Clarifying Gender Fluidity and Language

Navigating the discussion around sex, gender, and gender identity and fluidity can be confusing.  Many of us have been socialized to see sex and gender as the same thing.  The trend in “gender reveal parties” when there is a pregnancy highlights this socialization.  What is being reveled is the sex of the baby, which is about biology and includes hormones, chromosomes, and genitals.

Gender is much more complex: It’s a social and legal status, and set of expectations from society, about behaviors, characteristics, and thoughts. Each culture has standards about the way that people should behave based on their gender. This is also generally male or female. But instead of being about body parts, it’s more about how you’re expected to act, because of your sex.

Gender identity is how you feel inside and how you express your gender through clothing, behavior, and personal appearance. It’s a feeling that begins very early in life.  

Take a moment, to consider your gender. Do you identify as a woman, man, or another gender: essentially, how would you describe your gender identity? How do you show your gender to other people through how you look or act — in other words, your gender expression? And has your gender identity or gender expression changed or stayed the same over time? Questions like these can be especially valuable if you’re wondering about how gender identity and expression may shift as children grow up.

What is gender fluidity?

Let’s define a few terms. Cisgender means a person’s gender identity matches the sex they were assigned at birth. Gender fluidity refers to change over time in a person’s gender expression or gender identity, or both. That change might be in expression, but not identity, or in or some youth, gender fluidity may be a way to explore gender before landing on a more stable gender expression or identity. For others, gender fluidity may continue indefinitely as part of their life experience with gender.

Some people describe themselves as “gender-fluid.” As an identity, it typically fits under the transgender and nonbinary umbrella, which applies to people whose gender identity doesn’t match the sex assigned at birth. (Nonbinary means a person’s gender identity doesn’t fit into strict cultural categories of female or male.)

How does gender develop and change?

People typically begin developing a gender identity in early childhood, around the age of 2 or 3. Gender identity develops within multiple social contexts: a person’s family, their larger community, and the society and historical time in which they live. Each of these may have very different norms and expectations about gender expression and gender identity. For many people, gender identity and expression develop early and stay the same over time. For others, either one may change. While such changes can happen at any time during a person’s life, they’re more common during childhood and adolescence than later in adulthood.

Ultimately, anyone who identifies as gender-fluid is a gender-fluid person. Often, the term is used to mean that a person’s gender expression or gender identity — essentially, their internal sense of self — changes frequently. But gender fluidity can look different for different people.

How is gender fluidity related to health in children and teens?

Just like adults, children and teens who express or identify their gender differently from their sex designated at birth are more likely to experience prejudice and discrimination. These experiences may create minority stress that is harmful for their mental and physical health. Compared to cisgender youth, transgender youth are two to three times more likely to have depression, anxiety, self-harming behavior, and suicidal thoughts and behavior.

How can you support gender-fluid youth in your life?

Think about gender fluidity as part of the diversity of human experience related to gender identity and expression. While acceptance is important in how we treat anyone, it’s especially important for children and teens.

Listen to youth and validate their experience of their gender. Everyone is the expert of their own gender.

Gender identity is often expressed using pronouns.  Pronouns are personal and can be fluid as well.  People may choose to use he/she that would be different from their designation at birth, or they/them or any other word that has meaning to them as a pronoun.  Respectful inquiry and use of the pronoun that people use to define themselves is supportive.

Be patient, as a youth’s gender fluidity may be part of their gender identity development.

Support gender-fluid youth in making informed decisions about gender-affirming care, such as hormone therapy and gender-affirming surgeries.
Connect them to support and resources so they can talk to others with similar experiences.
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Ellen Winofsky, BSW MSW (Candidate) RSW

Walmsley EFAP