Gender Identity and Gender Expression

Gender identity is used to describe a person's own, internal sense of being a man or being a woman. Gender expression is the external communication of a person’s gender identity through "masculine" or "feminine" behavior, clothing, and other external personal characteristics.

A person's gender identity and/or gender expression may or may not align with a person’s assigned (genetic or anatomical) sex at birth.

A transgender person's gender identity does not match his or her birth-assigned sex. For example, a transgender person may have been assigned male at birth due to anatomy, but may have an internal sense of gender identity as a woman. This transgender person may live her life as a woman, despite the fact that she was assigned 'male' at birth.

A cisgender person's gender identity is aligned with their birth assigned sex. For example, a cisgender person whose assigned sex at birth was male also identifies as male in gender.

Someone who is non-binary does not identify as exclusively male or female. They may identify as both, neither or some combination of the two. Being non-binary does not imply anything about a person’s sexual identity.

Gender and Sex

In everyday conversation, the words "sex" and "gender" are often used without much distinction. However, there is a difference between these words. Generally, gender is usually accepted within scientific circles as a word to describe a person's identity and social role related to gender.

However, sex refers to a person's physical anatomy and/or genetics – specifically a person's genitalia. Therefore, there can be a difference between a person's sex assigned at birth, and a person's gender identity.