path you choose to carry out your transition is entirely up to you, but it’s important that you seek out LGBTQIA+-friendly healthcare providers who can walk you through that process and discuss your options.

Two-spirited

This term is typically reserved for Indigenous/Native Americans who embrace a third gender that contains aspects of both masculine and feminine spirits in one person. Two-spirited individuals are historically valued, honored and respected among their tribe for the spiritual and social roles they play in their communities.

The spectrum of gender identity and gender dysphoria

There are multiple ways in which you might define your gender identity. Several gender identities are all-inclusive umbrella terms that reflect gender as much larger than the male/female binary. And while some of these terms stand on their own, others may be interchangeable.

“There are different variations for many of these terms because gender is a spectrum,” says Dr. Jensen.

Here are some other important terms to know:

  • Gender-fluid: Your gender may shift and change over time and can include multiple genders.
  • Gender-neutral: For some people, this is similar to agender. If you’re gender-neutral, you don’t identify with one specific gender but may identify with varying aspects of multiple genders. Or you reject the idea of gender labeling altogether.
  • Gender-nonconforming: This umbrella term describes anyone whose gender identity and gender expression don’t align with cultural expectations of the male/female binary. If you’re gender-nonconforming, you may think of yourself as having no gender, multiple genders or a third gender that’s neither male nor female.
  • Gender-normative: Your gender identity and gender expression align with cultural expectations of the male/female binary.
  • Gender-variant: Sometimes known as gender-expansive, this term is similar to gender-nonconforming. It describes anyone who identifies with a gender outside of the male/female binary.
  • Genderqueer: Similar to gender-nonconforming and gender-variant, you may identify as genderqueer if you think of yourself as having no gender, multiple genders or a third gender that’s neither male nor female. It’s important to note, though, that while some people see this term as affirming, others find it derogatory. This should be a self-identification, not a label you give to or say to another person.

Sometimes, you may experience gender dysphoria if aspects of your physical body don’t align with the gender you identify with. But it’s important to note that not everyone who’s transgender experiences gender dysphoria, and not everyone who experiences gender dysphoria is transgender.

Wherever you are on your gender journey — whether you’re at your destination or still figuring out your path forward — making an effort to understand gender identity is something we can all do to create a more inclusive world.

Complete Article HERE!

What to Know About Gender-Affirming Care

Gender-affirmation care refers to treatments, ranging from surgery to speech therapy, that support a transgender or nonbinary person in their gender transition.

Transgender people identify with a gender different from the one they were assigned at birth. Nonbinary people have gender identities that fall outside the categories of male and female.

Transition looks different for each person. But generally, the goal of gender-affirmation care, sometimes called gender-affirming care, is to help your outward traits match your gender identity.

Nonsurgical Treatments

Which gender affirmation therapies you choose will differ depending on your own goals. Some nonsurgical treatments you can get are:

Laser hair removal: A skin doctor (dermatologist) uses a low-energy laser on your hair follicles (the small holes in your skin from which hair grows). Hair won’t grow back once it’s removed this way. You may need a series of treatments, each lasting a few minutes to a few hours, depending on the size of the area being treated. Your doctor will probably ask you to stop any other hair removal methods 6 weeks before treatment starts.

Masculinizing hormone replacement therapy: In this treatment, a doctor gives hormone medications to lessen female traits and promote male ones. You may notice:

  • More muscle mass
  • More body and facial hair
  • Lower voice
  • Changes in how you sweat and smell
  • Changes in where fat collects in your body
  • Hairline recession or baldness
  • Higher sex drive
  • Growth of the clitoris
  • Vaginal dryness
  • You no longer have periods

Feminizing hormone therapy: This is where a doctor gives you hormone medications to lessen male physical characteristics and increase female ones. You may notice:

  • Breast growth
  • Changes in where fat collects in your body
  • Less muscle mass
  • Less body hair
  • Changes in how you sweat and how you smell
  • Changes in sex drive
  • Changes in penis function (less frequent or firm erections)
  • Lower sperm count
  • Less sexual fluid at orgasm
  • Smaller testicles

Speech therapy: A specially trained therapist can help you change aspects of how you speak to better conform with your gender identity. This might include changes in:

  • The pitch of your voice
  • How quickly you speak
  • How loudly you speak
  • The quality, or “resonance,” of your voice
  • Your inflection, or changes in pitch as you speak
  • How you pronounce words and phrases
  • How you take part in a conversation
  • How you communicate in nonverbal ways (such as body language and facial expressions)

Mental health care: You face many issues when you establish a new gender identity. Should you get sex-reassignment surgery? How do you prepare mentally for the change? How do you deal socially with the transition? What about family, friends, and support systems?

A mental health specialist can help you explore different approaches to your transition. It may help to find one who specializes in transgender care.

