Equality and Human Rights Commission

Including 'gender identity' as a separate factor

It is good practice to include 'gender identity' as a specific item in your organisation's equal opportunities policies, and wherever you refer to the other diversity strands together.

We often use the terms 'Gender' and 'Sex' interchangeably in conversation but they are not the same thing.

• 'Gender' refers to an individual's personal sense of how much like a man or a woman they feel. The way we express this (through how we dress, talk and style ourselves) tells people about our personal 'Gender Identity'.
   
• 'Sex' refers to the anatomical differences between males and females. This includes the so-called 'Primary characteristics' (external genitals and internal reproductive organs) and 'Secondary characteristics' (e.g. hair and body fat distributions, skeletal differences, and breasts in females).

All human societies construct male and female 'gender roles' based on observable sex characteristics. These will not always be the same across history, across societies, or across classes; i.e. the rules are not biologically determined.

Normally sex and gender are concordant. People with Gender Dysphoria experience discord between the two. The discord is felt between the 'gender role' that we expect people to fulfil and the 'gender identity' they feel driven to express.

Trans people change their physical presentation so that the gender role expectations we apply to them are in better accord with the gender identity they need to express.

Further information