gender identity

Also known as gender identities, gender

person's private sense of, and subjective experience of, their own gender

AI overview

Gender identity is a person's private sense of what their own gender is, based on their inner experience rather than external factors. It matters because it's deeply personal to how people understand themselves and can affect their wellbeing and how they navigate the world.

AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.

Research

39,830 papers

Gender identity development in adolescence.ReviewHormones and behavior · 2013Steensma TD, Kreukels BP, de Vries AL et al.DOI: 10.1016/j.yhbeh.2013.02.020
Neurobiology of gender identity and sexual orientation.ReviewJournal of neuroendocrinology · 2018Roselli CEDOI: 10.1111/jne.12562
Gender Identity and Aggression.ReviewAnnual review of psychology · 2025Bosson JKDOI: 10.1146/annurev-psych-020124-115456
Etiology of Gender Identity.Endocrinology and metabolism clinics of North America · 2019Korpaisarn S, Safer JDDOI: 10.1016/j.ecl.2019.01.002
The Biological Contributions to Gender Identity and Gender Diversity: Bringing Data to the Table.ReviewBehavior genetics · 2018Polderman TJC, Kreukels BPC, Irwig MS et al.DOI: 10.1007/s10519-018-9889-z
Gender identity in schizophrenia.ReviewPsychiatria polska · 2018Stusiński J, Lew-Starowicz MDOI: 10.12740/PP/80958
Sexual differentiation of the human hypothalamus: Relationship to gender identity and sexual orientation.ReviewHandbook of clinical neurology · 2021Swaab DF, Wolff SEC, Bao AMDOI: 10.1016/B978-0-12-820683-6.00031-2
Polycystic Ovary Syndrome and Gender Identity.ReviewThe Yale journal of biology and medicine · 2020Liu M, Murthi S, Poretsky L

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Wikidata facts

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Commons category: Gender identity
NCI Thesaurus ID: C158277

Sources (7)

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Article

Gender identity is the personal sense of one's own gender. Gender identity can correspond to a person's assigned sex or can differ from it. In most individuals, the various biological determinants of sex are congruent and consistent with the individual's gender identity. Gender expression typically reflects a person's gender identity, but this is not always the case. While a person may express behaviors, attitudes, and appearances consistent with a particular gender role, such expression may not necessarily reflect their gender identity. The term gender identity was coined by psychiatry professor Robert J. Stoller in 1964 and popularized by psychologist John Money.

In most societies, there is a basic division between gender attributes associated with males and females, a gender binary to which most people adhere and which includes expectations of masculinity and femininity in all aspects of sex and gender: biological sex, gender identity, gender expression, and sexual orientation. Some people do not identify with some, or all, of the aspects of gender associated with their biological sex; some of those people are transgender, non-binary, or genderqueer. Some societies have third gender categories.