What are sex and gender anyway?

It seems like sex and gender should be simple to understand. We all have them, to some extent or another, and are aware of them more or less throughout our lives. 

However, when we stop and try to define them clearly, it seems to become a little more complicated.  

We have written this page to demonstrate the ways in which gender and sex are socially constructed, variable and fluid. You are the only person who can define your body and identity. We hope that this page can demonstrate the nuance of these categories, and show that the idea of all bodies as distinctly and understandably ‘male’, ‘female’ or fixed biologically is a false one. It might get a bit messy, but we’re excited to explore that mess together. 

Why is it so complicated? 

There are many ways people try to simplify or understand how sex and gender are related, such as:  

  • “Gender is what is in our heads, sex is what is between our legs” 

  • A sliding scale or spectrum between male and female, masculine and feminine, and other attributes 

  • Representing them as planets or other objects such as gingerbread shaped people, unicorns, hippos and more 

This also presents each of these attributes as part of a binary that we all exist on, rather than recognising the many ways that people of all genders exist within or beyond societal binaries. 

While many of these methods in some part capture the differences between these concepts, rarely do they capture the similarities between sex and gender, or where the two cross over or align. The perception that these are single and immutable things is the result of cisgenderism. 

What is cisgenderism?

Our society, our laws, our cultures, our sciences, and language are typically shaped and dominated by cisgenderism. This is the notion that there is a gender and sexual binary, and that only those identities and behaviours that align with cisgender identities are valid and valued, and those that diverge, such as trans people affirming their gender or cis people acting outside typical binary norms, are erased, denigrated and discriminated against. The notion that there is a binary sex, i.e. there are only males and females, and binary gender, i.e. there are only women and men, is the root of cisgenderism. Binary sex is so ingrained that the bodies of people with intersex variations are seen as sometimes in need of correction, rather than the celebration that is deserved. 

It also doesn’t help that these terms can hold different meanings to different people or groups, or in different settings like in healthcare, data collection or legislation. This is part of the problem with simplifying complex ideas, because if we use the term sex as a shorthand, we may have an entirely different understanding of what that means compared to someone else.  

Where do these terms come from? 

The term sex has been around for a long time as a way of describing our identity, our body, and sexual acts. Medical conceptions of a sex binary are rooted in patriarchal notions of superiority of male physicians over female patients. In the West, this can be traced back to physicians in Ancient Greece, such as Hippocrates the “father of medicine,” who believed that the bodies of men and women were in opposition of one another, with bodies without penises being seen as ‘cold,’ ‘wet,’ and ‘incomplete’ or an ‘inversion’ of ‘normal,’ ‘hot,’ ‘dry’ male bodies.1 

Linnaeus, who used the astronomical symbols of Mars (♂) and Venus (♀)2 to represent the concepts of male and female respectively, categorised animals and plants based on his perceptions of sex, characterising different plant species as “eunuchs,” or “brides,” in “marriages” with “male” plants.3

This mirroring of human sexuality has been repeated throughout history, including by Darwin, whose attitudes on sex influenced his conception of sexual selection, believing that competition for mates meant that men had larger brains than women, whose skulls were “between the child and the man.”4

These beliefs about sex have continued throughout science history and contributed to a lack in reporting of non-heterosexual behaviour or the many examples of sexual diversity in animals. It seems that rather than concepts of sex being informed by scientific observation, social attitudes about gender were used to inform scientific understandings about sex. 

This lack of recognition of sexual diversity was also repeated by European colonial powers that attempted to erase Indigenous identities that did not conform to the binary. People living beyond the gender presumed for them at birth have been represented in Indigenous cultures since time began.  

Sistergirls and Brotherboys throughout Indigenous cultures in Australia are just one example of genders that exist outside the Western cisgenderist binary (you can learn more about them here). Other examples include two-spirit peoples throughout North American Indigenous cultures, Hijira in South Asia, Kathoey in Thailand, and many more across the world and throughout history. While colonialism imposed binary gender roles across much of the world, it is important to recognise that Indigenous cultures resisted and survived this imposition, as did European trans people for hundreds of years.  

You can read more about the history of trans people in our "Is being trans a new thing?" page or in the Trans Culture Gallery.

The term gender has been in English since the early 15th century, but was only used to define social behaviours and norms from the 1950s, particularly in relation to the role of (cis heterosexual) women. At the time, the word sex was used to talk about both people’s bodies and roles, and a term that allowed for a distinction was seen as useful. This was then adopted more widely during the second wave of feminism of the 1970s, as it allowed a more nuanced conversation around gender roles and sexism.5

Today, these terms are still controversial, they have different and often imprecise meanings depending on context, they can be used interchangeably by some groups, or are considered very much separate and distinct by others. So, where does that leave us?  

