Sex
Most people are born with one physical sex. They are born as either a man or a woman. Sex is about your physical body parts. Sex is about differences in sex characteristics. Sex characteristics are physical features you are born with or develop later. Some physical characteristics are visible, while others are not. Examples are genitalia, body shape (physique, fat distribution and mammary gland or breast development), hormones and chromosomes. We call some of these sex characteristics female and others male.
Some people feel that they belong to the other sex. They are born with the body of a woman but feel more like a man, or the other way around. Or they can feel a bit like both. This is called gender diversity or transgender.
Intersex
The term intersex refers to the experiences of individuals who are born with a body that does not fit within how we see the sex female or the sex male. Intersex can mean that a body has both female and male sex characteristics, but it can also mean that sex characteristics do not develop as expected or that expected sex characteristics are absent or more present .
Gender and gender roles
Men and women have roles in society. These are called gender roles. Gender refers to all the expectations a family or society has of how a man and a woman are supposed to behave. This depends on the country, culture and religion you grow up in and what your family considers important. This does not have to be the same as how you see and experience it.
Gender is therefore not a fixed fact, but something that is shaped by social and cultural customs of a place and a time.
Gender gives answers to questions such as:
- How does a man or a woman have to look?
- How does a man or a woman have to behave?
- What is typical for a man or a woman?
- What behaviour is acceptable or unacceptable for a man or a woman?
In relationships too, men and women have different roles. The roles of men and women are of equal importance.
