Introducing the Genderbread Person v6.0

The Genderbread Person has been around for quite a while as a nice tool to explain gender, sex, and sexual orientation. The website https://www.itspronouncedmetrosexual.com/ has as latest version v4.0, which is from 2017, and which I feel falls short on several aspects. This is why I created version 5.0 in December 2022, and now I created this slightly improved version – version 6.0. I am aware that it will fall short on several aspects, but I feel I can explain my own gender and attraction much better using this version than version 4.0.

As write Alex Iantaffi in their fantastic book Gender Trauma, “in dominant Western paradigms it is assumed either that gender is separate from biology and completely social and cultural, or that it is inevitably linked to external physical characteristics, such as our genitals and secondary sex characteristics. If this seems contradictory, it’s because it is!” So don’t worry if you’re confused. You are probably not alone. Below I try to explain the concepts behind the genderbread person v6.0, as I understand them, and as an example I will use myself.

Gender identity

Gender identity is all about you, how you identify yourself. It is usually defined as an inner sense of who you are. However, as Alex Iantaffi and Meg-John Barker write, “this inner sense of our identity does not exist in isolation from the world around us. Our inner sense of self is influenced by many aspects of our lives. For example, it’s shaped by language, family of origin, culture, place, race, ethnicity, historical moment, socioeconomic status, class, embodied experiences, and how others react to and interact with us.”

Personally, I identify as genderqueer, which can be seen as falling under the umbrella term of non-binary identities. Non-binary identities are all those identities that don’t fall neatly into either male or female. And there are many of them. And even if you don’t identify as non-binary, I doubt there are many people who can rightly put one of the two gendered scales at 100% and the other at 0%.

The Genderbread Person v4.0 only allowed me to represent my gender identity based on a combination of male-ness and female-ness, which is not how I identify. I could identify as agender, which is usually understood as having no gender identity, and then you just put male-ness and female-ness at zero. But that’s not how I identify. I do think I have a gender identity, I just don’t think it is composed of male-ness and female-ness. I would put both of these scales at zero, and the other scale at 100%. But that’s me.

Gender expression

Alex Iantaffi and Meg-John Barker define gender expression as “how your inner sense of self (your identity) is expressed outwardly. Gender expression refers to the ways we talk and move, the clothes and shoes we wear, how we do our hair, and how we might manifest this sense of self through make-up, accessories, and how we interact with others and the environment around us.” Gender expression is in general mixed up with social expectations of gender, and people will usually “read” our gender based on our gender expression.

Alex and Meg-John go on: “People around us might often make assumptions about our gender identity based on our gender expression, even though these may or may not match up.”

This is, for example, why asking someones pronoun is so important (even though the pronoun used/preferred is just that, a pronoun, and might also not reflect the gender identity). The pronoun will at least give you an idea how someone wants to be addressed, even though, given the complexity of language, politics, and potentially also issues of safety, the pronoun might also not represent someones gender identity. But, it’s nevertheless better than just make assumptions based on someones gender expression.

Again, I added a scale which has nothing to do with femininity or masculinity, as I don’t think gender expression is only made up of things which are gendered. For example, is long hair nowadays still seen as female? I doubt it, as many rock musicians have long hair, but rock music is extremely masculine. Or take the rocker and biker culture, where long hair can be extremely masculine. Long hair is also an example how different aspects can change their gender marker. In the 1950s or 1960s, I would say that long hair clearly would have been linked with a feminine gender expression (in Western Europe), but in the 2020s it is different.

Your gender expression can vary throughout the day, depending on whether you are at work, with your queer friends, or with family. Gender expression is also something you can experiment and play with. You can try out things at home to see how you feel, and if things feel good maybe explore how you safe feel expressing your gender that way around other people (and where and with whom). How you express your gender publicly can have an impact on your safety, depending on how people read you, or might lead to discrimination. Do you want to be “out” as trans or non-binary at work? With family?

For trans* or non-binary people this is a complicated one. As Hil Malatino writes in “Trans Care”: “Most of us find Eurocentric myths of maximal agency, atomistic selfhood, and radical self-possession a really hard sell. We lack the privilege of having an uncomplicated “I” (and the ability to conjure oneself into such an “I” is always a product of privilege, to be sure). Recognition comes to us in the form of a gift—though we tell others what pronouns to use, what names, how to refer to us, we’re also thrown directly into a series of complicated ratiocinations as we attempt to infer how others are understanding their conferral of gender unto us.” Malatino quotes McKenzie Wark as saying, “The way I read it ... is that it’s always in the gift of the other. It’s not “mine.” I rely on the gift of the other to have it [gender, A.S.] at all. (…) If you start, first, with just the dyad, a me and a you, then one starts as a supplicant, requiring that the other give gender back to me. And for us, for trans people, it’s in the way we are asking; in that, for us to be free to be ourselves is to insist that others give recognition to our gender.”

