How many gender are there for human beings

Individuals who identify as nonbinary can experience gender a variety of ways, including a combination of male and female, neither male nor female, or something else altogether. Whether a nonbinary person also identifies as trans is often dependent on the extent to which that person identifies, even partially, with the sex or gender assigned to them at birth. A nonbinary gender identity that describes people who experience all or many gender identities on the gender spectrum simultaneously or over time.

This gender identity term describes the experience of having multiple gender identities, simultaneously or over time. The classification of a person as male, female, or intersex based on the existing system of organizing human bodies and biologies.

This system is based on chromosomes, hormones, internal and external reproductive organs, and secondary sex characteristics. This refers to the act of assigning or designating a particular sex to a person based on their chromosomes, hormones, internal and external reproductive organs, and secondary sex characteristics.

Both a gender identity and term used to describe the nonconforming gender expression of someone who embodies traits associated with female butchness or stereotypes associated with traditional masculinity.

The act of making physical, social, medical, surgical, interpersonal, or personal changes that help to affirm gender or address gender dysphoria. This gender identity describes the experience of having three gender identities, simultaneously or over time.

This umbrella term was created by native communities to bring traditional indigenous understandings of gender and sexuality into Western and contemporary native education and literature. Each First Nation tribe has its own understanding and meaning of what it means to be two-spirit, so this term can have many definitions.

Two-spirit generally refers to a gender role believed to be a common, acknowledged, accepted, and praised gender classification among most First Nation communities, dating back centuries. Becoming familiar with language that helps you to talk about this part of identity and society is a great way to care for yourself and be an ally to others.

Mere Abrams is a researcher, writer, educator, consultant, and licensed clinical social worker who reaches a worldwide audience through public speaking, publications, social media meretheir , and gender therapy and support services practice onlinegendercare. Mere uses their personal experience and diverse professional background to support individuals exploring gender and help institutions, organizations, and businesses to increase gender literacy and identify opportunities to demonstrate gender inclusion in products, services, programs, projects, and content.

The relationship people have with their bodies is more complex than their Instagram caption or photo. When it comes to giving compliments, try this…. The pandemic is harming Asian Americans. We can change that. Culture refers to the ideas, customs, and behaviors of a group of people or a society.

This article explains all you need to know about cultural…. But beyond this, there could be even more variation. Since the s, researchers have identified more than 25 genes involved in DSDs, and next-generation DNA sequencing in the past few years has uncovered a wide range of variations in these genes that have mild effects on individuals, rather than causing DSDs. A DSD called congenital adrenal hyperplasia CAH , for example, causes the body to produce excessive amounts of male sex hormones; XX individuals with this condition are born with ambiguous genitalia an enlarged clitoris and fused labia that resemble a scrotum.

It is usually caused by a severe deficiency in an enzyme called hydroxylase. But women carrying mutations that result in a milder deficiency develop a 'non-classical' form of CAH, which affects about 1 in 1, individuals; they may have male-like facial and body hair, irregular periods or fertility problems—or they might have no obvious symptoms at all. Another gene, NR5A1 , is currently fascinating researchers because variations in it cause a wide range of effects, from underdeveloped gonads to mild hypospadias in men, and premature menopause in women.

Many people never discover their condition unless they seek help for infertility, or discover it through some other brush with medicine. Last year, for example, surgeons reported that they had been operating on a hernia in a man, when they discovered that he had a womb. The man was 70, and had fathered four children. Studies of DSDs have shown that sex is no simple dichotomy. But things become even more complex when scientists zoom in to look at individual cells.

The common assumption that every cell contains the same set of genes is untrue. Some people have mosaicism: they develop from a single fertilized egg but become a patchwork of cells with different genetic make-ups.

This can happen when sex chromosomes are doled out unevenly between dividing cells during early embryonic development. For example, an embryo that starts off as XY can lose a Y chromosome from a subset of its cells. If most cells end up as XY, the result is a physically typical male, but if most cells are X, the result is a female with a condition called Turner's syndrome, which tends to result in restricted height and underdeveloped ovaries.

This kind of mosaicism is rare, affecting about 1 in 15, people. The effects of sex-chromosome mosaicism range from the prosaic to the extraordinary.

