June is LGBT Pride Month. June was chosen for Pride Month to commemorate the Stonewall riots, which occurred at the end of June 1969 in New York City. Today, LGBT students are bullied at a rate of nearly four times that of other students and there are far too many stories of children and youth who take their lives after having been targeted because of their real or presumed sexual orientation or gender expression.
Despite these harrowing statistics, gender awareness seems to be at an all-time high and a recent poll of millenials showed that young people are increasingly more likely to think of gender existing along a flexible and fluctuating continuum. School districts are developing policies to support transgender and gender variant youth. This can be challenging and confusing to those of us who grew up believing that gender and sex had to be either/or.
The following explanation is offered as a way of rethinking the either/or paradigm. It will be helpful to first recognize that the following four elements of sexuality and gender exist independently of each other and on a continuum. This will make more sense in a moment. Let’s start by taking a closer look at each element:
Gender Identity: This refers to how we think about ourselves. On one end of the spectrum is ‘woman’ and the other ‘man’. The space in-between represents self-identities that may fall outside of societal definitions of either.
Gender Expression: This refers to how we express our identities. “Feminine” and “Masculine” make up the poles of this axis. Gender expression changes daily for most of us and encompasses the clothing, hairstyles, make up, way we walk or sit, etc. that we put on in the moment.
Biological Sex: The objectively measured hormones, organs and chromosomes that make up your body are referred to as your biological sex and yes, these exist on a continuum of male to female as well. “Intersex” refers to any combination of these things and is much more common than typically portrayed. According to the Intersex Society of North America, 1 in 100 people differ from standard male or female bodies at birth.
Sexual Orientation: Who you are physically, spiritually and emotionally attracted to. At one end of the continuum is heterosexual, or, attracted to someone of the opposite biological sex and at the other end, homosexuality or same sex attraction. Dr. Alfred Kinsey’s research in the mid 20th century found that most people are not absolutely at one end or the other of this continuum and created a 7 point scale that encompassed fantasies, dreams, thoughts and emotional investments as well as physical attraction.
These four elements interact with one another but are not interdependent – meaning that one’s identity doesn’t determine one’s orientation any more than one’s sex determines one’s expression.
Understanding the evolving definitions of gender and sex can help us create and support a climate that is welcoming to all students and families and hopefully help us address youth depression and suicide.