Surgical Treatments

Gender-affirming surgical treatments are divided broadly into 2 categories: male-to-female surgeries, and female-to-male procedures.

Common surgeries include:

  • Facial reconstruction surgery: This can make your face look more feminine or masculine. You might get injections to enhance your cheekbones or surgery to soften or sharpen your chin. The surgeon can also make changes to your nose or jawline.
  • Chest surgery: This is sometimes called “top” surgery. The surgeon may remove breast tissue for a flatter, more masculine chest. Or, they could enhance the shape and size of your breasts to make them look more feminine.
  • Genital surgery: Sometimes called “bottom” surgery, these procedures transform and rebuild your genitals to come as close as possible in appearance and function to those of your gender identity.
  • Hysterectomy: This involves removal of uterus and ovaries. You may be able to preserve eggs that you could use later to have children.

Recovery after gender-affirmation surgeries varies greatly, depending on your health and the type of procedure. Your doctor can tell you what to expect.

Complete Article HERE!

Archaeology’s sexual revolution

Graves dating back thousands of years are giving up their secrets, as new ways to pin down the sex of old bones are overturning long-held, biased beliefs about gender and love

By I Emilie Steinmark

In the early summer of 2009, a team of archaeologists arrived at a construction site in a residential neighbourhood of Modena, Italy. Digging had started for a new building and in the process workers unearthed a cemetery, dating back 1,500 years. There were 11 graves, but it quickly became clear that one of them was not like the others. Instead of a single skeleton, Tomb 16 contained two and they were holding hands.

“Here’s the demonstration of how love between a man and a woman can really be eternal,” wrote Gazzetta di Modena of the pair, instantly dubbed “the Lovers”. However, according to the original anthropological report, the sex of the Lovers was not obvious from the bones alone. At some point, someone tried to analyse their DNA, but “the data were so bad”, says Federico Lugli at the University of Bologna, that it looked like “just random noise”.

For a decade, the assumption about the Lovers’ sex remained unchallenged. Then, in 2019, Lugli and his colleagues decided to try a newly available technique for determining the sex of human remains using proteins in tooth enamel. To their surprise, the Lovers were both male. The pair suddenly became potential evidence of a fifth-century same-sex relationship.

The skeletal remains of the Lovers of Modena. Researchers have determined both figures are male

The story of the Lovers is part of an ongoing sexual revolution in archaeology. For decades, archaeologists have had to rely on grave goods and the shape of bones to tell them whether a skeleton belonged to a man or a woman, but over the past five years, the use of new, sophisticated methods has resulted in a string of skeletons having their presumed sex overturned. The ensuing challenges to our ideas about sex, gender and love in past societies have not been without controversy.

The wider debate on sex in archaeology took off in earnest with the now-famous 2017 paper about a Viking warrior, found in a grave full of weapons in Birka, Sweden. The grave had been known since the late 19th century and had been presumed to contain a man, but it wasn’t until Charlotte Hedenstierna-Jonson from Uppsala University, Sweden and her team tested a DNA sample that anyone could be sure.

Traditionally with DNA analysis, you look for a gene linked to a sex chromosome, such as the AMELX gene on the X chromosome and its counterpart AMELY on the Y chromosome. As females usually have XX chromosomes and males usually XY, the logic goes that if there is significant AMELY present in the sample, it belongs to a male. Nowadays, the analysis takes into consideration much more of the genome, but the principle largely remains the same. And the DNA from the Birka Viking was clearly female.

But the notion of a female warrior did not fit with the existing ideas about the Vikings. According to convention, weaponry, in particular, swords, belonged with men and jewellery belonged with women. If this skeleton was a woman, some argued, the weapons and the warrior status should be re-evaluated. Hedenstierna-Jonson found this baffling, because everyone was fine with the warrior interpretation when the skeleton was thought to be a man, she says. “That cannot change just because we find out it’s a woman.”

Leszek Gardeła, an archaeologist at the National Museum of Denmark and author of the book Women and Weapons in the Viking World, does not want to take a stance either way. “I think she could have been a warrior,” he says, but underlines that 90% of graves with weapons contain biologically male individuals. Weaponry in women’s graves is also no guarantee that they were warriors; an axe, for example, could be used for many things, including various Norse magic rituals often associated with women. “There was space in the mental universe of the Vikings for women warriors,” he says, “[but] I don’t think it was the norm.”

In any case, most agree that old ideas about “male” and “female” grave goods produce interpretations that are at best conventional and at worst biased. This is especially apparent when both feature in the same grave, such as the Viking grave discovered in 1867 at Santon Downham in Norfolk. “Most of the literature says it’s a double grave,” says Gareth Williams, a curator at the British Museum, “but there is no evidence to actually support that.” Only one skeleton, since lost, was originally reported. Rather than a double grave, the more obvious explanation could be a single grave of a person who did not strictly conform to gender norms. Williams thinks the grave probably contained a sword-wielding woman because “there were strict taboos against wearing anything that could be seen as effeminate” for Viking men.

