The Genderbread Person | Version 4.0

almost 4 years ago (Edited)

June is Pride Month for LGBT+ individuals such as myself, and as a training practitioner, teaching is part of my core. One difficult concept to teach, which gets many people very confused, is the topic on gender. However, in 2013, Sam Killermann has created a teaching tool that has helped many understand the complex concepts of identity, gender, sex and expressions into bite-sized, digestible pieces. And I shall attempt to use the same tool to help bring understanding to what most think of as a complicated concept.

Sam's first version of the Genderbread Person was published on this site in 2011 with the article "Breaking through the Binary: Gender Explained Using Continuums", and since the article, the tool has evolved into several iterations with the latest version at 4.0 found at the end of this article.

The Genderbread Person is a cute, approachable model for understanding the social construction of gender, based on the input of thousands of voices over decades.
Sam Killermann

So let's dive in.

The Genderbread Person

It is important to note that ones gender identity is not necessarily equal to the individuals gender expression, anatomical sex, and sexual orientation.

What is Anatomical Sex?

This is sometimes called biological sex, physical sex, or just simply "sex" and is usually associated with "what is under the hood". Being female means having a vagina, ovaries, two X chromosomes, predominant estrogen, and the ability to grow baby in the abdominal area, while being male means having testes, penis, an XY chromosomes configuration, predominant testosterone, and the ability to put baby in a female's abdominal area, and finally, being intersex is a combination any of what's described here.

What is Gender Identity?

Let's talk about what you think your gender is. Gender Identity refers to your own personal identity for yourself regardless of your anatomical sex, And like how the continuum is represented on the above figure, there are degrees to one's identity of Woman-ness or Man-ness. It has been said the we form our own gender identities as early as the age of three, and that after that age, it is incredibly difficult to change the identity. Further note that formation of gender identities are affected by hormones, environment, and biological sex. Problems arise when a person is assigned a gender based on sex at birth - male, intersex or female - and is not aligned to ones gender identity.

What is Gender Expression?

How you dress up, carry yourself, act, behave, interact whether intentional or unintended. In many cultures, certain clothes are associated with a specific gender like skirts are for female and pants are for male. Wearing make-up is for female and men should not wear make-up. Voice expressions can also be associated to gender - high pitched sounds are for female, and men should have low pitched tones. Like gender identity, there is much flexibility here, and expressions can change frequently without one thinking about it.

What is Sexual Orientation?

Sexual orientation is all about who you are physically and romantically attracted to, and the labels we are familiar with like - bisexuality, homosexuality, heterosexuality, pansexuality, asexuality, etc. - tend to describe the relationship between gender and gender types that one is attracted to.

In Summary

Although Gender Identity, Expressions, Sex and Orientation are interrelated they are not interconnected. Your sexual orientation is not determined by your anatomical sex, nor does it determine your expression or identity.

In the end, it is always important to listen to people on what kind of identities, expression, sexes, and attractions they identify for themselves, and we all need to be respectful of those differences in people.

Not everyone is the same, and that is okay! :-)