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Gender Diversity: Essential Terms Explained
34 Plays3 months ago
This episode of Gender in Focus dives into the essential language of gender diversity, unpacking terms like transgender, cisgender and non-binary to bring clarity to complex topics. Kai and El explore the differences between sex assigned at birth, gender identity and gender expression, shedding light on how these concepts shape the experiences of trans and non-binary individuals.
Through thoughtful discussion and practical tips, this episode provides actionable insights for fostering respect and belonging. From demystifying what it means to be trans to embracing inclusive language, it’s a guide for anyone striving to make a meaningful impact.
Tune in to deepen your understanding of gender terminology and empower yourself to create a more inclusive and compassionate world.
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Gender in Focus'
00:00:03
Speaker
Hello folks, this is Gender in Focus, a podcast exploring how to create a more inclusive world for trans and non-binary people. I'm your host, Kai Scott, and I use the pronouns he and him.
Podcast Format Overview
00:00:15
Speaker
I'm the president of Trans Focus Consulting. Each week I dive into real stories and expert advice, offering practical tips and actionable takeaways to help you lead with kindness, confidence, and heart. Tune in to discover how you can make a positive difference. It's just a conversation away.
00:00:40
Speaker
I'm also joined by my colleague, El and I'll have them introduce themselves next.
Elle's Introduction
00:00:45
Speaker
My name is El and I use both she and they pronouns, and I am the coordinator at Trans Focus Fantastic. I'm really excited to to talk to you here, El today.
00:00:57
Speaker
about a closer look, especially related to language. I know folks have a lot of questions around some of the key terms and concepts related to gender diversity, and they can really throw people for a loop if they haven't thought or talked about it. And so we just want to help unpack some of that here today in a fairly brief episode. So it won't go all the way into the depths of all the terminology, but certainly give you a kind of a really good overview. So I'm excited to get started.
00:01:27
Speaker
Well, I know that we've talked before about how organisations really want to dive in once they've come to you to go over what their organisation looks like for for trans folks. And what maybe they don't anticipate is how many questions other people in their workplace have.
Understanding Transgender
00:01:44
Speaker
um And I think a really good place to start would probably be, what does it mean to be transgender?
00:01:50
Speaker
Yeah, that is such a good one. And certainly for many, especially if you're reading stuff in the media, you can have maybe ah some idea of what it is, but not a real crystal clear concept. And so in order to describe transgender, it's the really basic definition is somebody's gender identity is different than their sex assigned at birth.
00:02:15
Speaker
And so what do we mean by each of those? Well, gender identity is that deep internal sense of our gender versus sex is or sex assigned at birth is related to the anatomy that we're born with or that we develop in in puberty. And so where there's a difference between those that is, you know, we we ah attribute to being transgender. So it is describing something It is not in and of itself a gender identity, but it describes that there's a difference between gender and sex.
What Does 'Cisgender' Mean?
00:02:49
Speaker
And so with that, what is cisgender? Yes, this might be a relatively new concept for for folks who are listening. Maybe you've heard it here and there, but you're not quite sure.
00:03:01
Speaker
When I first heard it, I thought people, because you can also say cis for short, and I thought they were talking about my sister. And I was like, this is all about, I don't understand. And basically, that's the opposite of transgender. So anybody who's gender identity aligns with their sex at birth. So most people are cisgender in this world, and so this is a way to describe folks. And we're not always having to use cisgender. You don't, if it applies to you, don't have to necessarily use it. You're welcome to if you want to. But it is helpful when we're talking about the differences between people who are trans and those who are not.
00:03:47
Speaker
Because sometimes if we don't have cisgender at the ready, we'll say things like, there's trans men and there's real men. and But that often creates as a judgment on trans men not being real. But usually people just don't know what to say. And so cisgender is a really useful term for talking about the differences because they do exist and it's okay to talk about them. So it's a descriptor rather than an identity, I guess. Yes, that's correct. Right.
Exploring Gender Identity vs. Sex Assigned at Birth
00:04:16
Speaker
Sweet. And with that, because you said before about you sort of briefly touched on sex and then gender identity, what is the difference? Because that is so mixed up with a lot of conversations. Yeah, absolutely. And it can be hard at the beginning.
00:04:34
Speaker
to understand that, especially for folks who their gender aligns with their sex at birth and it feels kind of a bit odd to separate those two. But for transgender people, it's really critical. So oftentimes when somebody is born, we You know, the health care professionals do an external scan and we're assigned either female or male based on our external um genitalia and and other sex characteristics. And so based on that, we in society then kind of jump to a conclusion about what that means in terms of who that person is really related to their gender identity.
00:05:17
Speaker
And because for most, you know, what the people, the assumptions people make at birth are correct, there's not kind of a space created for folks to be different from that. And that's where, you know, we're talking a lot but more about trans and non-binary issues to to highlight that there is for for some, even if a few a gap or a difference between those two.
00:05:41
Speaker
where their body is not the determining factor of their identity in terms of their gender. So in my experience as a transgender man, I was female assigned at birth in terms of my sex, and I'm a man in terms of my gender identity. And because there's a difference between the two, that makes me trans. And so Basically, people assumed at my birth that I was a girl and raised me as such, but that's not really the case for me. And so that's where, you know, later in life, you know, shared more about kind of the inner reality, my inner truth with folks around me in terms of being a man, irrespective of how my body was or how I was born in terms of my body.