The problem with defining sex and gender 

While on the surface, the differences between sex and gender seems easy and obvious right? But as soon as we dive into these terms in more detail, we see it’s far more complicated and messy.  

The meanings of the term gender might vary slightly, but generally are discussing what we could refer to as our identity. 

Gender

  • Who you know yourself to be. This may be called gender identity, or simply gender. (e.g. Man/woman/non-binary/male/female),
  • A role or set of roles a person has or is expected to perform in their society or culture. (e.g. mother, father, sibling, parent, spouse, wife, husband), 
  • The way a person expresses their gender to themselves or to others. (e.g. through masculinity, femininity and/or androgyny, wearing hair longer or shorter, facial hair, the clothes you choose, the pronouns you have), 
  • How their identity relates to what was presumed at birth. (e.g. cis if they have the same gender as presumed at birth, trans if it is different). 

The many different meanings of sex can present more of an issue, perhaps because sex is seen as the good twin, coming from the school of science rather than the humanities, but as we’ve already learned, it's not actually a precise or clear cut concept, and can mean any or all of the below: 

Sex

  • Any of the definitions for gender as noted above;

AND

  • A legal marker
    • This is a legal identifier that is first used on a person’s birth certificate, and then on various ID throughout their life (e.g. M/F/X on a passport or birth certificate),
    • We cannot tell what someone’s legal marker is from looking at them,
    • A legal marker can be changed, based on specific criteria that differs in each state and territory;

AND

  • Visible (or external) sex characteristics
    • These may be genitals (which are used to categorise one’s legal sex at birth), things like breast tissue, body or facial hair, although there isn’t a point at which body or facial hair ‘becomes’ male or female,
    • Despite the name, a person’s ‘visible sex characteristics’ are generally not visible to others, and we cannot assume to know what someone’s, or even our own, sex characteristics may be,
    • All of these can be changed. Some things, like body or facial hair are changed or removed regularly by many people, cis and trans. Other things like breasts/chest tissue or genitals can and are changed by trans people as part of medically necessary gender affirmation, or by cis people primarily for health reasons but also aesthetics,
    • These characteristics, such as facial hair, don’t determine someone’s sex, but they might still be affirming for a trans person;

AND

  • Invisible (or internal) sex characteristics
    • These include any physical characteristics we cannot know from looking at someone naked, and in fact this requires testing or medical examination to know,
    • This includes: someone’s hormonal profile, their chromosomes, and their internal reproductive and sexual organs,
    • Invisible characteristics like a hormonal profile or internal organs are changed by both trans and cis people for a range of reasons, including gender affirmation, contraception, due to illness or injury, and more,
    • Chromosomes, while unable to be changed, are not known by most people, and are not used to meaningfully categorise humans, they are one part of a much larger story about how a body functions;

AND

  • Roles involved in reproduction 
    • In humans, this is broken down into two categories based on the production of sperm and of eggs,
    • While it is common for humans to produce either eggs or sperm, many people do not produce either. Sometimes this is the case from birth, sometimes because of an accident or illness, sometimes because of affirming changes to one’s body ie. Gender affirmation surgery, and sometimes because of age, eg. after menopause,
    • Many people who are able to reproduce also choose not to,
    • In other species there may be one, two, or more reproductive roles; 
AND

  • Sexual activity i.e. Having sex. 

You can start to see why relying on any one of these definitions can cause issues – these little words are doing a lot of heavy lifting, often pulling in very different directions at the same time. 

Assumptions about sex can lead to poorer health outcomes, for both trans and cis people, with all sorts of bodies and needs. It also perpetuates tired and disproved tropes about who is and isn’t normal, which has very real and harmful consequences for our intersex friends and can really harm us all.

In health and medical settings, relying on the idea that collecting information about ‘sex’ is meaningful without a conversation or inventory of actual anatomy (when relevant) also perpetuates the notion that bodies are set in stone from birth and can be easily defined as either one or two types of people, that we know just isn’t true.  

Colonialism and binary gender, sex, and beauty standards 

“People repressed thousands of years of history to justify these newly introduced rules of gender, and everyone feels the aftermath. These rules explicitly favor the white body at the expense of everyone else.” - Kravitz M., An Injustice Magazine 5 

Not only are binaries of sex and gender not a particularly useful way to categorise ourselves or each other, they're an example of colonialism’s effects today. As Europe set out and invaded much of the rest of the world, they enforced their conviction of not only the biological superiority of their gender, but also of their race. 

In the mid-1800s, western European white people “used their physical gender standards and proposed sex differences to “prove” their superiority to Africans via scientific racism," which also saw the white science community state that “only white people could achieve binary sex differentiation,”4 and that people of colour could not, as another marker of racial inferiority. 

