What is the difference between sex and gender identity?

It’s common for people to confuse sex, gender, and gender identity. But they’re actually all different things. Sex is a label — male or female — that you’re assigned by a doctor at birth based on the genitals you’re born with and the chromosomes you have. It goes on your birth certificate.

Is gender a biological or a social concept?

If sex is a biological concept, then gender is a social concept. It refers to the social and cultural differences a society assigns to people based on their (biological) sex.

Is there more to being male or female than the sex?

There’s a lot more to being male, female, or any gender than the sex assigned at birth. Your biological or assigned sex does not always tell your complete story. What are the differences between sex, gender, and gender identity? It’s common for people to confuse sex, gender, and gender identity. But they’re actually all different things.

What is gender and why does it matter?

As the World Health Organization (WHO) explains: “Gender refers to the socially constructed characteristics of women and men, such as norms, roles, and relationships of and between groups of women and men. It varies from society to society and can be changed.” Gender roles in some societies are more rigid than in others.

Sex assigned at birth is about what someone observes about another person’s body, not how that person may feel internally about being male, female or another gender. Gender identity is the feeling someone has inside about being male, female or something in between. Everyone has a gender identity.

Does your child’s gender identity match what they look like?

That’s because there is more to a child’s sex and identity than first meets the eye. This is especially true for a small percentage of individuals. In them, gender identity and what they look like won’t truly match. From an early age, these might even collide.

Can doctors tell gender identity without knowing it?

“Doctors can’t tell the gender identity of anyone other than by asking. There is no objective test,” says Joshua D. Safer, MD, FACE, executive director of the Mount Sinai Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery in New York. “A substantial portion of gender identity is biologically ‘hard-wired’ and present at birth.

When does gender identity become fixed?

For most people, gender identity becomes fixed in childhood and doesn’t develop in puberty and adulthood, although gender expression and/or gender roles may change and evolve, Nichols says.