Living in a small town, many beliefs and ideas are ignored and sheltered. The big world is not exposed to us in daily life, but only through the media and news. One of the ideas that has not reached small towns is the argument of genders. If you go on Twitter, you can find bios from celebrities with “she/her/hers,” “he/him/his,” or “they/them.” After doing a lot of research, I have learned more on the topic of genders in order to educate more small town people like me, who prior to this, had little knowledge over this subject. 

To begin, gender and sex do not have the same definition. Gender is who a person aspires to be. If someone is a male but feels they are a female, then female is their gender, and vice versa. The specific organs someone has when they are born is their sex. This can change if someone wants to be another gender. People who are transgender identify with the opposite sex as what they were born. When people go through surgery to change their sex organs, they are transexual. Those who identify as their born sex are considered cisgender. 

Binary is a basic term for male or female. There are people who do not identify as either male or female, and this is called non-binary. Their gender is referred to as agender. Genderfluid people fluctuate between male and female, whereas bigender people often feel as though they are both genders. Polygender people identify as numerous genders at once. Gender apathetic people do not care what they are or who they are perceived as, and they do not have any opinions toward their gender. Intergender is when people identify, between male and female, while demigender people may identify as one part male/female and another part undefined. 

There are also many different sexualities. Most people understand straight, homosexual, lesbian, and bisexual, but pansexual is when people are attracted to all genders, and they do not have a sense of a attraction to a certain gender. Polysexual is similiar to pansexual, and monosexual is when people are attracted to only one gender. Asexual is when people do not feel any sexual attraction to anyone. 

There is also a difference between sexual and romantic orientation. There are people who can have a sexual orientation with a specific gender, while having a romantic orientation at the same time with no specific gender. This is referred to as varioriented. The opposite of this term is periorinated, where people are both attracted and romantically involved with the same gender. 

There are many different terms that describe every specific person as who they may be. These terms are important to know. For anyone who may be interested in learning more terms that are not listed here, I linked a URL below that will take you to a website with all the terms and the definitions. 

http://thepbhscloset.weebly.com/a-list-of-genders–sexualities-and-their-definitions.html