# Gender > “A socially constructed system that gives meaning to masculinity and femininity and that unevenly distributes power and opportunity according to cultural interpretations of sex. As an element of personal identity, a gender is developed through the interaction of social roles and expectations, one’s response to those expectations, one’s physiology, and one’s internal sense of self. Gender is culturally specific, meaning that different cultures have different understandings of what gender means and how many genders should be recognized.”[^1] - *See also:* - [[Gender vs. sex]] - and [[Gender studies]] --- + [[Gender expression]] + [[Femininity]] + [[Masculinity]] + [[Gender identity]] + [[Gender dysphoria]] + [[Gender--China]] --- ## Gender identity re. the novel *[[Nights at the Circus]]*: > Gender identities are positioned within an interrogation of cultural mythologies of gender, as well as a question of the whole problem of “authenticity”: Am I fact or fiction? asks Fevvers.[^2] --- ## Law and legislation ### USA > fun fact: US passports did not have a field for gender at all until the 1970s, and explicitly as a response to more and more people adopting an androgynous gender presentation. US officials have publicly joked that it was added because of david bowie. > > gender markers on state documents exist solely as a means of social control and re-sexing bodies with ambiguous sex signifiers. allowing a third sex on these documents only serves to validate them and provide clearer targets for scrutiny[^3] [^1]: ‘Gender’, *[['Homosaurus - An International LGBTQ+ Linked Data Vocabulary' (website)|Homosaurus: An International LGBTQ+ Linked Data Vocabulary]]*, updated 23 February 2025, https://homosaurus.org/v4/homoit0000560. [^2]: Buck, *Bloomsbury Guide to Women’s Literature*, p. 861, via: Consuelo Rivera-Fuentes, ‘[[Rivera-Fuentes. ‘Gender and Hybridity’, 2000.|Gender and Hybridity: The Significance of Human/Animal Characters in Magic Realist Fiction]]’, *Animal Issues*, vol. 4, no. 1 (2000), p. 42. [^3]: [email protected] \[pseud.], screencapped and re-shared via: nando161mando \[pseud.], ‘fun fact …’, *@nando161mando* (Tumblr blog), 9 March 2025, 6:57 AM, https://www.tumblr.com/nando161mando/777481171147898880.