Gender identity | Definition, Theories, & Facts (2024)

gender identity, an individual’s self-conception as a man or woman or as a boy or girl or as some combination of man/boy and woman/girl or as someone fluctuating between man/boy and woman/girl or as someone outside those categories altogether. It is distinguished from actual biological sex—i.e., male or female. For most persons, gender identity and biological sex correspond in the conventional way. Some individuals, however, experience little or no connection between sex and gender; among transgender persons, for example, biological sexual characteristics are distinct and unambiguous, but the affected person identifies with the gender conventionally associated with the opposite sex.

The nature and development of gender identity have been studied and disputed by psychologists, philosophers, and social activists since the late 20th century. So-called essentialists hold that gender identity is fixed at birth by genetic or other biological factors. Social constructivists argue that gender identity, or the manner in which gender identity is expressed, is “socially constructed”—i.e., determined by social and cultural influences. Social constructivism of the latter type is not necessarily incompatible with essentialism, because it is possible for a supposedly innate gender identity to be expressed in different ways in different cultures. Finally, a variation of social constructivism known as performatism holds that gender identity is constituted, rather than expressed, by the continuous “performance” of gendered behaviour (actions and speech). According to the originator of this view, the American philosopher Judith Butler, gender “is performatively constituted by the very ‘expressions’ that are said to be its results.”

Basic gender identity (whether innate or constructed) is generally established in children by the age of three and is extremely difficult to modify thereafter. In cases where biological sex was ambiguous at birth and errors in sexing were made, it has been almost impossible to reestablish a conventional gender identity later in childhood or adolescence. Furthermore, a secondary gender identity can be developed over the core identity, as sex-associated behaviours may be adopted later in life; heterosexual or hom*osexual orientations also develop later.

Aspects of gender identity develop by means of parental example, social reinforcement, and language. Parents teach what they perceive as sex-appropriate behaviour to their children from an early age, and this behaviour is reinforced as the children grow older and enter a wider social world. As children acquire language, they also learn very early the distinction between “he” and “she” and understand which pertain to themselves.

Since the late 20th century the recognition that many people have gender identities that are not conventionally associated with their biological sex and that some people have nonbinary gender identities (i.e., neither or both man/boy and woman/girl) have spurred discussions of a "gender continuum" and broadened support for the general use in English and other languages of gender-neutral pronouns (they, them, and their) in place of masculine or feminine pronouns (he, she, him, her, his, hers). Such usage, it is argued, enables speakers and writers to avoid attributing a false gender identity to a person based on perceived biological sex. The adoption of gender-neutral pronouns also has been advocated by those who object to the use of generic masculine pronouns and other masculine-gendered words to refer to people in general, as in “No one in his right mind would believe that” and “Man is a political animal.”