A facial reconstruction of a Viking-Age woman buried with weapons at Nordre Kjølen, Solør, Norway.

Without the missing skeleton, the truth will stay unknown, but others are tackling similar cases with the new methods. Last August, Ulla Moilanen from the University of Turku, Finland, led the reassessment of a proposed “double” burial from early medieval Finland, which contained a single skeleton in female dress with swords. DNA analysis revealed that the grave belonged to a person with XXY chromosomes, or Klinefelter syndrome, who probably looked no different from an XY male. That is what makes this grave so interesting, argues Moilanen, “because a male-looking individual was dressed in clothes and equipped with jewellery usually associated with females”.

The obvious question to ask is: which long-standing analysis will be next to fall? After the Lovers of Modena paper, Lugli says, the team thought about testing other “lovers” buried across Italy. Contenders included the Lovers of Valdaro, housed at the National Archaeological Museum of Mantua, just an hour’s drive from Modena. The 6,000-year-old couple were buried nose to nose and with their arms pressed between their chests.

When they were first found, the Lovers were sexed by osteology, a visual examination of the bones that is still the most common way to identify sex remains. However, the technique is far from perfect. Some bones differ between males and females, but these changes are hormone-driven, says Rebecca Gowland, a bioarchaeologist at Durham University. Skeletons “have to have gone through puberty”, she says, so teens can be ambiguous. Additionally, skeletons are rarely complete and without key bones, such as the pelvis, osteology becomes a lot less reliable, even for adults.

The Lovers of Valdaro were teenagers when they died, one possibly as young as 16, so the osteological examination that declared them “female” and “probably male” could use some modern back-up – and it’s on its way. In the new year, a DNA project based at Tor Vergata University of Rome is set to reveal its results on the Lovers’ sex and potential familial relationships.

Beyond Lover couples, of which there are only a handful worldwide, two other groups will probably see more “sex reveals” in the future. One is hominids, the group of living and extinct apes that humans belong to. “[With] hominids, you’ve got poorly preserved skeletons of a species where you don’t know what the range of sexual dimorphism is, because you might just have bits of one or two of them,” explains Gowland. One very famous hominid known as Lucy, for example, was sexed by half a pelvis. “What if Lucy was Larry?”

While DNA analysis of hominids is possible, it can be tricky as the DNA can degrade to the point where there is little left to analyse. This is where tooth enamel comes into its own. “Compared to DNA, [enamel] survives really well,” says Gowland, who was part of the team that developed the technique.

A sketch of the grave of the Viking warrior in Birka, Sweden, by Hjalmar Stolpe, c1889.

Tooth enamel analysis exploits the same genetic difference as the traditional DNA approach. The AMELX and AMELY genes produce a protein called amelogenin, a component of tooth enamel. Parts of the protein, known as peptides, can be lifted from the tooth using a gentle acid and their chemical make-up, which is also sex-dependent, detected. “It’s revolutionising bioanthropology,” says Lugli, “because we now have an instrument for rapidly and inexpensively determining the sex of humans.”

The other group likely to see an increase in sex determinations is children, because they are otherwise so hard to sex reliably. Last December, a team led by researchers from the University of Colorado Denver established the sex of a 10,000-year-old infant girl from her tooth enamel. She had been found in a rich grave full of shell beads and stone pendants, showing not only that babies were dearly valued in the Mesolithic age, but specifically that girls were too.

So, are the Lovers of Modena evidence of a same-sex relationship 1,500 years ago? Similar to how the Birka Viking’s warrior credentials became the subject of controversy when her sex was published, the love of the Lovers is now being called into question. They could be brothers, which, because of the failed DNA analysis, cannot be ruled out. The authors of the 2019 study themselves propose that they might have been comrades-in-arms. However, previous work by Lugli’s colleagues rejected the idea that they were buried in a military cemetery. The dead didn’t show signs of repeated combat, there were both men and women, and a six-year-old child. So why revive the soldier hypothesis?

Lugli says that certain things changed: there was an in-depth analysis of the injuries and a skeleton that they thought was a young woman was actually a man. But, he says, “our interpretation was mostly from a historical perspective”. He thinks it’s unlikely that their parents would put the pair hand in hand to show their love, at that time. “But anything’s possible.”

In other words, the dead don’t bury themselves. But clearly they don’t excavate themselves either. “There’s a real lack of creativity about how other people lived their lives,” says Pamela L Geller, a bioarchaeologist specialising in queer and feminist studies at the University of Miami, “because we are so wedded to the categories that we have in place now.”

