What is gender?

Gender is only one piece of the identity pie. This short essay is too brief to cover the many layers of identity such as race, ethnicity, religion/spirituality, socioeconomic, citizen/immigrant/Native, age, disability/temporary-ability status, and so on. (What a rich pie!)

There are aspects I miss and/or am ignorant about, especially as a white-bodied person in our current system. I encourage feedback, mutual learning, discussion, and your own research from clear, mutually respectful, and informed sources. I speak from my lived experience as a queer White femme person and from what I have learned from elders, neighbors, teachers, activists, friends, and colleagues.

The definition for gender I will use comes from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (2025). “Gender refers to the socially constructed roles, behaviours, expressions and identities of girls, women, boys, men, and gender diverse people. It influences how people perceive themselves and each other, how they act and interact, and the distribution of power and resources in society. Gender identity is not confined to a binary (girl/woman, boy/man) nor is it static; it exists along a continuum and can change over time. There is considerable diversity in how individuals and groups understand, experience and express gender through the roles they take on, the expectations placed on them, relations with others and the complex ways that gender is institutionalized in society.” Gender is different than biological sex. Gender is social. Gender is a social construction based on many things including historical and cultural norms.

Some Basic Gender Terms

Now, I want to go over some basic gender terms. This is not a comprehensive list of important terms. If you are interested in learning more about LGBTQ+ terms, visit https://www.hrc.org/resources/glossary-of-terms. I am using the Human Rights Campaign for the definitions I will use here:

LGBTQ+:  An acronym for “lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer” with a “+” sign to recognize the limitless sexual orientations and gender identities used by members of our community.

Queer: A term people often use to express a spectrum of identities and orientations that are counter to the mainstream. Queer is often used as a catch-all to include many people, including those who do not identify as exclusively straight and/or folks who have non-binary or gender-expansive identities. This term was previously used as a slur, but has been reclaimed by many parts of the LGBTQ+ movement.

Genderqueer: Genderqueer people typically reject notions of static categories of gender and embrace a fluidity of gender identity and often, though not always, sexual orientation. People who identify as “genderqueer” may see themselves as being both male and female, neither male nor female or as falling completely outside these categories.

Sex assigned at birth: The sex, male, female or intersex, that doctor or midwife uses to describe a child at birth based on their external anatomy.

Gender binary: A system in which gender is constructed into two strict categories of male or female. Gender identity is expected to align with the sex assigned at birth and gender expressions and roles fit traditional expectations.

Gender dysphoria: Clinically significant distress caused when a person’s assigned birth gender is not the same as the one with which they identify.

Gender-expansive: A person with a wider, more flexible range of gender identity and/or expression than typically associated with the binary gender system. Often used as an umbrella term when referring to young people still exploring the possibilities of their gender expression and/or gender identity.

Gender expression: External appearance of one’s gender identity, usually expressed through behavior, clothing, body characteristics or voice, and which may or may not conform to socially defined behaviors and characteristics typically associated with being either masculine or feminine.

Gender-fluid: A person who does not identify with a single fixed gender or has a fluid or unfixed gender identity.

Non-binary: An adjective describing a person who does not identify exclusively as a man or a woman. Non-binary people may identify as being both a man and a woman, somewhere in between, or as falling completely outside these categories. While many also identify as transgender, not all non-binary people do. Non-binary can also be used as an umbrella term encompassing identities such as agender, bigender, genderqueer or gender-fluid.

Transgender: An umbrella term for people whose gender identify and/ore expression is different from cultural expectations based on the sex they were assigned at birth. Being transgender does not imply any specific sexual orientation. Therefore, transgender people may identify as straight, gay, lesbian, bisexual, etc.

I love the acronyms “AFAB” and “AMAB” meaning assigned female at birth and assigned male at birth, respectively. This is a helpful way for me to talk about a client’s childhood conditioning and experience concerning a certain gender script without assuming the client’s gender/gender expression.

Why gender matters in the counseling room?

Gender informs what a person with a specific body can and cannot do, how they can and cannot express self, and one’s safety in a social and institutionalized setting. As the therapist, you have social and institutional power in the room.

Gender can inform how one deals with emotions (i.e. anger), interpersonal and intrapersonal skills the person did not develop or was forced to over-develop. Gender can also inform how one thinks of themself, how safe or unsafe they feel in the world (and even this counseling room with you). Gender assumptions can be harmfully restricting and dismissive to the complex and dynamic experience of being a human.

Broaching Gender in the Counseling Relationship

I recently had a colleague ask me how he would like me to broach gender if he were my therapist. After some discussion, I said ask me how it feels to work with a therapist who identifies as a White man.

In my own work when broaching with a client(s), I ask them what it is like working with a queer White femme person. I base my inquiry on my own identity that I feel safe or resourced enough to disclose and that holds privileged power in our current system (i.e. White). This creates space concerning awareness around social location and impact.

As a counselor, our own lived experience of gender and our ideas about gender can, quite literally make space for liberation or reaffirm harmful ideas about gender. I love bringing in curiosity to my assumptions and beliefs about gender.

Final Thoughts

Gender is such a unique experience for each of us.

I find my gender expression and exploration — as an AFAB femme person raised mixed class (poor and middleclass) in the highly religious South, White, in a fundamentalist Evangelical Church (Southern Baptist)—liberating, terrifying, fun, exciting, expansive, empowering, euphoric, dysphoric (at times), nuanced, ever-evolving, and more.

As I explore my gender and gender expression, it has helped me form a more authentic and deep relationship with myself and others. I wish the same for you!

