GENDER: Refers to the socially constructed roles, behaviors, activities, and attributes that a given society considers appropriate for men and women. Gender varies between cultures and over time. There is broad variation in which individuals experience and express gender.

GENDER IDENTITY: How one feels inside. One’s internal, deeply felt sense of being girl/woman, boy/man, somewhere in between, or outside these categories.

SEX: One’s biological and physical attributes – external genitalia, sex chromosomes, hormones, and internal reproductive structures that are used to assign a sex at birth (female/male/intersex). Also referred to as biological sex, anatomical sex or assigned birth sex.

GENDER BINARY: The idea that there are only two distinct and very different genders. Female/Male.

GENDER CONTINUUM / SPECTRUM: The idea that gender is a continuum with many ways to express oneself as a person.

GENDER EXPRESSION: How one expresses him/herself to the world. We express our gender through our clothes, hairstyle, mannerisms, speech patterns, body language, social interactions, or choice of activities. People express their gender along a continuum from feminine to masculine.

TRANSGENDER: A person born with sex characteristics that are different than how that person identifies his/her gender. As a result, someone who is transgender may choose to cross dress, take hormones and/or surgically alter his/her body to be more in line with his/her gender identity.

(Source for all definitions: http://www.welcomingschools.org/pages/a-few-definitions-for-educators-and-parents-guardians)