Gender Identity and Sexuality
What is sexuality and sexual orientation?
A person’s sexual orientation, or sexuality, is the part of an individual’s identity that relates to who they find attractive/who they fancy. Some people are attracted to a particular gender/genders and some people are attracted the individual (their morals, value, personality) and for some people it’s a combination of the two.
As children and young people grow up it’s a natural part of development to express their sexuality in different healthy ways. Such as developing relationships, expressing curiosity about sex or physical changes that occur during puberty. For many young people curiosity may extend to experimentation as they continue to explore their sexual identity as they develop.
Within the LGBTQ+ community there are many different types of sexuality or sexual orientation, and young people may express different language or terms to best describe what they feel fits for their experience. Assigning a language to their experience can often help give young people a voice and platform to communicate their struggles with those around them.
What is Gender Identity?
Often when thinking of ‘gender’ people may think of physical body part, clothes or how a person looks and behaves. Within the realm of identity we also have gender identity. This relates to the gender that we identify with, the gender that we know ourselves to be and it is part of our internal sense of self.
For many young people gender identity can be of great importance to who they are as a person and finding the language to express their experience can be difficult. For a young person navigating their way to express and describe their gender in a way that feels comfortable for them can be particularly challenging if this feels different to the one they were assigned to at birth.
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Gender identity doesn’t mean you have to wear certain clothes or look a certain way either. Everyone is unique and has their own style and presentation. For some young people a natural curiosity to express themselves in different ways can be part of their gender expression.
The Genderbread person can be a useful tool to help young people explore further who they feel they are and what best fits for them.