SEXUALITY GENDER &

If you think gender and sexuality are one and the same, you’d be wrong. Check out our guide

The concepts gender and sex are often used interchangeably but actually mean very different things. Sex refers to anatomy – you are determined male or female at birth according to your genitals. There is also a group of people that cannot be easily identified in this way and these people are referred to as intersex. By contrast, gender is how people identify themselves – how they feel, think, speak and dress. This can be different to the sex they were identified as at birth.

It can be difficult to be put in the wrong gender because there are societal expectations for male and females to behave, dress and think in certain ways. Men are often expected to be ‘masculine’ and women are expected to be ‘feminine’, however, there is no real reason for this. Women can be masculine if they want, and men can be feminine. People can be an even mix of the two, or something completely different. The important thing is being respectful of other people’s identity.