Gender Basics

Whether you are parenting a young child who is gender creative or an older youth who has come out as trans or gender diverse, you may have a lot of questions.

Gender 101

Gender refers to socially and culturally constructed roles, behaviours, expressions and identities of girls, women, boys, men, and trans people.

Our Gender page provides some key definitions that we use to understand the differences between things like sex and gender; gender identity and gender expression; and trans identity and sexual orientation.

Definitions

If you are wondering about specific terms, we have a Glossary with over 100 definitions for terms related to gender and trans health care.

Transgender Basics is a short educational film from the Gender Identity Project. Providers discuss concepts related to gender and trans community members share personal experiences.

Beyond the gender binary

You may have heard about the gender binary, the idea that there are only two genders: male (boy) and female(girl). 

Many people fit within this gender binary, but others identify outside of it. They may have no gender (e.g. agender), more than one gender (e.g. bigender), or a gender other than man or woman (e.g. genderqueer). 

Exploring gender diversity (a gender diagram) (is one visual framework for discussing gender diversity. 

SOURCE: Gender Basics ( )
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