Gender

**Gender** is a word that is used to talk about how people express masculine (traits most people think of as male) or feminine (traits most people think of as female) traits. 

## Definitions and history
"Gender" comes from the Latin word genus which meant "kind" or "type". In the few hundred years before the 1950s, the term 'gender' was used only in the field of grammar. In 1955, a scientist began to use the word *gender* in new ways when referring to people, in a way that was related to their 'sex' but not quite the same. The term was not applied to other animals. They continued to have different “sexes”.

### Grammar
Before the 1950s, the term 'gender' was used only in the field of grammar, and only to distinguish a category of words that are called 'feminine nouns' from other words that are 'masculine nouns'. Early Indo-European languages~had three genders. Languages that come from Latin like Spanish, French, and Italian have lost one, and their nouns are either feminine or masculine in gender. For example, in Spanish, 'house' (*casa*) is feminine, and 'day' (*día*) is masculine. Some languages still have three genders, like German. Outside of their grammatical category, the word 'gender' was not used to refer to people. At that time, when one spoke about someone being either 'male' or 'female', the word used was *sex*.

#### Pronouns 
Merriam Webster officially recognized the pronoun "they" as a singular use pronoun in 2019.  According to the dictionary, the word had actually been used as a non-gender binary pronoun since the 1300s.  Around the time Merriam Webster made this announcement, artist Sam Smith announced that their correct pronouns were actually they/them.  Typically, for those who identify as female, the correct pronouns are she/her, and for males, he/him.

### The difference between sex and gender 
Many people use the terms "sex " and "gender" interchangeably. Some people now assign them two different meanings. They use the term "sex" to refer to the biological assignment of an individual, which is often based on scientific knowledge. This biological determination is often made at birth.  Doctors often assign sex by looking at pre-natal images or directly inspecting genitalia at birth. This determination is still based on our beliefs on gender and sex being the same. Although an individual's gender identity is determined by psychology, a gender identity can be constructed by wearing particular clothing, language, actions and such, that are associated with that gender in a given society. Psychologist and feminist anthropologist Anne Fausto-Sterling calls this embodiment. An example of this would be how some people believe feminine or female people should cook and clean rather than play sports. These roles change over time and differ based on different cultures, but are often ideas that are created by people rather than coming from nature.

## Gender identity development 
The term identity means the mental image someone has of themselves as well as some kind of similarity with others in some particular way.  Gender identity refers to the experiences someone has that are similar to a person of a particular gender.  This gender identity affects how a person views themself as well as how they interact with others. Examples of this are women who are not allowed access to education or jobs or men who are expected to not be emotional or soft. Strict binary gender roles are also often tied to reasons for oppression of sexualities outside of the majority. Societies often enforce gender binaries due to concepts like tradition and the idea that their stability relies on keeping this binary in place.

### The LGBTQ+ community 
The term LGBTQ is constantly evolving and adding terms to the acronym as knowledge of the community becomes more widely known.  As of 2020, the acronym has expanded to LGBTQQIAAP, which stands for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Queer, Questioning, Intersex, Asexual, Ally, and Pansexual. The community is, however, mostly referred to as the LGBTQ+ community.

#### Intersex 
Intersex is the word used to describe the condition where a person has genitals that are not clearly male or female.

### Gender spectrum 
Although many societies still exist under a gender binary, more and more around the world are becoming more accepting of ideas of gender outside of strict male and female categories.  People outside the binary have always existed but have not always been free to express themselves. People who are transgender were labeled based on their biological sex, but eventually come to realize that label does not fit what they identify with. Some people do not experience gender in a way that fits into a binary at all, and these people are called either non binary or genderqueer. Intersexuality is not a well accepted or understood idea in most places, since most people have never heard of it or are willing to accept people who are.

## Related pages 
* Agender
* Bigender
* Gender equality
* Genderfluid
* Gender identity
* Intersexuality
* Pansexuality
* Sexual dimorphism
* Transgender
* Transsexual

## References