Transgender: A word to describe someone whose actual gender is not the gender they were assigned at birth. Often shortened to trans. Note: Not everyone whose experience fits this definition identifies as trans, and that’s perfectly okay.
Cisgender: A word to describe someone whose gender is the same as the gender they were assigned at birth. Often shortened to cis.
Bigender: A nonbinary gender meaning having two genders. Note: You can identify as two genders at the same time. You can go back and forth between two genders. Perhaps you have one stagnant gender and one that shifts. There is no “right” way to be bigender.
Trigender: A nonbinary gender meaning having three genders. Note: Just like bigender, you can identify as multiple, in this
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Pangender: A nonbinary gender meaning having a wide multiplicity of genders that can sometimes go beyond society’s current understanding of gender. Sometimes called omnigender.
Genderfluid: A word to describe someone whose gender moves between two or more genders, and/or who has different genders at different times.
Multigender: An umbrella term to describe people who have more than one gender identity, either at the same time, or sometimes changing between them. This can encompass bigender, trigender, polygender, pangender, and genderfluid. Note: Multigender people can only identify as genders of their own culture, and cannot appropriate any closed genders from a group that they are not a part of. The multigender experience can be simultaneous or gradual.
Nonbinary/Non-binary: An umbrella term to describe any gender that is not strictly 100% girl or strictly 100% boy. Sometimes abbreviated nb or enby.
Genderflux: A word to describe someone whose gender ranges in intensity and presence, or to describe the fluctuation itself. As an example, a multigender person may experience genderflux, but not identify as
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Note: This differs from “demifluid” as “-flux” indicates that one the changing gender ranges in intensity; an example could be: one part of their gender is “genderqueer” while the part that fluctuates ranges from “agender” to “woman”.
Aporagender: A nonbinary gender and umbrella term for "a gender separate from male, female, and anything in between while still having a very strong and specific gendered feeling". Note: This is not the absence of gender (agender).
Closed genders: Genders that are only available to specific groups of people, such as two-spirit/two spirit for first nation’s people, intergender for intersex people, third gender and anti-binary for people of certain races whose cultures did not have “traditional” binary genders, and hijra for South Asian people.
Maverique: Characterized by autonomy and inner conviction regarding a sense of gender which is unorthodox, unconventional and entirely independent of conventional concepts of gender. Similar to gendermaverick.
Gendermaverick: Nontraditional gender where the meaning is self-determined; a gender that intends to mess with society’s notion of a binary gender. Similar to
For instance, sociologists would argue that characteristics of the male gender in a given society include independence, and dominance whereas females express more passive behavior. Gender identity, on the other hand is an individual’s sense of their gender or in other words, their sense as to whether they are feminine or masculine. Therefore, transgender is a term related to “people whose gender identity is different from the gender commonly socially assigned to them on the basis of their biological sex” (Morrow & Messinger, 2006, p. 7).“Biological theories assume that gender should be consistent with biological sex and there are only two genders and two sexes” which does not correspond to transgender people. Furthermore, transgender is also used as a general term to include people such as transsexuals and cross-dressers
Gender fluidity is what’s known as a gender identity. According to Dictionary.com, the word refers “to a person whose gender identity or gender expression is not fixed and shifts over time or depending on the situation.” Gender fluidity is an identity that exsists outside the conventional gender binary of man and woman or male and female. While, gender and gender identity are, admittedly, very complicated concepts, society is actively trying to figure out and define them. While the notion of Hedwig status as a gender fluid
The clusters of social definitions used to identify persons by gender are collectively known as “femininity” and “masculinity.” Masculine characteristics are used to identify persons as males, while feminine ones are used as signifiers for femaleness. People use femininity or masculinity to claim and communicate their membership in their assigned, or chosen, sex or gender. Others recognize our sex or gender more on the basis of these characteristics than on the basis of sex characteristics, which are usually largely covered by clothing in daily life.
Around the world, gender is genuinely seen as strictly male or female. If you step out of this “social norm,” you could be considered an outcast. This disassociation includes, biological males/females, intersexed, and transgendered individuals. These people are severely suppressed by society because their gender identification, behaviors, and even their activities deviate from the norm. Most Americans are exceedingly devoted to the concept that there are only two sexes.
The concept that gender is limited strictly to two categories, male and female, has been around since the beginning of mankind. The notion, also known as gender binarism, states that “human beings are by nature either male or female” (Shalko). In past societies, people have followed this idea of only two genders; however, in more recent years, people have uncovered a whole new variety of gender identities. This concept is called gender fluidity; it is the idea that gender has no boundaries that prevent people from expressing who they really are. In today’s world, gender is a touchy subject to speak or write about. Many people are unaccepting of the idea that there are more than two genders. It goes against everything they have ever learned.
