Topic 1 Understanding gender identities
Gender identities are not restricted within the strict concept of sexuality, meaning men or women. Several people may identify themselves with multiple genders, and some may not identify themselves with any.
However, every person has a gender identity, which may correspond to their biological sex, but also others may identify themselves with both sexes, with none of them, or somewhere in the middle of the gender spectrum.
Accordingly, people can adopt several forms of expressing and presenting their gender to others around them in particular societal contexts.
Gender expression is the way a person demonstrates their gender to his/ her societal environment, both intentionally and unintentionally, through certain behaviours, gestures, outfits, ways of speaking and so on and so forth.
A person may express their gender adopting masculine, feminine, and androgynous characteristics or as nonbinary.
According to the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE), gender roles are the sum of social and cultural behaviours that men and women are undertaking in specific contexts. By extension, gender roles are determined by the societal structures and a range of institutions rooted in the society and representing societal perceptions, among which are the educational environments.
As such, gender identities are evolving, they have complexities and can take different forms over the years and the different contexts through which people are living.