Resources

Foundation, H. (2025). Glossary of terms. Human Rights Campaign. https://www.hrc.org/resources/glossary-of-terms?utm_source=ads_ms_HRC_20240306-HRC-AW-GS-Natl-GlossaryRP_GlossaryKeywords_a002-dynamic-rst_b%3Agender+terms&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=21083351170&gbraid=0AAAAAD6IzSgSVxb7rc0qvogjutvhg4GSh&gclid=CjwKCAjwq9rFBhAIEiwAGVAZP1MD5beTJ38hnfrJR7qri0qMuj_cCb2Bz42FBEpGxcxTEr0I9uVDtRoCY4YQAvD_BwE

Government of Canada, C. I. of H. R. (2023, May 8). What is gender? what is sex?. CIHR. https://cihr-irsc.gc.ca/e/48642.htmlKillermann, S. (2017). The genderbread person version 4. It’s Pronounced Metrosexual. https://www.itspronouncedmetrosexual.com/2018/10/the-genderbread-person-v4/

About the Author: Hi, my name is Bre Smith (she/they)! I am a queer White woman from the South. In my current graduate studies in Clinical Mental Health Counseling at Saybrook University, I continue to explore new ways to merge my academic learning with my passion for wellness and mental health. This work builds on my M.A. in Humanistic & Existential Psychology from the University of West Georgia and experience in the mental health field in adolescent residential, adult case management, and foster care counseling. As the Vice President of my school’s Queer Alliance Collective club, I am particularly focused on creating spaces that are safe, inclusive, and affirming. I am an adjunct faculty at Chattanooga State Community College where I teach Introduction to Psychology courses.

When I’m not counseling, studying, or teaching, I enjoy moving my body, exploring the outdoors, traveling, playing music, laying on my couch, creating art, tending to my plants and garden, and spending time with loved ones.

Coming Home

Why are we challenged with inner turmoil and desires throughout our lives?

Inner turmoil address questions of, “Who am I?” “Why am I here?” “What do I want?” “What do I want to experience?”

We might find ourselves saying, “I want to be taken seriously.” “I want some choice and greater autonomy.” “I want to show my deep care.”

In childhood, we were nurtured and trained to grow into adulthood and survive our environment. But in adulthood, this often isn’t enough to sustain us. Once grown, we are faced with leaving behind this early guidance in search of…what? If we let go of the past, we fear we will let go of our ‘first home.’ This can create terror and a sense we are floating away into outer space without a lifeline.

However, our movement into our adult life to a better life is one that must be made. It is often delayed for years, even decades. In fact, Carl Jung believed that true maturation didn’t occur until the elder years of one’s life. It takes that long to hear our voice among the many that guided our path in the early years.

It can be terrifying to commence the journey, but it is only terrifying initially and for a short moment, like the shock from jumping into cold water. After this movement out of pain, a whole host of new possibilities arise that weren’t known before.

Looking for home can feel like calling—a longing to see beyond the surface of things; to gain insights and live more fully in service to people and planet, and to help others do the same.

Jung advocated a process of coming to consciousness and greater wholeness through self-realization—a process he termed “individuation.” “How are you fulfilling your life’s task (“mission”) . . . the meaning and purpose of your existence?” he queried. “This is the question of individuation.”

Our need to form our own identity while dealing with the world’s expectations is the work of maturation. It continues for a lifetime. As we learn more, experience more, we make adjustments – but according to what internal guide? An internal guide that tells us, yes, that’s IT, or, no, that’s not IT?

“According to Jung, we each possess a Self, a vastly intelligent, unified, self-organizing entity whose overarching intelligence regulates and eternally inspires us to always go in the direction of growth toward integration, to achieve our ultimate potential,” says Bonnie Bright, PhD.  When we experience a syncing up of our being with our consciousness it feels like ‘coming home to ourselves.’ Jung believed that individuation is the unfolding of the Self’s plan for wholeness.

“Our job is not to comprehend or control everything, but to learn which story we are in and which of the many things calling out in the world is calling to us,” notes Michael Meade.  “Our job is to be fully alive in the life we have, to pick up the invisible thread of our own story and follow where it leads. Our job is to find the thread of our own aspiration and live it all the way to the end.”

“Humans are living stories, each imbued with an inherent message and a meaning trying to find its way into the world,” writes mythologist Michael Meade. It manifests as a sense of calling to how we experience and find how we belong in the world. Until we find that ‘home’, we can feel lost, alone, depressed, or despairing, not knowing how we make sense.

We are profoundly interconnected with each other and the world around us. Throughout time, humans created myths, dreams, fairytales, and stories in every form to discern the stories we are already living and our search for meaning. They help us tune into the possibilities of transforming our daily experiences into a new creation.

In order to be able to bring growth, we need time. Like a flower, the opening is a process that cannot be rushed. We have to learn and seek out new possibilities. The initial experience of distress is completely normal.

Don’t hurry and be easy on yourself. Gradually you will grow this new experience of living in the moment. I bow to the courage that brings people forward; it is possible, normal and creates the true mature adult.

Notes & Sources:

1. Coming Home to Your Self: Depth Psychology and the Symbolic Life by Bonnie Bright, PhD, web page, Jan 12, 2020

About the author: Rev. Catherine Dockery, MA, is a People House minister and a trained facilitator in conscious aging, nonviolent communication and resonant healing of trauma. She has an MA in Public Administration and BA in Communications both from the University of Colorado at Denver. Catherine started The Center for Conscious Aging in 2015 where she conducts workshops, personal coaching and support groups for older adults helping them to understand their developmental changes and transform their lives. She has 10 years of experience in individual and group facilitation and presents on aging topics throughout Colorado. To learn more about Catherine’s services please visit www.centerforconsciousaging.org or email consciousaging1@gmail.com