The Genderbread Person - Understanding Sex, Gender, Orientation, and Expression

Understanding Sex, Gender, Orientation, and Expression

It is helpful to think of sex, gender, sexual orientation, and gender expression on different continuums rather than binary.

The Genderbread Person (below) was developed by Sam Killerman as an easy visual to illustrate the different continuums.

Gender identity (the brain in the image) is how a person thinks about themselves. This may be a man, woman, non-binary, or some other term. Genderqueer/genderfluid is used for people whose gender identity is not fixed - it can change over time or from day to day. 

The terms AFAB (Assigned Female At Birth) and AMAB (Assigned Male At Birth) are sometimes used as a way to reflect the fact that gender identity does not always match biological sex.

People will often use pronouns to refer to their gender identity (eg. she/her, they/them, he/him). Some people will use they/him, for example, to indicate that their preference is for they/them but that they are comfortable with he/him. The pronoun placed first indicates the preferred pronoun.

Gender expression (the outside of the body in the image) is the ways a person present their gender, through actions, dress, demeanour, etc. Gender expression often correlates with gender identity, and is based largely on gender stereotypes. Just like gender identity, gender expression does not always match a person's assigned sex at birth.

Biological sex (the groin area in the image) refers to the physical sex characteristics that a person is born with and develops, including genitalia, body shape, voice, body hair, hormones, chromosomes, etc. This is generally understood in terms of female, male, and intersex. 

People who are intersex have reproductive or sexual anatomy that doesn’t fit into an exclusively male or female (binary) sex classification. Intersex traits might be apparent when a person is born, but they might not appear until later (during puberty or even adulthood). You may never notice their intersex traits externally and you might only find out about them after a surgery or imaging test. In the past, being intersex was known as having a disorder of sex development but being intersex isn’t a disorder, disease or condition. Being intersex doesn’t require any special treatments or care, but some people who are intersex choose gender affirmation options if their gender doesn’t match the one they were assigned at birth. Around 1.7% of the population are born intersex (source Intersex Human Rights Australia ihra.org.au).

Attraction (the heart in the image) is also sometimes called sexual orientation. This refers to who a person is attracted to and can be based on their sex or gender. Other common sexual orientations include:

• Asexual - people who experience little or no sexual attraction to others 
• Pansexual - people who experience attraction to others (can be emotional, romantic, or sexual) regardless of their sex/gender. That is, sex/gender does not play a role in who they are attracted to
• Demisexual - people who only experience sexual attraction after they have formed a close emotional bond with someone

It is important to distinguish between sexual and romantic attraction as these too exist on a continuum and do not always correlate. For example, someone may be bisexual (attracted to both genders/sexes) but heteromantic (only romantically attracted to the opposite sex/gender).