![]() ![]() Gender and sexuality are not just personal identities they are social identities. They arise from our relationships to other people, and they depend upon social interaction and social recognition. Regardless of sexual experience, sexual desire and behaviours can change over time, and sexual identities may or may not shift as a result. Some asexual people might still form romantic relationships without sexual contact. Asexuality is a term used when individuals do not feel sexual attraction. People can identify along a wide spectrum of sexualities from heterosexual, to gay or lesbian, to bisexual, to queer, and so on. Just as sex and gender don’t always align, neither does gender and sexuality. Sexuality is different again it is about sexual attraction, sexual practices and identity. ![]() The third gender is often used by social scientists to describe cultures that accept non-binary gender positions (see the Two Spirit people below). People can also be gender queer, by either drawing on several gender positions or otherwise not identifying with any specific gender (nonbinary) or they may move across genders (gender fluid) or they may reject gender categories altogether (agender). Transgender and intersexual people have varied sexual practices, attractions and identities as do cis-gender people. Transgender and intersexuality are gender categories, not sexualities. Intersexuality describes variations on sex definitions related to ambiguous genitalia, gonads, sex organs, chromosomes or hormones. Transgender people may undergo hormone therapy to facilitate this process, but not all transgender people will undertake surgery. Transgender people will undergo a gender transition that may involve changing their dress and self-presentation (such as a name change). This experience is distinct from being transgender, which is where one’s biological sex does not align with their gender identity. Cis-gender describes people whose biological body they were born into matches their personal gender identity. We pay special focus on the power relationships that follow from the established gender order in a given society, as well as how this changes over time. ![]() We examine how this, in turn, influences identity and social practices. The sociology of gender examines how society influences our understandings and perception of differences between masculinity (what society deems appropriate behaviour for a “man”) and femininity (what society deems appropriate behaviour for a “woman”). Gender is also determined by what an individual feels and does. Gender involves social norms, attitudes and activities that society deems more appropriate for one sex over another. More specifically, it is a concept that describes how societies determine and manage sex categories the cultural meanings attached to men and women’s roles and how individuals understand their identities including, but not limited to, being a man, woman, transgender, intersex, gender queer and other gender positions. Gender is more fluid – it may or may not depend upon biological traits. When people talk about the differences between men and women they are often drawing on sex – on rigid ideas of biology – rather than gender, which is an understanding of how society shapes our understanding of those biological categories. Sex are the biological traits that societies use to assign people into the category of either male or female, whether it be through a focus on chromosomes, genitalia or some other physical ascription. In sociology, we make a distinction between sex and gender. The examples I cover are focused on experiences of otherness. This page is a resource explaining general sociological concepts of sex and gender. ![]()
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