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Gender
Also written: sex
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At a glance
Source-by-source
“The spectrum of masculinity, femininity, gender expansive, and nonbinary status that includes expression, identity, behavior, and sociocultural constructions. … Sex usually refers to biological features … whereas gender is "a set of socially constructed roles, behaviors, activities, and attributes that a given society considers appropriate" …”
APA goes further than the other two: where they call gender "distinct from sex," APA models it as a spectrum (masculinity, femininity, gender-expansive, nonbinary) rather than a pair of options, and casts it as socially constructed roles a given society deems appropriate. Its worked example decodes the difference in practice — "I am a cisgender woman" (gender) versus "I was born a female" (sex).
“Gender is a social and psychological experience of self, distinct from sex, which refers to biological characteristics. Both are typically assigned at birth, based on visible anatomy, but that assignment may not align with a person's actual gender identity.”
NLGJA's distinctive move is operational: it explains that both sex and gender are typically assigned at birth from visible anatomy, then flags that this single anatomy-based assignment can split — the assigned sex and the actual gender identity need not align. Its companion "sex" entry (male, female, or intersex) carries the matching rule that sex is "not synonymous with gender."
2026 · entry updated 2023-08-25 VERIFIED-ARCHIVED
“A person's sex is a biological condition determined by primary and secondary sex characteristics, and may be male, female, or neither (see intersex). Sex is not synonymous with gender, which is a social and personal identity.”
TJA is the entry that approaches the distinction from the sex side and admits a third value — sex may be "male, female, or neither" (intersex), not a clean binary. Rather than dwell on defining gender, it routes readers to "assigned sex at birth," the framing it prefers over "biological sex."
Audience notes
- Journalists and editors
- Gender and sex are not the same thing, and the sources ask writers to be precise about which one a story is addressing. Use "gender" for the social and personal experience of self; reserve sex terms for biological characteristics, and prefer "assigned sex at birth" over "biological sex" outside quoted scientific or legal language.
- When a story conflates the two
- NLGJA's rule is to be precise — "same-sex/different-sex" and "same-gender/different-gender" can carry different meanings in stories about marriage or relationships. When the distinction matters, separate sex assigned at birth, gender identity, and gender expression rather than collapsing them into one word.
- Advocates and internal comms
- Treat "gender" as an evolving, contested concept the way the sources do — APA frames it as a spectrum, not a binary, and recommends affirming how communities and individuals describe themselves. Self-identification is primary; lead with how a person identifies rather than with an assigned category.
Synthesis
All three sources draw the same line: gender is not sex. NLGJA (2025) defines gender as “a social and psychological experience of self, distinct from sex, which refers to biological characteristics,” and its separate “sex” entry adds that sex, classifying someone as male, female, or intersex, is “not synonymous with gender.” The Trans Journalists Association (entry updated 2023-08-25) says it just as plainly: sex is “a biological condition determined by primary and secondary sex characteristics,” and “is not synonymous with gender, which is a social and personal identity.” The American Psychological Association (2023) defines gender as a spectrum of masculinity, femininity, gender-expansive, and nonbinary status and contrasts it with sex as biological features, offering the worked example “I am a cisgender woman” versus “I was born a female.”
The sources differ in emphasis rather than substance. NLGJA states the distinction operationally for newsrooms: be precise about whether a story is about sex, gender, or the relationship between them, since “same-sex/different-sex” and “same-gender/different-gender” can mean different things in marriage and relationship coverage. APA describes gender as a spectrum and a sociocultural construction, and stresses self-description and a global, non-WEIRD-centric view of how gender is conceptualized. TJA keeps its definition compact and points readers toward “assigned sex at birth,” the language it prefers over “biological sex.” None of the three treats “gender” as a word to avoid. The recommendation across the set is to use it with care: precisely, and not as a synonym for sex.
Across the recent entries (APA 2023; TJA’s “sex” entry updated August 2023; NLGJA 2025) the distinction holds steady: sex is a biological classification assigned at birth, gender is a social and personal identity that may or may not align with that assignment. This page pairs with gender identity (the internal sense of one’s own gender), gender binary (the man/woman framework the sources describe as an oversimplification), and biological sex (the sex-side term the corpus asks writers to handle carefully).
Audience notes
See the structured audience notes above: journalists should keep gender (social and personal) and sex (biological) distinct and be precise about which a story addresses; writers covering marriage, relationships, or policy should separate sex assigned at birth, gender identity, and gender expression rather than collapsing them; and advocates should treat gender as a self-identified spectrum, leading with how a person identifies.
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