What is Gender Identity and How is it different from sexual orientation ?
What is Gender Identity and how is it different from Sexual Orientation? Explained by Dr Trinka Arora
If we talk about gender identity or sexual orientation, there is still confusion about these topics. To clarify these doubts and define them well, Dr Trinka Arora will help.
What is gender dysphoria?
Dysphoria basically stands for uneasiness or dissatisfaction. So what gender dysphoria means is that there is an uneasiness or dissatisfaction with your biological gender, say if you were assigned male at birth and then you aren’t comfortable being male.
What is gender identity?
Gender Identity is how you would define your identity and how you would perceive yourself. What is your personal experience with things like these? It depends on how you feel so if you are a female and you feel like one then that’s how you would like to present yourself. The same would go for if you were male. So it is all about how I see my own identity. What is it that I understand about my gender?
What is sexual orientation?
So sexual orientation stands for your sexual, or romantic attraction and which side does it lean to? Is it towards the same gender or the opposite gender?
What is the difference between gender identity and sexual orientation?
Identity is how you see yourself and understand yourself. On the other hand, orientation talks about where your attraction lies.
A lot of the time people overlap the two and see them as two concepts that are interlinked with each other solidly. But is there a difference between the two?
They are two sides of the same coin, says Dr Trinka. What you think about yourself and how you proceed with that feeling are both captured in this. How you feel would lead you to how you want to show your attraction, as well.