Gender diversity has existed throughout history all over the world. One of the most fundamental aspects of a human’s identity, gender highly influences everyone. Where this crucial aspect of self is narrowly defined and rigidly enforced, individuals who exist outside of its norms face innumerable challenges every day. Even those who vary only slightly from norms can become targets of disapproval, discrimination, and violence.
The terms “sex” and “gender” are used interchangeably by the people. But, while connecting the dots, the two terms turn out to be not equivalent. Generally, we assign a newborn’s sex as either male or female based on the baby’s genitals. We presume the child’s gender when the sex is assigned. Nevertheless, while gender begins with the assignment of the sex depending on the genitals, it just doesn’t end here. A person’s gender a complex interrelationship between three dimensions:
The Body: Our body, our experience of our own body, how society genders bodies, and how others interact with us based on our body plays a very important role in deciding the gender.
The Identity: The name we use to convey our gender based on our deeply held, internal sense of self. Identities typically fall into binary as a man or a woman, Non-binary as Gender-queer or gender-fluid and ungendered as Agender or genderless categories; the meaning associated with a particular identity can vary among individuals. A person’s Gender identity can correspond to or differ from the sex they were assigned at birth.
The Society: How we present our gender in the world and how individuals, society, culture, and community perceive, interact with, and try to shape our gender. Social gender includes gender roles and expectations which tells how the society uses those, to enforce conformity to current gender norms.
Another term Gender congruence came into existence when the feeling of harmony in own gender arose. A person can seek harmony in many ways. Some of the ways are:
Social congruence measures: Changes of social identifiers depending upon the gender such as clothing, hairstyle, gender identity, name and/or pronouns is the main congruence.
Hormonal congruence measures: The use of medical approaches such as hormone “blockers” or hormone therapy to promote physical, mental, and/or emotional alignment.Surgical congruence measures: The addition, removal, or modification of gender-related physical traits.
Legal congruence measures: Changing identification documents such as one’s birth certificate, driver’s license, or passport.
We can develop a greater acceptance for all through a thoughtful consideration of the uniqueness and validation of every person’s experience of self. Not only this will create greater inclusion for individuals who challenge the norms of gender but also will create space for all individuals to fully explore and express who they originally are from inside.