Gender Identity
People are assigned a sex at birth based on physical characteristics. Sex assigned at birth may or may not differ from people’s gender identity: the way people experience their gender. People whose gender identity differs from the sex they were assigned at birth are often referred to as transgender people, whereas people whose sex assigned at birth is the same as their gender identity are referred to as cisgender people.
There is a large variety in the gender identities people have within society. People who do not exclusively identify as a man or a woman are often referred to as non-binary or genderqueer. Non-binary and genderqueer therewith are terms that encompass a large variety of gender identities. Some examples of non-binary gender identities are agender, demigender, genderfluid or bigender: people who identify as both man and woman. Gender identity can change over time.
Sexual Orientation
Sexual orientation is a term used to describe people’s romantic or sexual attractions. In the English-speaking literature, sexual orientation is often conceptualized as an overarching term that has different components: attraction, behavior, and identity.
Sexual attraction normally refers to whether people are sexually attracted to people and, if so, to people of which genders. Sexual behavior indicates whether and with whom people are romantically involved or have sex with. Sexual identity refers to how people identify themselves. These concepts are closely connected and often “overlap” but these components can combine in a large variety of ways. For instance, a man who is romantically involved with both men and women can still identify as heterosexual or gay.
People identify in a large variety of ways. The most common sexual identities are lesbian, gay and bisexual. However, as these identities do not explicitly acknowledge non-binary gender identities, a broader set of identities are also increasingly adopted including bi+, pansexual and queer. Queer is a term that is sometimes used to refer to the LGBTQ* population in general, but also to challenge the idea of creating strict categories of identities, or as a challenge of cisgender heteronormativity in general. Asexual people experience sexual attraction differently than allosexual people (people who regularly experience sexual attraction), which does not mean they do not have sex at all or are not in relationships. Some people have a fluid sexual identity which underlines how sexual identity can change with time.
Concepts of Sexual and Gender Diversity
An Introduction to Academic Research
This project is financed by the European Research Council (ERC-2020-STG-948557-MINEQ)