Cisgender, for example, is the word that describes when your gender identity aligns with your sex. It is the reverse of transgender. Most people identify as cisgender or 'cis' without even recognizing it, but it is a gender identity, too.
Imagining if I transformed into the opposite sex for a week, my experiences of truth and reality would be quite different, yet strikingly similar to my life as a woman. Although my peers would accept me the same and know nothing altered, my mindset would have done a complete 180 degree flip. Although it is the expectation that humans identify with a single gender, multitudes of modern Americans refuse to succumb to this idea and prefer to identify with a sense gender fluidity. “The term "gender identity” . . . refers to a person's innate, deeply felt psychological identification as a man, woman or some other gender, which may or may not correspond to the sex assigned to them at birth” (par. 2). Some refuse to accept that gender is as one may say black or white, male or female. However, if I transfigured into a man, I would need to adjust my sense of reality in regards to the new expectations that come with the given gender.
However, an umbrella term, or a word that covers more than one specific topic, such as transgender, does not only describe people who identify as the opposite sex; it also describes people who identify with both male and female genders, people who identify as genderless, or people who fluctuate between two or more genders. Many transgender people often refer to themselves simply as “trans.” Transgender does not define one’s sexual orientation, however; gender is considered a social construct while sexuality is not.
Imagine going through life believing that you were born into the wrong body. This is how a transgender feels as they go through life. A transgender is a person who whose self-identity does not conform unambiguously to male or female sex. This topic is very controversial due to many arguments about the differences between the male and female physique. The natural biological differences between males and a females play a huge role in this controversy.
The word gender refers to a general classification of human beings into male and female with socially and culturally constructed characteristics, behaviors, attributes and roles preconceived and labelled as appropriate for each class. The society and culture today have placed human beings in a box which to a large extent dictates how we act in the world.
For example, in many cultures people who are attracted to people of the same sex, that is, those who identify as gay, lesbian or bisexual are classed as a third gender along with those who would be classified as transgender. In the most western cultures there are different groups of transgender and transsexual people, such as groups for transsexual people who want sex reassignment surgery, heterosexual-only cross-dressers and Trans men's groups. Groups encompassing all transgender people, both trans men and trans women, have appeared in recent
Clinically speaking, a person who was assigned female at birth but identifies and lives as a man is referred to as a transsexual man, or transman, or female-to-male (FTM); a male-to-female (MTF) person is a transsexual woman or transwoman (Glicksman). Some people drop the transgender label after they have transitioned to their new gender. However, they want to be referred to only as a man or a woman. But what if our gender identity, our sense of being a boy or being a girl, does not match our physical body? From a very early age we will start to feel increasingly uncomfortable. For some this is a mild discomfort, for others it is so traumatic they would rather die than continue to live in the wrong body. Unfortunately as transsexual people are a small minority of the population the condition has been labeled by Psychiatrists as "Gender Identity Disorder". With the transgendered, the disordered assumption is that the
Transgender identified people are those who identifies with another gender from which they were given to at birth. For example, a female sex assigned girl or woman transition man, or a male sex assigned boy or man to a woman. Transsexual identified people are those that identify with a sex different than assigned. For example a female sex assigned person who identifies as male and vice versa. In some other cultures, such as the Native American culture give the freedom for transgender identified people to be able to live as they identify. Today the western ideology shut out and out casts trans people. Europeans have always out casted trans people. Beemyn (2014:504) states “The Europeans nations that colonized what is today the United States rejected and often punished perceived instances of gender nonconformity. But many Native American cultures at the time of European conquest welcomed and had recognized roles for individuals who assumed behaviors and identities different from those of the gender assigned to them
For example, someone who is gender fluid is described to "feel like a mix of the two traditional genders, but may feel more man some days, and more woman other days." Killerman. It is very difficult for people who do not "pass" as a specific gender to use the restroom in public. This is not an issue solely felt by transgender people. People who don't identify as the gender they were assigned at birth can face many kinds of discrimination and harassment.
Some examples of terms that are used by the LGBT community are ‘coming out’, which means the process of acknowledging homosexual orientation to oneself and then unveiling it to others. A ‘crossdresser’ is someone who dresses up in clothes associated with the opposite gender for their own pleasure. ‘Ally’ is a term used by the LGBT community for a non-LGBT participant who supports and respects sexual and gender diversity and is willing to further understand these forms of bias. Last but not least, ‘third gender’ is a category for those who do not self-identify with any gender and believe that they belong to an alternative gender.