What is it exactly? Is it how you are as opposed to how you want to be? Or is it gender roles, the societal femininity/masculinity? But then being transgender, being mentally something other than designated at birth - do you think it's being more like the other gender than your own / reassembling neither? But if gender expression is natural - does it count to identity then or is it separate? Than would a person who naturally takes on a mixed set of roles count as non-binary? Sorry if that's stupid questions, but it's not obvious for me.
Gender identity = I'm a woman Gender expression = how I behave while being a woman. We call expression to be masculine/feminine because of how society defines the two, and also because there is a statistical likelihood for women to be feminine and for men to be masculine. Identity is your inner definition of you. I'm into swords, guns and knives, I like to climb dangerous mountains. Does that make me less of a woman? No, it only makes me a less popular version of a woman, because my gender expression is different than for most women. There's really no catch here. Identity = who you are. Expresssion = your behaviour. Nothing to read in between the lines or anything. Of course there are statistical connections, but those form no norm one needs to conform to. It's just like most people are into pop music, yet nothing makes you less human for not liking it.
But how do you tell the two apart? Is it that it's just one interest/ area of interests compared to a ton of other ways you relate to people. I feel like my radar exploded and need to recallibrate it. There is this one person whom I feel to be a butch woman, but he identifies as male. But then - I feel myself to be a man the same way, so...? And there is no obvious tell, so I guess it's the general tendency of "tells"? How do you know your gender? I think I'm crazing myself out again. Stupid me for hanging out with this person. They must be either in some sort of deep denial about either gender or sexuality, or both.Or manipulating. This person was assigned male.
Let's say you're a cis guy. And you're wearing a pink frilly skirt and bra. That way you can easily tell which is which, right? Your gender identity is 'guy'. Your gender expression is 'whatever gendering society applies to your expression (in this case clothing).
Aha, so gender expression is the way you get gendered, regardless of who you are, and for whatever reason? The situation changes when this guy likes to dress like a woman a lot. What then? Okey, I'll anwser myself, depends why - if it's the idea of being a woman socially or the clothes by themselves. I already had that epiphany what pronouns are for, that they signify some sort of personhood and identification. I feel like questioning myself and my feelings and thoughts and intuitions is something I was conditioned to do and have always been doing. I need to stop and include this thought on the list of those I should ignore and eat something instead to make myself feel better. (I didn't eat anything today, because I'm crazing myself out) I'm going to get myself some cake.
No, it is how you present yourself. If you appear (visual and/or behaviour) to be a man, then your gender expression is male. You may or may not identify as male, but that is how you are presenting yourself to the world.
Gender expression is separate from gender identity as well. You can be masculine and not be male, and be feminine but not be female.
Gender expression is behaving in stereotypically masculine or feminine ways. It is separate from gender identity (feeling like a man or woman). A cis woman can be masculine, and a cis man can be feminine. But they are still cis. They have a separate gender expression and not gender identity. The same applies to trans people. When I think of knowing about your gender, I think of it in terms of physical or social dysphoria. A trans person may feel uncomfortable with parts of their body, such as their genitalia, breasts, voice, muscle mass, and more. Likewise, they may not have much physical dysphoria but instead have social dysphoria where they desire he/her/they pronouns, and have the physical shape of the brain of the opposite "sex". This is how I define gender identity, but others may have different definitions. Defining it by interests and stereotypes is not gender. Ages ago it was the norm for men to wear dress like outfits, while pink was a boy's color and blue was a girl's color. If that is what transgender meant, then there were no such thing as real women or men in other cultures. My uncle is cis and he likes cooking, cleaning, flowers, knitting and cats. He might get teased for it, but he is a man. You can also be a trans man and prefer to wear dresses and makeup because you like it. I know many trans guys who wear dresses in private. A lot of things we define as gender expression, masculine, and feminine are sexist, and we as a community- whether we are trans or cis- need to move away from these things. What I mean is that it is ok to like these things, but It's not right to gender them and define identity by these things. It puts people into a limited box, consider 100% of everyone has both masculine and feminine qualities to them.