00:06:31
Speaker
And then this is a little bit trickier again, because we have sex assigned at birth and then we have gender identity.
Understanding Gender Expression
00:06:39
Speaker
But then what about gender expression and where does that fit in? Yes, that's another ah piece of the puzzle, so to speak.
00:06:49
Speaker
Gender expression is, if you think about gender identity and ah sex at birth, those are kind of internal matters. Gender expression is the outward aspects of those. So we typically in our societies and cultures, and this changes around the world, but there are particular things that as a society we expect, you know, have with masculine expression versus feminine expression. But of course, that's not it. The gender expression exists along a spectrum. So there are folks who look or present androgynous as well. And so you know these are kind of the the range of different expressions that we have in our society.
00:07:35
Speaker
you know depending on which country you're in, that those expectations might change for how somebody dresses, what kind of clothing they wear, type of hairstyles, if you think like... short versus long. We have some attachment to them being either masculine or feminine. um yeah Even personality traits like being you know supportive and nurturing that tends to be something we label as feminine. Or it can be even things like mannerisms.
00:08:07
Speaker
I tend to gesture a lot with my hands, which we've labeled as feminine. I don't know why. Sometimes it feels a random But certainly these are some of the things that we have attributed to either feminine, masculine, or androgynous in terms of gender expression.
00:08:24
Speaker
You mentioned earlier about sex assigned at birth, and I really wanted to go into that because there is this idea that sex assigned at birth is, or sex, sorry, is completely concrete, and that there is male and that there is female, and that's it, that's all there is to it. um Could you go into that a bit more?
The Myth of Binary Sex
00:08:42
Speaker
Yeah, that's such a good one because yeah we put so much into biology and there's like quite a bit of weight behind it, but actually it's a little bit more complex than that. We often think of sex as being binary, so only two, when in fact there are folks who are intersex, that means that Their sex characteristics fall either within or they have both sex characteristics of female and male or fall somewhere outside that. And so this is often overlooked or just lesser known or not known at all.
00:09:19
Speaker
One note I want to make about intersex is that folks may know um a more outdated term. and I'll just mention that it's outdated so that you can replace it with intersex, so it's hermaphrodite. This is now no longer used, it's not considered respectful language. Intersex is the new kind of community created term that reflects their experiences and theyre their embodiment as well. so This is where we get to see on all of these different dimensions that we've talked about, whether sex at birth, gender identity, or gender expression, they all exist along a spectrum. So there's not just two of each of of these categories. It's actually a whole diversity
00:10:07
Speaker
within each of them, including folks who are intersex. And I think that's important because unfortunately, even to to this day, ah people, when they're born, intersex, then they are often forced by surgery into one or the other.
00:10:24
Speaker
And so you can already start to see how just say thinking there's only two forces and has like can have a negative impact on folks who don't fit within those two categories. So it's really important for us to kind of pan out to see the full picture of the beautiful diversity that exists in humanity.
00:10:45
Speaker
At the beginning of the episode, you went into the differences between being trans and being cis. And I just wanted to see if we could close the episode with you ah diving into the different aspects of being trans ah just briefly. I know this' it's quite a lot, but if you could explain that. Absolutely. So, you know, I described the broad umbrella of being trans, but of course there's many different types of experiences and ah truths underneath that umbrella.
00:11:14
Speaker
including folks who are non-binary, so neither exclusively men nor women. There's also folks who are trans women. So there are women in terms of their gender identity and were male assigned at birth in terms of their sex. And then there's also trans men, which I described for myself in terms of being a man ah in terms of their gender identity.
00:11:37
Speaker
and were female assigned at birth in terms of their sex. So I just wanted to describe that because I think it's important not to think that's just one thing, but there's actually many different types of experiences underneath that umbrella. And certainly we won't be able to get it into this episode, but other episodes where we can further flesh that out so that there's a better understanding of those distinctions, even if many things are shared in common.
00:12:06
Speaker
whether they be challenges or things that are needed, ah but certainly there's also a lot of distinction there as well, so not to lose sight of that. um And, you know, there's even within non-binary there's more terms that we could go into in future episodes to further flesh that out as well. So just not to make anybody nervous, because there's a lot of terms, but just so that you're aware that they exist.
Respecting Gender Identity
00:12:32
Speaker
And if somebody shares them, that you're not surprised by these different things. One other really quick, fine point that I want to make, sometimes people get lost in the terminology.
00:12:45
Speaker
And for trans people, what is really important is their gender identity. So if you're putting trans with another word, you always want to go for the gender identity.
00:12:58
Speaker
so because sometimes people can flip those around and focus on somebody's sex at birth. For many trans people that's either not as important or perhaps a pain point, something that's painful to them. So it's really important, you know, you're focusing on woman, man, non-binary, those are gender identities.
00:13:22
Speaker
And so, you know, trans woman is somebody who is a woman in terms of their gender, right? So just wanted to clarify that piece as we close out here, but really great to go over the all of these different terms. Obviously there's more, but yeah. We are on social media where we do go over topics like this. um Where can everyone find you, Kai?
00:13:45
Speaker
on all the socials, including LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, I believe TikTok too. indeed I don't know why. I love everybody on TikTok, but um and then also threads in case there are folks who are a little bit more text-based. Great. I'm going to add them all to the show notes too. um See you next time. Thank you.