Importantly, the committee emphasized that neither the health of women nor men is simply a product of biology but is also influenced by sociocultural and psychological experience. To differentiate between these broad areas of investigation, the members created working definitions of “sex” — when referring to biology — and “gender” — when referring to self-representation influenced by social, cultural, and personal experience.
The committee advised that scientists use these definitions in the following ways:
In the study of human subjects, the term sex should be used as a classification, generally as male or female, according to the reproductive organs and functions that derive from the chromosomal complement [generally XX for female and XY for male].
In the study of human subjects, the term gender should be used to refer to a person's self-representation as male or female, or how that person is responded to by social institutions on the basis of the individual's gender presentation.