I think this is even more difficult for non-binary people, as most people have a very binary view of gender, so even if you express yourself androgynous, or in other ways non-binary, most likely people will return to you a binary gender. Shit!

What’s my gender expression? I’m not even sure, and I have never given it much thought. I wear a combination of female-coded and male-coded (or unisex) clothing, and probably my gender expression is more feminine, and certainly has become more feminine in the last years. My body language has never been particulary masculine (if at all masculine), and a certain feminization of my body as a consequence of taking oestrogens contributes to a more feminine gender expression, bordering on “cis-passing” as a woman (it certainly happens much more nowadays that people read me as a woman than as a man – and almost never as non-binary), even though that had never been my objective.

Sex (Anatomical Sex)

But sex, then, is simple, no? There are just males and females? I’m sorry, but no. Sex, or anatomical sex, is also much more complicated. Still, here I did not add a third scale to the “male” and “female” scales present in version 4.0 of the Genderbread Person.

Anatomical sex is a combination of several things: chromosomal sex (XX or XY chromosomes, but that’s not the full story either), genital sex (penis and scrotum or clitoris, vagina and ovaries), hormone levels (testosterone and estrogen) and secondary sex characteristics after puberty (body hair, voice pitch, breasts, fat distribution, muscle mass, …). Given that we are dealing with several aspects that make up anatomical sex, these do not necessarily all need to point in the same direction, and that’s when it gets complicated (more on intersex below). Some aspects of anatomical sex can be changed (taking hormones will change your hormone levels and cause your secondary sex characteristics to change, gender affirming surgery will change your genital sex), others are more or less fixed (your chromosomal sex).

Intersex

Intersex is a wide variety of conditions where a person is neither fully male or fully female. For example, someone can be born with the appearance of being male (penis, scrotum, etc.), but have a functional female reproductive system inside. Or a person might have XY chromosomes, but androgen insensitivity syndrome, meaning their body is blind to the testosterone produced, and so they will be born with female genitals and develop female secondary sex characteristics during puberty.

There are many examples of how intersex can present itself. It is estimated that one in hundred people doesn’t fit neatly into the male-female binary, biologically.

Source: Fausto-Sterling, 2012

Sex Assigned At Birth (SAAB)

When a human is born, they usually get assigned a sex based on their external genitalia – penis and scrotum means male, clitoris and vagina means female. Usually, nobody does a DNA test to determine their chromosomal sex, nor will anyone check if their external genitalia match their internal plumbing. Only if there are doubts, that is, when the external genitalia are not clearly identifyable or there are a combination of different external genitalia, will more checks be performed, or the newborn will be assigned intersex in those countries where this option exists.

Usually, Sex Assigned At Birth determines the Assigned Gender At Birth. The assumption is that someone who is assigned female will develop a female gender identity. This assumption that gender identity matched Sex Assigned At Birth is called cisgenderism.

What’s my anatomical sex? I was assigned male at birth (AMAB), but started to take estrogen a few years ago, which changed my hormone levels. Even though I don’t take anti-androgens (which would block the synthesis of testosterone), my testosterone levels were very low in the last blood test (probably below the testosterone level of most women, and clearly well below what’s considered typical for males), and my oestrogen levels where somewhere at the lower end of what’s considered typical for females. As a consequence of the extra estrogen in my body, I developed some secondary sex characteristics which are considered female, above all breasts, but also a smoother skin and a changed fat distribution. This means my anatomical sex is no longer clearly male, even though I have male genitalia.

Attraction

When we talk about attraction, usually sexual attraction, romantic attraction, and what I for now call nurturing attraction are all lumped together into sexual orientation – you are either attracted to women or to men, and if that’s called homosexual or heterosexual depends on your own gender. The reality is much more complex.

For a starter, mixing who you are attracted to with your own gender does not really make sense, at least not to me. And then this neat binary of homosexual or heterosexual does not allow for genders beyond the binary, or for more variety. We can add bisexual, to account for people who feel attracted to both, males and females, or pansexual, for those who don’t distinguish by gender. Still, this remains oversimplistic.

