Sex and Gender
There is difference between sex and gender, and this is a huge issue as so many, even experts in the field, conflate the two terms.
Sex is biology. Gender is applied biology. Some of gender is learned, sex is not.
Sex is not dichotomous. There are individuals with Turner’s Syndrome who have only one X chromosome, usually written as XO. There are individuals with female trisomy whose chromosomes are generally written as XXX. Then there are males with Klinefelter Syndrome who have an extra X and their pattern is written as XXY, while there are males with an extra Y chromosome, so their pattern is written as XYY. We may not know what our sex is as some non-standard expressions of sex chromosomes are not easy to identify.
We know what our gender is because that is how we feel. It is the combination of sex and how we feel that makes it very difficult to figure out why some of us feel certain about our gender, and some find themselves feeling like they are a bit of both.
By Marcia Banks - Researcher and contributor for Anglophone publications for LePôle