At the same time, although scientific methods can take away some of the guesswork, “there’s just some stuff we’re not going to know about the past”, Geller says. Who loved whom is one of those things, as is people’s sense of identity. Archaeologists can only try, as best they can, to reconstruct the lives of past people based on the available data. Gardeła says it is a matter of respect for the people of the past. “Every grave tells a different story,” he says, “because they were all real humans. They had their own unique lives.”

Complete Article HERE!

10 Things I know about … Gender

By Sarah Gustafson

10) Sex, sexuality, and gender are terms often used interchangeably. However, they are three distinct facets of who we are.

9) Gender identity can change throughout a lifetime. According to the Irregular Report 2 Fluidity, almost a quarter of the Gen Z population expects to change their gender as least once during their lifetime.

8) Many other countries have more than two gender identities. In the U.S., gender has traditionally been thought of in the binary, i.e. man and woman. Other countries and cultures have other options such as two-spirit and hijras reflecting a broader, more nuanced representation of gender.

7) A person’s gender can differ from or correspond to the sex they were assigned at birth.

6) Identity is one aspect of our gender. Gender identities can typically be categorized by binary, non-binary, and ungendered.

5) Gender has social aspects to it. Social gender includes roles and expectations and how society uses those to try to enforce conformity to current gender norms.

4) Understand your own gender story. Our gender is personal because while we share some of these aspects of self with others, how these identities, influences, and characteristics come together is unique to each of us.

3) Understanding gender is smart business. Consumers and employees are living in a gender-diverse world. Companies need to be able to adapt and think outside the binary world to not alienate their target audiences.

2) What companies can do. Start by looking at process, systems, and people. Recognize where gender is being asked for and not needed, or where gender is being asked for using sex identifiers.

1) Gender is evolving. This is a complex and ever-changing topic. Establish a common language framework for your company and employees to work within. Give yourself and others compassion as we work towards meeting the humans in our lives where they are.

Complete Article HERE!

What It Means To Be Bigender

— Signs, Relation To Other Identities & More

By Kesiena Boom, M.S.

There are many different genders and gender identities beyond the binary of man and woman. Under the umbrella of transgender, the identity of bigender describes a person who has two distinct gender identities.

A bigender person is a person with two distinct gender identities, which they either experience alternately or simultaneously. For example, a bigender person could be a man and a woman, or a woman and agender.

According to sex therapist Aliyah Moore, Ph.D., a common misconception about bigender people is that they necessarily must have two genders which are somehow “opposites” on the gender spectrum, but this is not the case for everyone.

Bigender is a transgender identity, in that it describes someone whose gender does not align with the one that they were assigned at birth. A bigender person is also, more specifically, nonbinary. This means that their gender identity does not fit neatly into one of the two binary genders of man or woman.

History of the term.

The term bigender began to be used around the 1980s and became more solidified in the LGBTQ community through its popularization on the microblogging site Tumblr during the 2010s. Through Tumblr, bigender identity gained a pride flag, for example.

Today, bigender is offered as one of the gender options on Facebook, and there are a small handful of notable, out bigender people in the public eye, including the writers R.B. Lemberg and James-Beth Merritt, the latter of whom wrote a memoir about living life as a bigender person.

Signs you could be bigender.

While there are some things that might unite bigender people, Moore is careful to stress that there is no one way to be bigender, and therefore it can look different for everyone. “There’s no right or wrong in how a bigender individual expresses their gender identity,” she says. With that being said, here are some things that can be useful to look out for:

1. You feel like your gender identity doesn’t fit into a neat box.

Bigender people may initially experience feelings of confusion around their gender, according to AASECT-certified sex therapist Janet Brito, Ph.D., LCSW. “You may feel misunderstood, confused, alone. You may not know the best label to describe your inner experience.”

You might have very strong feelings of womanhood for a while, which then switch over to equally strong feelings of manhood, and then back again. You might even find that your feelings of womanhood are weaker or less frequent than your feelings of manhood, or vice versa, which can further confuse you. This could be a sign of being bigender. You may even feel periods when you have no strong sense of gender identity, while sometimes you feel very connected with being a man, woman, or another gender identity.

2. You might feel discomfort in your body.

Gender dysphoria—which is a sense of incongruence, distress, and discomfort between your body and your sense of gender identity—can be a feature of being bigender, says Brito. It can be especially difficult if your two gender identities have markedly different expressions. (That said, not all bigender people experience gender dysphoria!)

3. You want to express yourself in many ways.

Moore suggests that you may want to “dress up in both feminine and masculine ways simultaneously” and express yourself in ways that point to masculinity and femininity through hair, makeup, and body modifications. Alternatively, she says, you might want to stick to what might be perceived as a decidedly neutral gender expression and even feel more comfortable using neutral pronouns such as they/them/theirs or neo-pronouns such as xe/xem/xyr.

