Term: Gender
Last Updated: 2025-01-31
Gender is an evolving term, with the definition changing over time.
In earlier MCHP research, the words sex and gender are often used interchangeably, indicating the biological sex (e.g. male or female) of an individual. In
Kozyrskyj, A et al. (2005),
they defined gender as "Female or male as reported in the Manitoba Health [Insurance] registry." The use of these terms interchangeably relates to the existence of the variables named SEX or GENDER that are used in different databases and the limited range of values, typically male, female or other, that are currently collected for these variables.
In recent years the definition of gender has evolved, but the values being collected in the data, including data in the Manitoba Population Research Data Repository, have not evolved as quickly.
As currently defined on the
Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR)
website:
"Gender refers to the socially constructed roles, behaviours, expressions and identities of girls, women, boys, men, and gender diverse people. It influences how people perceive themselves and each other, how they act and interact, and the distribution of power and resources in society. Gender identity is not confined to a binary (girl/woman, boy/man) nor is it static; it exists along a continuum and can change over time."
(Source: Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) website: What is gender? What is sex? (Accessed December 8, 2023)
As currently defined on the Statistics Canada website:
"Gender refers to an individual's personal and social identity as a man, woman or non-binary person (a person who is not exclusively a man or a woman). Gender includes the following concepts:
- gender identity, which refers to the gender that a person feels internally and individually;
- gender expression, which refers to the way a person presents their gender, regardless of their gender identity, through body language, aesthetic choices or accessories (e.g., clothes, hairstyle and makeup), which may have traditionally been associated with a specific gender.
A person's gender may differ from their sex at birth, and from what is indicated on their current identification or legal documents such as their birth certificate, passport or driver's licence. A person's gender may change over time. Some people may not identify with a specific gender."
(Source: Statistics Canada website: - Gender of person (Accessed January 30, 2025)
Statistics Canada currently classifies gender as:
- Man – includes persons whose reported gender is male. It includes cisgender (cis) and transgender (trans) men.
- Woman - includes persons whose reported gender is female. It includes cisgender (cis) and transgender (trans) women.
- Non-binary person - includes persons whose reported gender is not exclusively male or female (e.g., agender, pangender, genderqueer, genderfluid, or gender-nonconforming); persons whose reported gender is Two-Spirit, a term specific to some Indigenous peoples of North America; persons whose reported gender is both male and female, neither male nor female, or either male or female in addition to another gender; persons who reported or were reported by proxy as questioning or in the process of deciding.
(Source: Statistics Canada website: - Classification of gender (Accessed January 30, 2025)
Additional Gender-Related Definitions