Glossary /
Gender identity
Formal性别认同 · xingbie rentong · 性别身份
A person's deeply felt, ongoing sense of their own gender — which may or may not match the sex assigned at birth.
Gender identity is a person’s deeply felt, ongoing sense of their own gender: man, woman, or a position outside that binary. It is an internal experience — distinct from assigned sex at birth (what was recorded when you were born) and from gender expression (how you present outwardly). When identity and assigned sex line up, a person is cisgender; when they do not, transgender.
Identity is also independent of sexual orientation: identity answers “who I am,” orientation answers “who I’m drawn to.” The WHO’s ICD-11, adopted in 2019 and in effect since 2022, moved “gender incongruence” out of the mental and behavioural disorders chapter — diversity in gender identity is not an illness. For the bigger picture, see Gender basics.
Register note: 性别认同 (xingbie rentong) is the standard Chinese rendering in formal and academic writing; 性别身份 (“gender status/identity”) also appears. In everyday speech people more often just say “I feel that I am…”
Common misreading: treating gender identity as identification with gender stereotypes. A woman who never wears dresses and isn’t “gentle” is no less a woman — identity is about who you are, not how well you match a template.