A few cases have been documented in which a mosaic XXY embryo became a mix of two cell types—some with two X chromosomes and some with two Xs and a Y—and then split early in development.

This results in 'identical' twins of different sexes. There is a second way in which a person can end up with cells of different chromosomal sexes. James's patient was a chimaera: a person who develops from a mixture of two fertilized eggs, usually owing to a merger between embryonic twins in the womb. Another form of chimaerism, however, is now known to be widespread.

Termed microchimaerism, it happens when stem cells from a fetus cross the placenta into the mother's body, and vice versa. It was first identified in the early s—but the big surprise came more than two decades later, when researchers discovered how long these crossover cells survive, even though they are foreign tissue that the body should, in theory, reject.

A study in recorded women with fetal cells in their blood as many as 27 years after giving birth; another found that maternal cells remain in children up to adulthood. This type of work has further blurred the sex divide, because it means that men often carry cells from their mothers, and women who have been pregnant with a male fetus can carry a smattering of its discarded cells. Microchimaeric cells have been found in many tissues. In , for example, immunologist Lee Nelson and her team at the University of Washington in Seattle found XY cells in post-mortem samples of women's brains.

The oldest woman carrying male DNA was 94 years old. Other studies have shown that these immigrant cells are not idle; they integrate into their new environment and acquire specialized functions, including in mice at least forming neurons in the brain.

But what is not known is how a peppering of male cells in a female, or vice versa, affects the health or characteristics of a tissue—for example, whether it makes the tissue more susceptible to diseases more common in the opposite sex. Scientists are now finding that XX and XY cells behave in different ways, and that this can be independent of the action of sex hormones.

He and his colleagues have shown that the dose of X chromosomes in a mouse's body can affect its metabolism, and studies in a lab dish suggest that XX and XY cells behave differently on a molecular level, for example with different metabolic responses to stress. The next challenge, says Arnold, is to uncover the mechanisms.

His team is studying the handful of X-chromosome genes now known to be more active in females than in males. Biologists may have been building a more nuanced view of sex, but society has yet to catch up. True, more than half a century of activism from members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community has softened social attitudes to sexual orientation and gender. Many societies are now comfortable with men and women crossing conventional societal boundaries in their choice of appearance, career and sexual partner.

But when it comes to sex, there is still intense social pressure to conform to the binary model. This pressure has meant that people born with clear DSDs often undergo surgery to 'normalize' their genitals.

Such surgery is controversial because it is usually performed on babies, who are too young to consent, and risks assigning a sex at odds with the child's ultimate gender identity—their sense of their own gender.

Some people identify as a man, while others identify as a woman. Others may identify as neither, both, or somewhere in-between. This refers to how a person expresses themselves to others and how they want the world to see them.

A person may present themselves as wholly masculine or wholly feminine. Or, a person may present themselves as androgynous or nonbinary. Gender expression and presentation involve aspects such as mannerisms, clothing styles, names, and pronoun choices, to name a few. A person who is agender does not identify with any particular gender, or they may have no gender at all. A person who identifies as androgyne has a gender that is either both masculine and feminine or between masculine and feminine.

A person who identifies as bigender has two genders. Women, especially lesbians, tend to use this term to describe the way they express masculinity, or what society defines as masculinity.

For example, a cisgender woman is someone who still identifies with the sex — female, in this case — a doctor assigned them at birth. Genderqueer can also refer to a person who identifies outside of how society defines gender or someone who identifies with a combination of genders.

A person who uses this term is usually a lesbian or a trans person who leans more toward masculine performances and experiences of gender. People who are nonbinary may also experience overlap with different gender expressions, such as being gender non-conforming. This is an umbrella term that encompasses all people who experience and identify with a different gender than that which their assigned sex at birth would suggest.

Although most people think of trans men and trans women when hearing the word transgender, this term also encompasses people who identify as a gender other than man or woman, including nonbinary and genderfluid.

Two Spirit is an umbrella term that encompasses different sexualities and genders in Indigenous Native American communities. There are many different definitions of Two Spirit , and Indigenous Native American people may or may not use this term to describe their experiences and feelings of masculinity and femininity. This is a cultural term that is reserved for those who identify as an Indigenous Native American.