Sexuality defined

As I was trying to decide what I would write about this week for Sexuality Sunday, Julie Andrews as Maria in The Sound of Music (one of my all time favorite movies) started singing “Let’s start at the very beginning.  A very good place to start.”

I decided to take her advice after realizing I have never actually defined sexuality and what it covers.  

Sexuality covers biological sex, gender identity,

gender expression, and attraction (orientation).

Biological sex aka gender assigned at birth

Is defined as the chromosomes, hormones, and sex organs identifiable at birth.  These include:

•             Female – having a vagina and clitoris
•             Male – having a penis and testes
•             Intersex – having both female and male sex organs

Gender identity

Is defined as how a person thinks about themselves and feels internally.  These include:

• Female
• Male
• Transgender
• Non-binary

Gender expression

Is defined as how a person chooses to express or demonstrate their gender identity.  This can include feminine, masculine, and non-binary.

Attraction aka orientation

Who a person is emotionally, physically, romantically and/or spiritually attracted to in expressing feelings of affection and sexually.

Other than biological sex, there are many ways to label, explain and understand the various aspects of sexuality.  I will dive deeper into these in future blogs as it can be a lot of information.