today we're asking you to describe your gender using some diagrams when people ask about your gender what they usually mean is are you male or female but gender can mean all sorts of things everyday use of the word gender might include how someone feels what clothes they wear what sex they were assigned at birth how their body is shaped and many more characteristics so we think it'd be better to be a little bit more specific about what we mean by gender we use gender to mean characteristics related to masculinity femininity and gender diversity this refers to socialized cultural or learned characteristics that may relate to your culture your roles your beliefs or things you like to do some examples of gender characteristics might be clothing behavior or how you present or express yourself but it's up to you what you think goes here some identity labels related to gender could be feminine masculine or genderqueer among others but what about bodily characteristics that are associated with maleness and femaleness we use the term sex for those features these are typically understood as biological bodily physical and or innate inborn but not everybody agrees on this sex may also refer to your internal sense of your own sex others beliefs about your sex and so on some examples of sex characteristics might be vulvas penises breasts body shape facial hair or the pitch of your voice but again it's up to you what you think goes here some identity labels related to sex could be male female transgender or intersex among others but wait there are some characteristics that might not easily fall into either gender or sex for example people's whole identities might be both gender and sex we use the term gender sex for these types of personal characteristics groups like women's book clubs are often organized around gender sex anyone who identifies as a woman can participate the same goes for groups like men's choirs some other examples of gender sex characteristics could be what pronouns you use for yourself or the way you see yourself as a whole person some identity labels related to gender sex could be woman trans man or non-binary among others okay now that we've gone over some terms let's get to the diagrams you'll be using in this study this is the gender sex diagram it may look complicated at first but we'll give you plenty of examples of how people might use it it's important to remember that there's no one way of being gendered or sex that is more right or legitimate than another so however you use the diagrams is the right way now we're ready to start with some examples hi i'm kendra i identify as a woman and i feel that i am a woman so i'll place a dot right here at woman hi i'm alice i also identify as a woman so i could place myself at woman just like kendra but i also feel a little bit like a man so i'm going to move my dot around the outside ring towards man hi i'm alex i identify as bigender some days i feel like a woman and some days i feel like a man so i'll place myself right between man and woman and indicate that it depends on the day other people may use multiple dots to indicate that they feel like more than one gender sex today i feel more like a man than a woman so i'll put another dot closer to man and indicate that this is my status a person's status is how they are presenting or feeling in a particular moment or on a certain day and this can be the same or different across someone's life so my status location indicates that i am currently presenting as a man other days i might have a different status depending on the context or how i'm feeling my other location is how i generally feel and think about my gender sex this is called an orientation for me realizing that i feel like both a man and a woman was what led me to identify as bigender so i'll indicate that this dot is my orientation you can think of orientation as what resonates with you or how you generally approach your gender sex hi i'm jamie i identify as non-binary because i see myself as not really being a man or a woman i don't really feel like either of those describe me very well so i'll place myself somewhere in the middle of the circle which is the non-binary area since i would say i feel more like a man than a woman i'll place my dot closer to that side the non-binary area has smaller and smaller circles that go towards all gender sexes that means that the closer you locate yourself to the middle the more you identify with aspects of all kinds of gender sexes for me this location represents both my status and my orientation i express myself in a non-binary way and i feel like that resonates with me oh interesting i identify as genderqueer and i feel i have roughly the same orientation as jaime but unlike jamie i feel like i am challenging the norms of my culture by being non-binary that's what the challenge area is for placing yourself in that area means that you think your gender sex challenges norms in your culture see those dotted lines those are the norm boundaries they represent whatever your culture sees as the boundaries of who counts as a man or woman crossing those places you in the challenge area the challenge area might be useful if you think your location would be confusing to people or go against their expectations for example i think that most people in my culture expect that everyone is either a man or a woman but i don't identify with either so i'll put my dot in the non-binary area towards man but in the challenge area thanks everyone as you can see there are a lot of different ways you can