As Alex Iantaffi, Meg-John Barker, Julia Scheele and Sari van Anders explain in the excellent zine on Sexual Configurations Theory (a theory developed by Sari van Anders):

“A major problem is that most models of sexuality focus narrowly on one aspect of sexuality: the gender of the people we’re attracted to. Other features of our sexuality that we could equally pay attention to include the following, and many more. You might want to think which are relevant to you, and in what ways:

• Our levels of sexual attraction (from none to high)

• Physical aspects of attraction that aren’t related to gender (e.g. smile, eye colour, or body shape & size)

• The number of partners we like to have (from none to many)

• The age or experience of people we’re attracted to in relation to our own

• Whether our sexuality is linked to power, and where we like to be in relation to that (e.g. dominant, submissive, both or neither)

• Roles we like to play sexually (e.g. active or passive, initiating or receiving)

• The kinds of sensations, fantasies, & experiences we enjoy sexually.”

And this is just the beginning… To get some of it into the Genderbread Person (and be able to express my own attraction) I added a third scale (other gender(s) and aspects) to sexual and romantic expression, and added two more attractions, “sentimental attraction” and “sensual attraction”.

According to Nahum Montagud Rubio in an article on the website Psicología y Mente, "Sentimental attraction is similar to romantic attraction, since it is related to the most sentimental and emotional aspect of an interpersonal relationship. However, in this case the feelings do not necessarily have to be romantic or amorous (...)". This is something I do feel on occasion, there are some people I am attracted to in this way. I feel intense feelings, but I have no desire to establish a couple relationship with this person (no matter if we are talking about a monogamous couple or a couple in a polyamorous framework).

According to the same article, "Sensual or sensory attraction has to do with physical contact, but does not necessarily imply a sexual relationship, but rather a relationship of closeness and proximity.

We say that a relationship is sensual when caresses, hugs, cuddles and closeness take centre stage. We are sensually attracted to a person when we want to experience the other person with our senses, we want to feel them close to us." Again, even though I am asexual, I do feel sensual attraction to certain people.

In the same zine, it says: “Some people are not sexually attracted to other people at all, or they are drawn to them but do not experience sexual feelings. Some people might be emotionally and romantically attracted to other people, and others may not. We may experience sexual attraction (lust) towards someone but have no romantic feelings of love for them, or love them but have no lustful feelings.”

Not feeling sexually attracted to other people at all is usually called asexual. This is not an all or nothing, but rather can be considered a spectrum. Not feeling romantically attracted to others is usually called aromantic, which again can be seen on a spectrum. A romantic relation in this sense is considered some kind of partner relationship, be that a monogamous relationship or one of several partner relationships in a polyamorous setting.

In her book “All About Love”, bell hooks refers to a definition of love by M. Scott Peck. According to this, love is “the will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth.” Without going into the question what we might call “spiritual growth”, I like this definition, as it separates love from sexual and romantic attraction. Also, love is more seen as an action than as just an emotion.

I felt the need to add “sentimental attraction” and "sensual attraction", as I consider myself asexual and aromantic, but do feel attraction and possibly even love (in the sense mentioned above), but without that being linked to the desire to form some kind of partner relationship. I feel attraction and I think I have several nurturing relationships, which are neither romantic nor sexual…

Feel free to send me your comments via my contact form. All this is still work in progress.

Resources:

• Alex Iantaffi: Gender Trauma. Healing Cultural, Social and Historical Gendered Trauma. 2021
• Alex Iantaffi and Meg-John Barker: How to Understand your Gender. A Practical Guide for Exploring Who You Are. 2018
• Hil Malatino: Trans Care, 2020 (read online at https://manifold.umn.edu/projects/trans-care)
• Anne Fausto-Sterling: Sex/Gender. Biology in a Social World, 2012
• Alex Iantaffi, Meg-John Barker, Julia Scheele and Sari van Anders: Mapping Your Sexuality. From Sexual Orientation to Sexual Configurations Theory, 2018. Download at https://www.alexiantaffi.com/s/mappingyoursexuality.pdf
• bell hooks: All About Love. New Visions. 2018
• Nahum Montagud Rubio: Los 6 tipos de atracción entre personas, Web Psicología y Mente, 3 de junio de 2021, https://psicologiaymente.com/social/tipos-atraccion-personas