How is bigender related to other sexual and gender identities?

People often confuse bigender with other identities related to sexuality and gender. Here we lay out the differences between some commonly mixed-up terms.

Bigender vs. genderfluid

There are certainly similarities between being bigender and genderfluid. A person may even identify as both bigender and genderfluid. Genderfluid usually refers to someone whose sense of gender fluctuates and moves between at least two different identities (rather than only two, as is the case for a bigender person).

Like a bigender person, a genderfluid person may also feel that they can experience their different gender identities alternately or simultaneously. However, while a genderfluid person may identify with a new gender regularly, a bigender person feels statically attached specifically to their two genders.

Bigender vs. nonbinary

There is a crossover between bigender and nonbinary because bigender is essentially a nonbinary gender identity. That is, it is a gender identity that doesn’t fit neatly into the cisgender binary of man or woman.

Someone can be nonbinary and not be bigender, however. People who are nonbinary can describe themselves as having a gender identity that is “beyond” the categories of man and woman, or as being “between” or a mix of the categories of man and woman. They may not see themselves as having two distinct genders, as a bigender person might.

Bigender vs. bisexual

“A lot of people confuse bigender with bisexuality,” says Moore. Bigender is a gender identity, but bisexuality is a sexual orientation. Gender has to do with who you are, whereas sexual orientation has to do with who you’re attracted to. To be bisexual means to be someone who can experience romantic and/or sexual attraction to people of more than one gender.

How to support a bigender loved one:

1. Don’t assume anything.

Since there is no one way to be bigender, there is no way to “know” everything about someone else’s sense of themselves. For example, it’s very important to ask your loved one how they want to be referred to instead of just assuming they will change their pronouns.

2. Respect their right to peace.

Don’t badger your friend, lover, or family member to serve as a sounding board for all and every thought and idea you might have about gender expansiveness. “It’s not your bigender loved one’s obligation to come out to or educate people around them if they don’t feel like it,” says Moore.

A little education on your own can go a long way when used in conjunction with respectful and pertinent questions. (Think “Would you like me to correct people when they misgender you?” instead of “So, does this mean you’re going to get genital surgery?”)

3. Show respect.

Whenever someone opens up to you about their bigenderness, Moore says it’s a big deal that they’ve trusted you. Pay them back the same kindness by not questioning or invalidating their sense of themselves. “Don’t shame them,” Brito adds. The support of one’s nearests and dearests is instrumental in fostering a stable and secure life.

4. Be an ally even when they’re not around.

Don’t let it slide if you hear people making jokes about trans or nonbinary people. You don’t need to out your loved one in order to say, “That’s not funny or acceptable.”

Whether you think you might be bigender or want to support someone who is, the best thing to remember is that everyone’s gender identities are important and deserve respect and space to be explored.

Complete Article HERE!

What Does Cisgender Mean, Exactly?

Gender therapists and educators break things down.

By Gabrielle Kassel

Whether you heard the term ‘cisgender’ flung around on Vaderpump Rules, at your last doctor’s appointment, or on social media and are wondering WTH the word means, you can quit looking for your answer because it’s here.

Below, three gender therapists and educators explain what ‘cisgender’ means and how it differs from ‘transgender’ and ‘non-binary.’ Plus, they share tips for exploring your own gender, which (spoiler alert!) they recommend everybody try!

Cisgender, A Definition

Put simply, cisgender is a word for someone’s gender aligns with the sex they were assigned at birth, explains Jesse Kahn, L.C.S.W., C.S.T., director and sex therapist at The Gender & Sexuality Therapy Center in NYC. Important: Cisgender is an adjective, not a noun, they say. Meaning, someone is not ‘a cisgender’. They’re a cisgender man, cisgender woman, or cisgender person.

Confuzzled by some of the terms in the above definition? Let’s clarify. Gender refers to a set of behaviors, interests, and roles that society uses to put you in the “woman”, “man”, “non-binary” or “other gender” box. Basically, gender is the way a person moves through the world, and what they wear as they do it.

Also known as someone’s natal sex, sex assigned at birth is a label given to newborns (and sometimes fetuses) based on factors like hormones, genitals, and chromosomes. Doctors use this info to put ‘male’ or ‘female’ on the birth certificate.

(Worth knowing: About one percent of people are born intersex, meaning they have sex characteristics that do not neatly nearly into neither the male or female box, says Rae McDaniel, a non-binary licensed clinical counselor and gender and sex therapist based in Chicago. Sadly, most doctors wait to fill out the birth certificate until the newborn has undergone treatments that force them into one of two categories).

