Identity

Sexuality

Sexual orientation

Gender

Female

Male

Gender

1. Kind, sort, class; also, genus as opposed to species. the general gender: the common sort (of people). Obs.

1784 R. BAGE Barham Downs I. 274, I..am a man of importance, a public man, Sir; of the patriotic gender.

b. In mod. (esp. feminist) use, a euphemism for the sex of a human being, often intended to emphasize the social and cultural, as opposed to the biological, distinctions between the sexes. Freq. attrib.

1963 A. COMFORT Sex in Society ii. 42 The gender role learned by the age of two years is for most individuals almost irreversible, even if it runs counter to the physical sex of the subject. 1972 A. OAKLEY Sex, Gender & Society viii. 189 Sex differences may be 'natural', but gender differences have their source in culture. 1981 Heresies XII. 67/3 Our ideology and practice of sex roles construct..two mutually exclusive categories, that is, genders.