So what about Gender? Gender refers to how people feel and think about who they are as a guy, girl or something else, as opposed to what their physical characteristics, genes and hormones indicate. This is often reflected in the way they dress, speak or move. In other words, you may feel female and have a penis, you may feel male and have a vulva, or maybe you feel like a mix of both male and female, or maybe you don’t identify as either and that’s okay too.

What this all means is that some people end up feeling like they belong to a different gender from one everyone expected them to be in when they were born. these people are often referred to as being ‘trans’, ‘transgender’ or ‘genderqueer’.

Society has very strict rules about what men and women should do and wear, or where they can go. We tend to expect men and women to behave in slightly different ways. We expect men to be ‘masculine’ and women to be ‘feminine’, but really there’s no real reason for this. Women can be masculine if they want, and men can be feminine. People can be an even mix of the two, or something completely different.

For further information on coming out as trans or non-binary, please click here