Gender Identity and Gender Expression
“Gender identity” refers to a person’s internal knowledge of his/her own gender. A person may identify as a gender that does or does not appear to correspond to the sex (male or female) assigned to that person at birth, or the person may identify as neither female nor male. Some individuals whose internal knowledge of their gender is inconsistent with their birth sex may undergo sex transition services.
A person’s presentation of themselves as female, male, androgynous, or as another gender (as evidenced by their manner of dress, speech, or other physical expression) is referred to as “gender expression.” While the gender expression of most people appears to indicate a close match between their birth sex and their gender identity, for others their gender expression may appear not to match their birth sex and/or their gender identity.
Transgender is an umbrella term that encompasses any person who varies from Western society's binary conventions of gender and sex. Examples include a range of identities, including but not limited to: cross dressers, gender queers, drag queens and kings, and transsexual and intersex people. Of those people who feel that their birth sex and/or physical bodies are mismatched with their sense of self, not all identify as transgender.
People must self-identify as “transgender” for the term to be appropriately used to describe them. In order to facilitate an inclusive and supportive working and learning environment, those who interact with transgender persons should make every effort to use the appropriate personal pronouns (she/he/ze and her/him/hir) as requested by the individual.
Gender stereotyping definitively qualifies as a form of sex discrimination. That is, it is discriminatory for the university to take action (declining to hire, assigning a lower grade, etc.) based on a student’s or employee’s failure to conform to expectations of how a man or woman should act (e.g., “he gets upset too often – men shouldn’t be that sensitive” or “she needs to dress more femininely”).
Some courts have extended protection to transgender individuals on the basis of gender stereotyping. Courts have split, however, on whether transgender people are otherwise protected under the prohibition on sex discrimination. It is unclear whether a transgender person who is, in fact, attempting to conform to the gender stereotypes for a gender that does not appear to match the person’s assigned sex and thereby experiences unfair treatment would be able to seek protection for sex discrimination.
In Missouri, crimes motivated by gender identity are considered to be a hate crime. Persons convicted of a hate crime may receive stiffer sentences.