Someone is cisgender when they are man and were assigned male at birth (AMAB), or when they are a woman and were assigned female at birth (AFAB).

Cisgender vs. Transgender

Transgender is the word used when someone’s gender does not align with their assigned sex at birth. “The prefix ‘trans’ means on the other side of,” explains McDaniel. So someone is transgender if they have a gender that is on a different side of their sex assigned at birth, they say.

Need some examples? Think about trans-celebrity Elliot Page, who was assigned female at birth and is a man. Or Laverne Cox who was assigned male at birth and is a woman!

For the record: Both of these Netflix stars are what would be considered binary trans people. “Someone whose gender is not aligned with their sex assigned at birth and does fit neatly into the ‘man’ or ‘woman’ box is a binary trans person,” explains McDaniel.

Someone whose gender is not aligned with their sex assigned at birth and does not fit neatly into those boxes — for instance, is non-binary, agender, genderqueer, to name just a few non-binary trans identities — is known as a non-binary trans person, they say. (Think: Demi Lovato or Jonathan Van Ness). The more you know!

How Do I Know If I Am Cisgender?

“You are cisgender if your gender correlates to the sex you were assigned at birth, and gender your parents assumed you were and raised you are,” says Kahn. “For example, if when you were born and the doctors were like “it’s a girl!” and you grow up to be a woman, you’re cisgender,” he says.

According to pleasure-based, queer- and polyamory- inclusive sex educator and sex-positivity advocate Lateef Taylor, most cisgender folks never ever question their gender. So if you’ve never thought, “Wait, am I actually a girl??” or felt like your gender was a too-tight pair of jeans, odds are you are cisgender. (Yes, even if you’ve never heard this identity term until now!).

If, however, you don’t feel like the gender you’ve been living in is the “right” gender, you may not be cisgender. In this instance, Kahn notes that there are a variety of words you might use to name your lived experience and gender. Including non-binary, transgender, non-binary and transgender, or any other gender identity term.

4 Tips For Exploring Your Gender

“Critically exploring your gender, and questioning how you want to dress and express yourselves is beneficial to everyone,” says McDaniel. So no, these tips aren’t just for non-binary and transgender folks!

“Doing so can help people across the gender spectrum experience a kind of gender freedom,” they say.

1. Give yourself a Gender 101 course.

“Start by educating yourself on what gender is, various gender terms such as non-binary and transgender, and what the differences are between things like gender identity and gender presentation,” suggests Kahn. The Gender Reveal, En(ba)by, and Queery podcasts are all good sources for this.

(FTR: Gender presentation and gender expression encompasses things like how you dress, act, talk, and walk and it does not have to match your gender identity).

2. Interrogate your own preconceived notions.

Beyond just educating yourself on the terminology, “it’s important to also reflect on your familiarity with, relationship to, and underlying judgments and assumptions of the people and communities that embody these identities, expressions, and experiences,” says Kahn.

While we all have judgments, and it’s OK that we do, he says, “we do need to be aware of and work to unlearn, not perpetuate, those judgments.”

One way to unlearn those judgments is by following people across the gender spectrum on Instagram. Another way is to consume memoirs by non-binary, transgender, and gender non-conforming folx. I recommend starting with Amateur by Thomas Page McBee and Sissy by Jacob Tobia.

3. Do some deep thinking.

Better yet, grab a journal. Then, Khan suggests jotting down thoughts on questions like: What does gender mean to me? How might I describe my gender? What words resonate for me? What’s my gender presentation and how does that differ or feel aligned with my gender?

4. Focus on what brings you gender joy.

Often, says McDaniel, when people talk about how to explore your gender there’s a lot of attention on what clothing, expectation, and roles make you feel icky. How un-fun!. “But rather than focusing on all the things that make you feel bad, it can be helpful to think about what things make you feel good,” they say. (Things that make you feel good in your gender are often known as gender euphoric).

Your job: Make a list of all the articles of clothing, activities, chores, colors, hairstyles, and makeup #lewks that make you feel gender bliss. Then, lean into them and continue leaning into them.

Complete Article HERE!

Why You Shouldn’t Feel Pressure to Label Your Sexuality

Fear not: Sexuality doesn’t have to be black and white!

By

Q: Hi. I’m Sadie and I’m 15. Right now I’m really confused because I know that I’m romantically attracted to guys, but sexually attracted to girls. I just don’t know why I can’t like guys in the same way that I like girls, and I don’t even feel romantically attracted to girls. What does this mean?

A: Before we get to what all this means for your identity and relationships, let’s talk about what this stuff literally means, starting with the basics. “Sexual attraction” means feeling like you want to make out or engage in some level of sex with another person. “Romantic attraction” means feeling non-platonic emotional connection with or attachment to someone, but can also involve physical affection like cuddling. Romantic and sexual feelings don’t always go hand in hand.

