Question

Question: What is gender identity?

Gender identity is defined as a personal conception of oneself as male or female (or rarely, both or neither). This concept is intimately related to the concept of gender role, which is defined as the outward manifestations of personality that reflect the gender identity. Gender identity, in nearly all instances, is self-identified, as a result of a combination of inherent and extrinsic or environmental factors; gender role, on the other hand, is manifested within society by observable factors such as behaviour and appearance. For example, if a person considers himself a male and is most comfortable referring to his personal gender in masculine terms, then his gender identity is male. However, his gender role is male only if he demonstrates typically male characteristics in behavior, dress, and/or mannerisms.

Answer 1

Though the question has come with a proper answer yet I would like to add a few points.

Gender identity was once mainly categorised into male identity and female identity and as I use the word 'categorise', similarly it was thought to some bounded by certain social roles into closed categorical chambers of male and female. At present gender identity is seen as more fluid in nature and is based not on categories but on a spectrum. Mainly two terms need to be known which are assigned gender and experienced gender. The assigned gender is the gender assigned to a child after birth based on the anatomical features while experienced gender is the gender which the child or adult perceives oneself as. In general terms, the person who feels congruent with the assigned gender is called cis-gender while the person who doesn't identifies with the assigned gender is known as transgender. Another term is important which indicates the fluidity of this premise and that is the term 'queer' which refers to those individuals who doesn't identifies oneself with any gender. Thus, they won't say that experiences oneself as male or female as they believe that those two can't be the only categories for identification.