Question

3. What is the relationship between sex and gender? Provide an example of the difference between gender identity and gender expression

Answer 1

Sex is biological in nature as compared to gender, which is mainly social. Sex has to do with a person's possession of a particular type of reproductive system and secondary sex characteristics. While most people know that one's sex can be either male or female, there are several individuals whose reproductive system varies from that of a male and female. They are known as intersex. Apart from the reproductive system, sex consists of one's secondary sexual characteristics and chromosomes. Gender, on the other hand, refers to the socially prescribed roles that members of a particular sex are expected to fulfill. Unlike the sex of a person, gender is a social construct.

Gender identity refers to an individual's Identification with a particular gender. It indicates if a person identifies as a male, female or non binary. Gender expression relates to how a person expresses a particular gender. It is how a person's gender is communicated to others. For example, an individual may identify as a female (gender identity) but choose to wear clothes that are typically regarded as masculine (gender expression).