As a culture, we fully accept this on an individual basis: Nobody would bat an eyelash if, say, one person loved hooking up with her classmate yet didn’t get enough romantic butterflies to actually date them. But as you’ve already noticed, this can happen with entire genders, too: One gender may inspire love, but not lust, and vice versa.

People can be homoromantic or heteroromantic, just like they can be homosexual or heterosexual. They can be sexually attracted to more than one gender (bisexual or pansexual) or romantically attracted to multiple genders (biromantic or panromantic). When people’s romantic and sexual attractions don’t match up gender-wise, it’s called romantic and sexual discordance. That sounds intimidating and long-winded, but it’s just a technical term you never have to use if you don’t want to. Discordance isn’t wildly uncommon; in a 2016 study of 414 adults, 10% of them reported having discordant sexual and romantic orientations.

“People can definitely be homosexual but heteroromantic” (which is what you describe in your letter) “although it is less common than being, say, bisexual and heteroromantic,” says Emily Lund, PhD, assistant professor of Counselor Education at the University of Alabama and one of the authors of the 2016 study. “People can also have different degrees of attraction to different genders and these can fluctuate over time.”

You describe feeling confused over your romantic and sexual attractions, and that’s perfectly fine. Lund says you shouldn’t feel like you have to commit to one identity now—or ever. “Sexual identity development is a process, especially for people who have a non-normative sexual or romantic orientation,” Lund says. “Many people go through several labels and identities to describe their sexual and/or romantic attractions before finding one that fits. And some people never find a label that quite fits.”

In other words, it’s totally OK to simply exist and date whoever strikes your romantic or sexual fancy, without an explanation. If you’re looking for models or support, it might help to seek out queer spaces for teens, particularly those that honor non-normative sexuality, like Asexuality Visibility and Education Network. (Their website has information about all kinds of identities on this spectrum.) As their founder, David Jay, told me a few months ago: A label is “not an inner truth, not a medical diagnosis. If it feels useful, use it. If it ever stops feeling useful, stop using it.”

Even if you do find an identity or term that feels right, keep in mind that at 15, your body and mind is raging with fluctuating hormones and information overload. “Fifteen-year-olds are often still developing in both their romantic and sexual attractions, so it may be that Sadie’s feelings and attractions will shift over time,” says Debby Herbenick, PhD, professor at the Indiana University School of Public Health. This is backed up by research: Psychologist Lisa M. Diamond studied 100 women over more than a decade, as they moved from adolescence into adulthood, and found that their sexual orientations often shifted according to their life stage. “This can happen with romantic feelings, too,” says Herbenick.

That’s not to discount your current attractions. After all, this may very well be who you are for the rest of your life, which is fine, too. What these experts are trying to say is that you should not feel pressure to label your sexuality yet, or ever. We as a society focus a lot on who and what people are — but our identities are ever-changing!

So let’s go back to your question: What does this mean? You may be worried about how you’ll be able to have both a sexual and romantic relationship with a single person. The comforting fact is that people work out all kinds of arrangements.

Perhaps you’ll gravitate towards open relationships or polyamory, feeling romantically close to one partner while sexually satisfied by another. Perhaps you’ll fall in love with someone whose gender you are not sexually attracted to, but still have sex with them gladly and generously. “People of all sexual orientations sometimes have sex not because they’re feeling strong desire, but because they want to help their partner feel good, and sometimes their partner does the same for them,” Herbenick says. You might also find someone whose gender matters little to you, who you’re both romantically and sexually attracted to. There are countless options.

The main thing to remember is that, no matter how your orientations develop, it’s possible to have a healthy, fulfilling romantic and sexual life. And again—I cannot stress this enough—figuring out your desires is going to be a conscious, active, lifelong process. It’s always a good idea “to explore and to check in every now and then and see how you’re feeling,” Herbenick says. “Whether you’re 15 or 55.”

Complete Article HERE!

How To Respect and Affirm Folks Who Use Multiple Sets of Pronouns

By Gabrielle Kassel

In May, Instagram launched a pronoun feature, allowing individuals to add up to four pronouns to their profile (without eating into their bio’s 150-character limit). And considering some individuals use multiple sets of pronouns—for example they/she pronouns, she/they/he, or she/he—it’s a long-awaited change that’s important for not only these folks, but for all people.

Often, people who use multiple pronouns are burdened with the obligation of educating others, fielding questions like “Why do people use multiple pronouns?” and “How do you respect someone who uses multiple pronouns?” To save these folks from the emotional labor associated with explaining—and to answer these common questions about multiple pronouns—keep reading for expert intel from Jesse Kahn, LCSW, CST, director and sex therapist at The Gender & Sexuality Therapy Center in New York City, Rae McDaniel MEd, LCPC, a licensed clinical counselor and gender and sex therapist based in Chicago, and folks who use multiple sets of pronouns themselves.

