The term gender modality "refers to how a person's gender identity relates to the gender they were assigned at birth. It is a mode or way of being one's gender." Gender modality is analogous to "sexual orientation"— a category beyond the gay-straight binary. The term creates an expansive category which includes not just cis and trans but also 'detrans', 'retrans', 'agender', 'gender-questioning', culture-specific identities, etc. This also makes room for people who were raised in a gender-neutral manner. i.e. People who weren't raised as either a boy or girl and don't necessarily identify as transgender. >In the United States, an estimated 9.2% of secondary-school students don't wholly identify with the gender they were assigned at birth, yet only 1.8% anonymously answer 'yes' when asked whether they are transgender. The term also puts cis, trans, and other gender-expansive people on equal footing. Rather than referring to "trans status." Trans and cis women share the same _gender identity_ but have a different gender modality. In fact, it is more accurate to say trans women are discriminated for their gender modality, rather than their gender identity.