The Importance Of Gender Identity

Gender Identity

Gender identity is considered to be a spectrum of beliefs and emotions rather than the traditional sense of a dichotomy of male and female (Eagly, 2013). Identifying with a specific gender does not happen at birth. Children up to age four often do not identify with a specific gender. Toddlers do not identify themselves as a boy or girl at this stage of their lives; being a male or female does not matter to them at this stage of their lives. This indifference gives way to gender rigidity in early childhood (about ages 4–7), when both boys and girls strictly enforce gender rules (Kerr, & Multon, 2015). Every Child is born a certain sex, then they have their gender and their gender identity. The Sex of a child is whether the

So what is gender appropriate? Feminine traits is considered gender appropriate for a girl. This includes; wearing dresses, being quite, enjoys playing with dolls, nurturing, emotional. These are the types of traits we expect to find in a girl, and we have grown to expect many of these traits. Masculine Traits is what is considered gender appropriate for a man. This includes; independent, non-emotional, strong, active, and rebellious. These are the types of traits we expect in our young men. It becomes a problem when we have one sex who identifies better with the other gender role. This could include our “tomboy” girls and our “feminine” boys. They have what is called gender dysphoria or gender identity disorder. Gender identity disorder is defined by Taber’s cyclopedic Medical Dictionary (Venes, & Taber, 2009) as a disorder marked by a strong cross-gender identification and a persistent discomfort with one’s biologically assigned

There is the belief that the individual chooses what sex they want to identify with, and then there is the belief that when people are born they are born associating with a specific gender. There was a study conducted by Byers, Goldsmith, and Miller (2016) at the University of New Brunswick where they surveyed multiple men and women to find out if they would prefer to be the opposite gender. The study revealed that 30% would prefer to be the opposite sex. This study shows that being the opposite sex is appealing to large number of our society whether it be from gender inequality or gender preference. There is also people who argue that the way someone is raised will affect their gender role. Social learning theory assumes that we acquire our gender identity in childhood, by observing and imitating others’ gender-linked behaviors and by being rewarded or punished for acting in certain ways (Myers, & DeWall 2014). However, some believe that gender identity is embedded in our genes. A study published by Physiology Today (Psychology Today staff, 2016) at UCLA was done that tested the different genes in males and females. The study showed that there is certain genes in our body that are more active depending on if the person is a male or female. This means someone’s gender identity is actually developed before birth. This discovery will help prove that gender identity is not based solely on hormones, but also