Why people use multiple sets of pronouns

“There’s a wide variety of reasons someone may use two or more sets of pronouns,” says Kahn, adding that for some, it’s a way to signal the expansiveness of their gender. Alex, a non-binary femme, says, “I use they/she because I don’t feel like my gender can be encapsulated in one word, so I feel best when my pronouns are mixed all around.” And Everett, who is bigender, says, “I use she/he because some days I feel like I fit into the ‘man’ box, and on other days I fit better into the ‘woman’ box.”

Pronouns may indicate someone’s gender, but do not always, says Kahn. That means someone can be non-binary and use he/him pronouns or be non-binary and use she/her pronouns. With this in mind, pronouns can be less related to gender identity, and more so a way to acknowledge the expansiveness or complexity of gender. Basically, don’t assume someone’s pronouns indicate their entire gender identity.

Some people might use multiple pronouns because their pronouns vary based on where they are or who they’re with, says Jesse Kahn, LCSW.

Some people might use multiple pronouns because their pronouns vary based on where they are or who they’re with, says Kahn. Tyler, for instance, uses he/him while with family and friends from childhood, but they/them with people they met after college. “Being referred to by he/him doesn’t give me gender dysphoria, so continuing to use he/him with people who have known me a long time saves me the stress of having to explain why I use they/them sometimes.” Leo, who uses she/xe also uses multiple sets of pronouns to ensure there’s no need to constantly educate others on neopronouns, which are words created to stand in place of gendered pronouns entirely. “Using xe/xem/xyr brings me gender bliss, but I only use them in community with people who are well-versed in neopronouns,” Xe says. “Otherwise I end up having to do a lot of Pronoun 101 teaching.”

Kahn lists a few other additional reasons some folks use multiple sets of pronouns: “Some people use multiple pronouns because they prefer one set of pronouns, but are okay with a another set of pronouns; some use multiple pronouns because they’re indifferent to all pronouns; and some people use multiple pronouns to try out new pronouns,” he says.

Does the order of the pronouns matter?

As with most gender, sexuality, and pronoun-related questions, there is no one-size-fits-all answer with respect to whether the ordering of multiple pronouns matters. “Sometimes the order of pronouns is important to someone, and sometimes it’s not,” says McDaniel. And, adds Kahn, some individuals use the order to indicate that they would like the first set of pronouns to be used more than the second (or third) set, while for others, the order is irrelevant.

So, given how personal preferences surrounding multiple pronoun use is, how can you proceed in a way that’s most respectful of the person in question? If you have a strong relationship with the person,“it’s best to ask if the person likes certain pronouns used in certain scenarios, contexts, or with different people, and if there’s anything they want you to know about how to use their pronouns in a way that is most affirming to them,” says Kahn.

And if you’re not super close to the person, you can still ask for guidance in a way that is respectful of their time, space, and energy. You might ask, “I’d love to use your pronouns in a way that feels best to you. Would you be willing to share with me what that is?” Or, “Do you have the bandwidth to explain to me how you want me to use your pronouns?” Both questions suggest that you understand the tedious nature of pronouns-explaining, and that you’ll respect them if they don’t currently have the time, interest, or energy to answer your Q’s.

Other ways to affirm individuals who use multiple pronouns

First things first: If you’re cisgender and haven’t already, share your pronouns everywhere (email signature, Instagram bio, Zoom avatar, dating-app profiles, etc.). Also, introduce yourself with your pronouns when meeting someone new because sharing your pronouns helps to normalize the practice for all people, including those who use multiple pronouns.

Sharing your pronouns helps to normalize the practice for all people, including those who use multiple pronouns.

Also, if you meet someone who uses multiple pronouns, Kahn says they may want you to use multiple pronouns when you refer to them. In practice, that looks like switching up or even alternating the pronouns that you use. “If you’re talking about a friend who uses he/they pronouns, for example, you might say something like, ‘I ran into Tim the other day, and they said we should come over and grill. He said there will be burgers’,” says McDaniel. “If you default to one—especially the one that is more commonly known to be within the dominant binary norm—you may be communicating how you see them and the type of effort you’re willing to put in to use someone’s correct pronouns.” While doing so may be easier for you, it may come at the expense of ensuring the other person feels fully seen and recognized.

Finally, remember that practice can help. Games like Minus 18 and Gender Wheel allow you to practice using pronouns in a fun way. Or, you can pen paragraphs about made-up people who use multiple sets of pronouns for practice. As the saying goes, pronoun practice makes pronoun perfect—and normalizing multiple pronoun use is a key step to ensuring destigmatization for all.

Complete Article HERE!