Gender Identity

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A visual explanation of gender identity.

Gender identity is a term referring to the way an individual experiences their identity in relation to societal and cultural concepts regarding gender. This can include deeply-held inner feeling of whether one is female, male, both, or neither (including third genders, genderlessness, xenogender etc.) An individual's gender identity is an internally held identity and is not seen by others.

For most individuals, their gender identity matches their physical traits and assigned gender at birth, but it’s important to know that these concepts are independent and can be different for each individuals.

Gender Identity vs. Gender Presentation

Gender presentation or gender expression is an aspect of gender referring to how an individual's appearance and behavior is categorized by society in relation to the genders recognized in that culture.

While gender presentation is often thought of as being an indication of one's gender identity, that is not always the case. For example, a woman may present androgynously or masculinely, or a non-binary individual may present masculinely or femininely. Individuals whose gender presentations do not align with their actual gender are known as gender non-conforming. Some individuals may change their gender presentation from day to day or along with their gender identity.

Pronouns and names are also forms of gender presentation, and so do not necessarily correlate with an individual's gender identity or other aspects of their gender.

Gender Identity vs. Gender Alignment

Gender alignment is an aspect of gender referring to the way an individual's gender may intersect with the gender binary. This concept is often used by non-binary individuals who do not identify with the gender binary, but may also be used by binary individuals who experience an alignment with a gender that is not expressed by their gender identity.

An androgyne is not necessarily eclipsian/calypsian, they can be singularian or stellarian, for example. Individuals whose gender alignment differs from their gender identity may be considered cross-aligned, such as a woman-aligned (lunarian/selenian) man and a man-aligned (helian/solarian) woman.

Gender Identity vs. Gender Modality

Gender modality refers to the correspondence (or lack thereof) between one's assigned gender at birth and one's actual gender identity. The two primary and most well known gender modalities are cisgender and transgender. However, those are not the only possible modalities one can have.