From my very basic cis position and trying to learn as much as possible of the right ways to name each, this graphic is actually quite nice, but it confuses me that things like hobbies, roles, jobs, personality traits are treated as part of gender identity… Is it just me and my autistic ass that considers those as completely independent from the gender identity? My gender identity is really clear to me, but I don’t let that define what hobbies I may have or like what movies I should watch or something like that.
That’s definitely one of the problems with this graphic. Those are a part of “gender roles”, stereotypical expectations of masculinity/femininity. Your impulse to consider them independent is correct, but you may encounter bigots with old fashioned ideas about what’s appropriate for someone to get up to based on their gender.
If I’m understanding you correctly, I think the key distinction is that gender expression is completely arbitrary and based on the society you’re in, but gender identity is something that is tied to your inner sense of self/brain and seems to develop fairly early in children (3-4).
For example, wearing a piece of clothing that has a single opening for both legs and stops at the knees would be called a skirt and be considered solely a feminine gender expression in most areas, but a kilt and something considered a masculine gender expression if it has the right pattern and is in Scotland. There’s no functional difference between them, it’s completely social.
That said, we do live in a society and all that, and people tend to want their gender expression to match (or at least complement) their gender identity. What you wear and do doesn’t change who you are, but who you are likely changes how you feel about what you wear and do.
Overall, I agree. That said, because of the socially constructed associations with gender, people sometimes find euphoria from doing those things as a result and experiencing that euphoria (not because you enjoy the thing, but because its a “feminine”/“masculine” thing) could be a sign that perhaps you should consider that maybe your gender isn’t the one assigned at birth.
From my very basic cis position and trying to learn as much as possible of the right ways to name each, this graphic is actually quite nice, but it confuses me that things like hobbies, roles, jobs, personality traits are treated as part of gender identity… Is it just me and my autistic ass that considers those as completely independent from the gender identity? My gender identity is really clear to me, but I don’t let that define what hobbies I may have or like what movies I should watch or something like that.
That’s definitely one of the problems with this graphic. Those are a part of “gender roles”, stereotypical expectations of masculinity/femininity. Your impulse to consider them independent is correct, but you may encounter bigots with old fashioned ideas about what’s appropriate for someone to get up to based on their gender.
If I’m understanding you correctly, I think the key distinction is that gender expression is completely arbitrary and based on the society you’re in, but gender identity is something that is tied to your inner sense of self/brain and seems to develop fairly early in children (3-4).
For example, wearing a piece of clothing that has a single opening for both legs and stops at the knees would be called a skirt and be considered solely a feminine gender expression in most areas, but a kilt and something considered a masculine gender expression if it has the right pattern and is in Scotland. There’s no functional difference between them, it’s completely social.
That said, we do live in a society and all that, and people tend to want their gender expression to match (or at least complement) their gender identity. What you wear and do doesn’t change who you are, but who you are likely changes how you feel about what you wear and do.
Overall, I agree. That said, because of the socially constructed associations with gender, people sometimes find euphoria from doing those things as a result and experiencing that euphoria (not because you enjoy the thing, but because its a “feminine”/“masculine” thing) could be a sign that perhaps you should consider that maybe your gender isn’t the one assigned at birth.
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