Even today, these two beliefs are inseparable and still at work, from colonial beauty standards (that is thin, white, cisgender and able bodied) being used by transphobic groups to restrict access to (white) womanhood, to the policing of bodies that exist outside of the arbitrary archetypes of who should use what bathroom, or play in sporting arenas, and more. 

By talking about ‘sex’ as if it is one homogenous thing, rather than a range of concepts with differing meanings, trans people (and a lot of cis people) can slip through the gaps. The less precise a term is for defining us, the less useful it is.  

Instead of asking ‘what’s the difference between sex and gender?’ and therefore ‘what is this person’s sex and gender?’, a better question is ‘what do I need to know about this person?’ - it’s a far easier question, and gives us much more information. For example, a hairdresser does not need to know the sex of their clients, but instead needs to know what their pronouns are and what they want their hair to look like. And similarly, while a doctor might think they need to know sex in addition to gender, it could be more direct and affirming to instead ask specific questions with an explanation of why, so instead of “Are you female or male?” they could say “I am concerned about your cancer screening, do you have a cervix or prostate?” 

I’ve only been on hormones for like 6 months but my testosterone level is already way lower than my partner, who’s a butch cis woman. Sometimes when we go out people will “sir” her which we both find pretty funny, but I never get that anymore. Once we both went into a bathroom at the shops and she was harassed about being in the wrong loo, and I had to step in to defend her. Chances are I have a Y chromosome (not that I’ve ever checked), but it just doesn’t mean anything – everyone knows I’m a woman. 

The first thing I did when I came out was to change the gender marker on my passport to M, it felt so good. Not long after that my beard grew in and I’ve never felt better in my body. I’ve recently been trying to get pregnant, and it’s amazing that some doctors are dead set on saying my sex is female based on a birth certificate that they’ve not seen – even the ones that 5 minutes before told me I must be in the wrong clinic because it’s for women. There’s nothing female about me!

When I tell people I’m non-binary, they’re determined to find out what genitals I have, it would honestly be funny if it wasn’t so weird, but also it’s clear they can’t tell what I was presumed to be at birth by looking at me, and I love that. I changed the gender marker on my ID to X a while ago which has been really affirming, but the assumptions that cis people make about me as a result have ranged from ridiculous to actually harmful. Whenever a form asks me just for “sex”, I always write “yes please!” - it’s a bad joke, but hopefully it means they’ll get annoyed enough to fix it.

What does this mean for my own identity? 

Whatever you want. 

As long as we are not limiting or restricting the ways that others can refer to themselves, there’s no limit to our own freedom to describe ourselves, our bodies and lives. 

So how do I ask about sex? 

For most people 

You really don’t need to. 

There is no reason to ask about sex if you are not providing a relevant health service or collecting demographic data. If there is specific information that might be helpful to know, consider using open questions in person, rather than on paperwork. 

For doctors and health services 

You can use the ABS Standard6 for collecting information (see below), but it is also important to consider if you need to ask about sex. For some services, the information gathered by using the two-step question to collect what was recorded at birth may not be helpful or needed at all. 

It is essential if you ask the sex recorded at birth for someone to also collect gender, and to refer to someone by their gender and their pronouns. Referring to someone by the sex recorded for them at birth can be an uncomfortable or even traumatic and harmful experience for trans patients. 

If you do need to collect this information for diagnostic purposes, it is important to not assume experiences, body parts, or other characteristics based on that information. Asking and noting what parts someone has is more than sufficient and helpful for cis and trans people.  

Parts and practices 

The parts and practices model comes out of sexual health testing, and focuses on the body parts a person has and what they’re doing with them, rather than making assumptions based on their gender, sexuality, or other language they use. Read more about this in sexual health settings here. 

  • “This medication can sometimes mess with people’s periods. Do you or have you menstruated in the past?” 
  • “This test can be done via a urine sample or an internal genital swab. Do you have a preference?” 
  • “Is there a risk of pregnancy for any of the sex that you’re having?” 

We have put together a Clinical Language Guide to how to ask these questions, and a sheet that you can download and fill out with the terms you prefer to use for you body as needed, available here. 

For researchers and data analysts

If your demographic questions ask about gender, you should use the ABS Standard6 for collecting information. This uses the two-step process to ask about gender and the sex recorded at birth. 

It is important to collect both so that trans people can be counted and understood in research contexts. Trans people exist in all communities around the country, and assuming your research participants are cis leads to poor data collection, a limited understanding about the trans experience and reduced services for trans people. 

 

ACON’s adaptation of the ABS demographic questions.

 

When reporting on results, it is important to follow the lead of trans researchers in how this demographic information is used and reported, the ideal is to invite trans investigators to be part of any project that focuses on the trans experience. You can read more about how to be a good ally and researcher on our Researchers page.