The paper describes how the concept of "gender" emerges, in the context of late modernity, from the simmering of researches about transexualism, psychoanalitical debates about feminine sexuality and identity, feminism in relation with the phenomenon of postcolonialism and new social movements. The choice of the word "gender" is related to the "linguistic turn" in the anglosaxon culture. The paper intends to be an istrument of orientation into this complex field, focusing the risk that the question of the "body" could be bypassed.
Keywords: Gender, gender identity, feminism, freudomarxism, homosexuality, lesbism, transexual, transgender