When We Talk About Sex and Gender Flashcards
Sex
Refers to anatomical, physiological, genetic, or physical attributes that define if a person is male, female, or intersex. These include both primary and secondary sex characteristics, including genitalia, gonads, hormone levels, hormone receptors, chromosomes, and genes. Sex is often conflated or interchanged with gender, which is more social than biological, though there is some overlap.
Benson, Tiffany. LibGuides: 2SLGBTQIA+ Community Resources: Home. https://libraries.utulsa.edu/c.php?g=1206932&p=8827356. Accessed 23 Mar. 2024.
Sex assigned at birth
The sex (male or female) given to a child at birth, most often based on the child’s external anatomy. This is also referred to as “assigned sex at birth.”You might see/hear “AFAB” – “Assigned Feminine at Birth” or “AMAB” “Assigned Male at Birth” as shorthand.
Benson, Tiffany. LibGuides: 2SLGBTQIA+ Community Resources: Home. https://libraries.utulsa.edu/c.php?g=1206932&p=8827356. Accessed 23 Mar. 2024.
Sexual orientation
Emotional, romantic, or sexual feelings toward other people. While sexual behavior involves the choices, one makes in acting on one’s sexual orientation, sexual orientation is part of the human condition, one’s sexual activity does not define one’s sexual orientation; typically, it is the attraction that helps determine orientation.
Benson, Tiffany. LibGuides: 2SLGBTQIA+ Community Resources: Home. https://libraries.utulsa.edu/c.php?g=1206932&p=8827356. Accessed 23 Mar. 2024.
Gender
A set of social, psychological, and/or emotional traits, often influenced by societal expectations, that classify an individual as man, woman, a mixture of both, or neither.
Benson, Tiffany. LibGuides: 2SLGBTQIA+ Community Resources: Home. https://libraries.utulsa.edu/c.php?g=1206932&p=8827356. Accessed 23 Mar. 2024.
Gender binary
The concept that there are only two genders, man and woman, and that everyone must be one or the other. Also implies the assumption that gender is biologically determined.
Benson, Tiffany. LibGuides: 2SLGBTQIA+ Community Resources: Home. https://libraries.utulsa.edu/c.php?g=1206932&p=8827356. Accessed 23 Mar. 2024.
Gender expression
External appearance of one’s gender identity, usually expressed through behavior, clothing, haircut or voice, and which may or may not conform to socially defined behaviors and characteristics typically associated with being either masculine or feminine.
Benson, Tiffany. LibGuides: 2SLGBTQIA+ Community Resources: Home. https://libraries.utulsa.edu/c.php?g=1206932&p=8827356. Accessed 23 Mar. 2024.
Gender identity
One’s innermost concept of self as male, female, a blend of both or neither – how individuals perceive themselves and what they call themselves. One’s gender identity can be the same or different from their sex assigned at birth.
Benson, Tiffany. LibGuides: 2SLGBTQIA+ Community Resources: Home. https://libraries.utulsa.edu/c.php?g=1206932&p=8827356. Accessed 23 Mar. 2024.
Gender socialization
The process by which individual on is taught how they should behave as a boy or as a girl. Parents, teachers, peers, media, and books are some of the many agents of gender socialization.
Benson, Tiffany. LibGuides: 2SLGBTQIA+ Community Resources: Home. https://libraries.utulsa.edu/c.php?g=1206932&p=8827356. Accessed 23 Mar. 2024.
2SLGBTQIA+
This acronym stands for: Two-Spirit, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, Queer (or Questioning), Intersex, Asexual. The plus sign (+) represents all the different, new and growing ways that people might identify with, as well as the ways that we continually expand our understanding of sexual and gender diversity.
See “Equity and Inclusion Glossary of Terms.” UBC Equity & Inclusion Office, https://equity.ubc.ca/resources/equity-inclusion-glossary-of-terms/.
Diversity
Differences in the social identities and lived experiences and perspectives of people that may include race, ethnicity, colour, ancestry, place of origin, political belief, religion, marital status, family status, physical disability, mental disability, sex, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, class, and/or socio-economic situations
See “Equity and Inclusion Glossary of Terms.” UBC Equity & Inclusion Office, https://equity.ubc.ca/resources/equity-inclusion-glossary-of-terms/.
Intersectionality
The interconnected nature of social categorizations such as race, class, disability, sexual orientation, and gender identity as they apply to a given individual or group. Intersectional identities create overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage.
See “Equity and Inclusion Glossary of Terms.” UBC Equity & Inclusion Office, https://equity.ubc.ca/resources/equity-inclusion-glossary-of-terms/.
Two Spirit (2S)
Two-Spirit is a cultural concept specific to some Indigenous communities and its meaning encompasses cultural, spiritual, sexual and gender identity. It reflects complex Indigenous understandings of gender roles, spirituality, and the long history of sexual and gender diversity in Indigenous cultures, and as such should only be used by Indigenous people.
See “Equity and Inclusion Glossary of Terms.” UBC Equity & Inclusion Office, https://equity.ubc.ca/resources/equity-inclusion-glossary-of-terms/.
