Gender and Sexuality

Gender is the social construction of behaviour, activities, clothing, roles and attributes that are typically associated with being either male or female. This has influenced the way people have interacted for centuries and has evolved throughout time. A person who identifies as the gender they were assigned at birth is referred to as cisgender or cis for short. This is not a slur or insult, it is just a way to refer to people who are happy and comfortable in their assigned gender. People may want to experiment with their gender and there is nothing wrong with that.

Sex is the biological status of being either male or female and is associated with chromosones, hormones and genital anatomy. For trans people, their sex may give them discomfort because it doesn't match up with how they wish to identify. This is part of gender dysphoria and why some trans people decide to undergo surgeries and HRT. Some trans people may wish to only alter certain parts of their anatomy, for example a trans man may wish to remove his breasts because they cause him distress but may be perfectly comfortable with his vagina, and a trans woman may wish to have a breast augmentation to give them breasts but be comfortable with their penis and not wish to undergo surgery to remove it. The level of comfort a trans person has with thier body differs from person to person. They may be very open and comfortable to share, or they may want to keep it private. It is not acceptable to ask a trans person about their bodies unless they have said it is ok to do so. You wouldn't go up to a stranger on the street and ask about their genitals, would you?

Sexuality, or sexual orientation, is the way a person expresses their sexual feelings. Sexuality is considered to be a spectrum, and people can fall anywhere on that spectrum, and a person's sexuality can change and evolve as they grow. There are many different forms of sexuality, and these are subjective to every individual, but the main sexual orientations are:

Sexual Orientation	Description
Straight	When a person who identifies as a binary man/woman feels attraction for a person who identifies as a binary gender different to their own.
Gay	When a person who identifies as male feels attraction for another person who identifies as male.
Lesbian	When a person who identifies as female feels attraction to another person who identifies as female.
Bisexual	When a person feels attraction to a person who identifies as either male or female or non-binary.
Pansexual	When a person feels attraction to another person who identifies as male, female, non-binary or other.
Asexual	When a person does not experience sexual attraction to another person.

A person's sexuality may fluctuate and may lie somewhere inbetween the above forms of sexuality and that's ok! Sexuality is an expression of a person's individuality and as long as sex is safe and consensual then there aren't really any rules to it. People have preferences in their sexuality the same way they have preferences for food. For example, some gay men may prefer to only be with cis gay men, while other gay men may be alright with being with trans men. It really is just personal preference.

Bisexuality and pansexuality are sometimes considered to be interchangeable. Bisexuality is the attraction to both male and female people and at one time strictly referred to the cis binary genders and pansexual was for cis binary, trans and non-binary, but nowadays bisexuality and pansexuality cover the same things and again its down to personal preference on how people wish to identify.

Asexuality is the lack of sexual attraction. While asexual people can be in happy and loving relationships and can engage in sex with their partners, they don't feel the sexual attraction others do and can quite happily stay alone if they want to. Asexuals can also be in relationships with people and don't engage in sex at all, and can be in relationships with people of all gender identites. For example, if as asexual person who identifies as female is in a relationship with a person who also identifies as female then they can identify as asexual bi-romantic if they wish. It's really up to the individual.