indicate your gender sex using this diagram and people who have similar identities might place themselves differently like we said there's no one right way to use the diagrams you may be thinking that a lot of these examples are too complex or not relevant to your own gender sex and that's okay some people may need this complexity to describe their gender sexes but other people may find that they only need a few pieces of the diagrams there's actually something else to consider here so not only do you have your location but you can also indicate how strongly you identify with that location using the strength dimension let's see how some of the people you just met would use this scale kendra here my location was right at woman so how strongly do i identify with this location being a woman is pretty important to me but not the most important part of my sense of self so i'd say i'm at about 80 strength and look we can combine these dimensions to make a 3d diagram see how the diagram gets smaller as strength goes down this might help you think about what the strength dimension means the lower the strength the less space gender sex takes up in your sense of self and as you can see at zero percent gender sex is no longer relevant so you can think of these diagrams in 3d if that helps but to make things easier we've made the top circle bigger on the diagrams you'll be using okay let's get back to the examples alex here again remember how my location was in between man and woman well i don't see gender sex as a very strong part of how i think about myself so for this dimension i'll put my strength pretty low at 20 hi i'm eli i didn't place myself on this diagram earlier because i identify as agender i don't really feel like gender sex applies to me the bottom of the diagram is for indicating that a component doesn't apply to you so i'll put a dot there and a zero percent on the strength scale so now we know the different pieces of the gender sex diagram but gender sex isn't the only component we're interested in remember gender and sex we're also going to ask you about those first let's go over the gender diagram remember we use gender to mean characteristics related to masculinity femininity and gender diversity this diagram is very similar to the gender sex diagram but instead of woman man and gender sex this diagram will include the terms masculine feminine and gender let's see how some of the people we met before might use this diagram [Music] i'd place myself at feminine i have really short hair which some might see is not very feminine but it feels feminine to me being feminine resonates with me i feel like i really relate to femininity so i'll put orientation next to this dot however i'm a little more masculine at work so i'll put a dot more towards masculine and indicate that it's my status at work i'll put this strength at 100 gender is definitely a big part of who i am this is also a good time to introduce another part of the diagram that might help you think about your location see these blue lines they represent levels of specificity this dotted line is the most specific area because it represents one particular gender then locations get less and less specific as you go down this dotted line is the least specific area because it represents multiple genders since my orientation is specifically feminine a high level of specificity makes sense to me however my status is both masculine and feminine so that location is less specific i'd say i'm a little bit feminine but more masculine i also like playing around with all types of gender expression i can never just pick one so i'll shade region that shows all the ways i like to express my gender this playing around with gender is pretty important to my sense of self so i'll put it at 85 strength jamie here again i see my gender is less about how i look and more about my personality my personality is pretty feminine but not completely so so i'll put a dot right at feminine but at 75 strength the last diagram will be the sex diagram remember we use sex to mean bodily characteristics that are associated with maleness femaleness and sex diversity so instead of masculine feminine and gender this diagram will include the terms male female and sex let's see how some of the people we met before might use this diagram as you might remember i identify as a woman but i also identify as trans i was assigned male at birth so i'll put a dot at male and right at birth i transitioned a few years ago and now my body is female most of the time i'm just female but sometimes i'm reminded that being trans goes against my culture's norms so i'll shade a region on the female side of the diagram that goes across the norm boundary other trans people might use this diagram or the other diagrams differently this is just what makes sense to me being trans is very important to me i'll put it strength at 100 though i feel like my gender and gender sex are non-binary i identify as female and have what i would consider a typical female body so i'll put my dot right at female if i woke up tomorrow and was male i don't think it would change how i think about myself very much so i'll put this strength really low at 10 and that's it we've gone through all three diagrams we're asking you to fill out now it's your turn as you saw there are plenty of different ways to use the diagrams and none of them are more right than any others just fill them out in whatever way makes most sense to you and don't worry there will be reminders of all of this when you're filling out the diagrams