Gender is different to sex which is assigned to someone at birth, typically male or female, and relates to the biological aspects of an individual which are determined by their anatomy. Gender identify is distinct from sex and gender and refers to an individual’s personal concept about their gender and how they feel inside.  Gender is now recognised as being on a continuum rather than binary with increasing numbers of people identifying as somewhere along the continuum or non-binary (not identifying as male or female). (Office for National Statistics, 2019).

Gender produces inequalities that combine with other social categorisations such as ethnicity, disability, age, sexual orientation and socioeconomic status to provide overlapping systems of discrimination, disadvantage or privilege. This is referred to as intersectionality.