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Gender and identity

Essays and videos offering insights into the self, relationships, cognition and neuroscience

Addiction Ageing and death Childhood and adolescence Cognition and intelligence Consciousness and altered states Family life Gender and identity Language and linguistics Life stages Love and friendship Mental health Mood and emotion Neurodiversity Neuroscience Personality Pleasure and pain Psychiatry and psychotherapy Self-improvement Sex and sexuality Sleep and dreams Social psychology Spirituality Teaching and learning Technology and the self Wellbeing

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Black and white photo of oil workers handling equipment on a rig, with oil splashing out from the pipe they are holding.

essayGender

Does testosterone make men?

In probing whether there are basic sex differences in humans, a psychologist and a biologist agree to seriously disagree

Cordelia Fine & Carole Hooven

Sepia-toned photo of a person in formal Victorian attire, standing with a slightly tilted head, against an ornate backdrop.

essayGender and identity

Requeering Wilde

Oscar Wilde is an icon of gay liberation from secrecy. But his life and his sexuality were not so simple – nor so binary

Sam Mills

An adult and two children in a mall atrium, dressed in winter clothing.

essayBiography and memoir

A grief with no name

As a child, I was torn from a culture that I never knew. It is a loss that defines me, even as I struggle to define the loss

Jelena Markovic

Photo of a white temple with modern design features, a golden statue on top and a bright double rainbow in the cloudy sky.

essayHuman rights and justice

Utah is so gay!

The Mormon state is seen as deeply homophobic. Yet, from polygamy to pride, Mormons themselves are a distinctly queer lot

Kristi Rhead

Two older women wearing hats and sunglasses raise their arms in celebration at a street parade, with a purple background.

videoSex and sexuality

From secret crushes to self-acceptance – a joyful chronicle of ‘old lesbian’ stories

29 minutes

A young girl in a pink dress stands on a step, holding the hand of an adult. Four adults are partially visible around her.

essayBiography and memoir

The adoption paradox

Even happy families cannot avoid the reality – my reality – that adoption is predicated on transacting the life of a child

Fiona Sampson

Five young men leaning against a wall at night.

essayHuman rights and justice

My elusive pain

The lives of North Africans in France are shaped by a harrowing struggle to belong, marked by postcolonial trauma

Farah Abdessamad

A sepia photograph of a woman from the 19th century, sitting on an ornate wooden chair, wearing a ruffled dress with buttons.

essayStories and literature

The real Miss Julie

Victoria Benedictsson assumed a male identity, achieved literary stardom, and took her own life. Then Strindberg stole it

Elisabeth Åsbrink

A group of girls walk past the Washington Monument on the National Mall in Washington, DC

essayGender and identity

Silencing of the girls

Girls are still in a bad bargain with patriarchy: the price of relationship is keeping their true thoughts to themselves

Carol Gilligan

A double-exposure image of a dancer on stage against a black backdrop, his body is lit and partly shot in motion blur

essayGenetics

Artists of our own lives

The genome is the starting point for a performance we enact over a lifetime, not a blueprint we’ve got to follow

Richard O Prum

Rubens painting Venus and Cupid reimagined with Venus on the left gazing in a mirror at her mastectomized breast. A cherub like Cupid to the right holds the mirror

essayIllness and disease

More than pink

The culture around breast cancer is full of positivity and femininity. But it comes at the expense of the marginalised

Philippa Hetherington

Two stick figures, one purple and one white, touching heads with scribbled lines above them, depicting a heated argument.

videoGender

When aggression is viewed as brilliance, it hurts women in science, and science itself

5 minutes

Elderly person with a serious expression and a cigarette in their mouth, wearing a grey sweater, standing in front of a house with a curtain and wooden chair.

videoGender

The ‘sworn virgins’ of Albania who trade femininity for freedom

10 minutes

Construction workers sitting and standing around, some wearing hard hats, during a break outside a building, with a temporary orange safety fence visible.

essayGender and identity

A manly divorce

Straight men rarely write about the end of their marriages. Our enduring ideas about gender explain this silence

Joshua Coleman

Cartoon of an adult and two children in a kitchen, standing near a fridge with a drawing and a stove with a boiling pot.

videoGender and identity

‘I didn’t fall in love with a couple of body pieces’ – on marriage and transition

3 minutes

A woman and a child looking at a photo album together, with one image showing two children and the text “No matter our differences…”

essayGender and identity

Disarming transphobia

‘Rapid-onset gender dysphoria’ is a popular weapon in the anti-trans arsenal. It is nothing but unscientific bunk

Quinnehtukqut McLamore

A minimalist drawing of two women in robes, reaching out to each other against a beige background.

videoThe ancient world

Sappho’s homoerotic poetry was beloved in ancient Greece – and burned centuries later

5 minutes

Illustration of a figure standing in front of a colourful blurry image with a large abstract face in the background, blending vibrant hues of red, blue, and pink.

videoGender and identity

Timothée built his identity around his absent father. What happens when they meet?

17 minutes

Black handprints on a white background, creating an abstract and high-contrast pattern with various hand positions and details.

videoGender and identity

‘When you’re done, you stay human!’ What gender transition means to John

6 minutes

People watching a projection of a black-and-white image featuring a nude woman in an art installation setting.

essayArt

Her body is a problem

When 1970s women artists put the female body under the female gaze, why did the critics see only obscene monsters?

Lauren Elkin

Abstract artwork of a person lying on a vintage couch, with a colourful and patterned background and vivid highlights on the blanket and hair.

videoArt

A mindbending trip that summons the forgotten women of surrealism

17 minutes

A man in glasses and a purple garment with gold embroidery touches his chin thoughtfully, with a blurred figure in the background.

videoGender and identity

What happened when a gay Black man joined the Metropolitan Police in London

25 minutes

Woman gazing at her reflection in a hand mirror, wearing pink earrings and lying on a patterned red rug.

videoTeaching and learning

The vulva dialogues – inside a sex-ed class that rebels against genitalia shame

11 minutes

Elderly person wearing a tiara and a “Prom Queen” sash, smiling at a dance, with balloons and a chandelier in the background.

videoGender and identity

LGBTQ+ retirees celebrate their hard-earned self-acceptance at a belated prom night

14 minutes