The book Some Assembly Required by Arin Andrews shows that perseverance and an unwillingness to let other people decide things for you results in the ability to be who you are inside. Arin, for example, was born as a girl named Emerald. For many years, he was very depressed, until he figured out that he was transgender. Despite others trying to tell him that it was unnatural and a sin, he kept going with what he knew to be true and eventually was able to live life how he wanted to. Even when he was very young, there was always this sense of not belonging for him. In a flashback, Arin tells about a time that he was on his grandparents farm, feeding a cow out of a gloved hand, when the cow sucked his glove off. For reference, this was a “girly …show more content…
He says, “I took jazz, ballet, Irish step, hip-hop, and tap. But my favorite was clogging—we wore tap shoes with double clickers on the heels and toes, so the sound was extra loud” (18). Even though there were some activities that he liked that weren’t exactly geared towards boys, he still felt more boyish inside. The next important event in Arin’s life happened when he was seven: he got his first crush on a girl. This may not seem surprising at first, but it is important to remember that Arin had not yet realized that he was transgender (this wouldn’t happen until almost eight years later), and was still seen as a girl. So he asks himself, “Can I marry a girl?” (24). It wasn’t that his family was incredibly homophobic, it was just that things like that just weren’t done. He compares the reaction people would have if he asked them that to their reaction if he’d asked if he could marry a dog; it just wasn’t done. The biggest turning point in his life, however, happened when he was about 15. Arin was browsing YouTube, looking for stories from LGBT people, when a video from someone called Skylarkeleven popped up on his recommended
Grace is a very sweet and sensitive girl. She made some mistakes herself, but because of her foster parents she got through the tough parts. In Far From the Tree written by Robin Benway, she created a character that had a child in highschool and Her little girl was adopted and has a better life than what Grace could have offered her. Once Grace got told she had a sister named Maya she bursted into joy. Her heart was beating out of her chest when she was emailing Maya to meet up. When Maya replied with an answer Grace was ecstatic, but at the same time she did not know what to think. The moment when she saw the answer was ¨yes¨ she ran downstairs to tell her parents. Her whole life was now different because she had a relief that she had someone
“The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy of each other’s life” -Richard Bach. Far from the Tree by Robin Benway explores the meaning of family, and the impact that loved ones have on identity. The novel tells the story of three siblings who have three very different lives reunite after spending all of their lives separately. Grace, Maya and Joaquin grow dependant on one another, and unknowingly give and take values from each other that help them solve their own issues slowing being brought to light. With the help of his parents and siblings, Joaquin reveals a critical capacity for change as he leaves his old self behind and moves on to a better future with a loving family.
The only logical conclusion to derive from this observation is that what we consider to be ourselves is not our bodies. As a result, an individual’s personal identity cannot be rooted in just his or her body, unlike what body theorists would like to
Characters are always changing, in speech, thoughts, actions, and looks, overall changing themselves in a variety of ways. In the story, Code Talker, by Joseph Bruchac, the protagonist, Kii Yazhi(Ned Begay) changes mentally and physically through the story in many different ways from the beginning to the end. His mindset and opinions on many important things in his life change majorly as he develops himself as a person. Ned’s mentality on his heritage develops in a positive manner through the different major events that occur in his life as he goes through his own unique adventure.
The search for one’s identity can be a constant process and battle, especially for teenagers and young adults. Many people have a natural tendency to want to fit in and be accepted by others, whether it be with family, friends or even strangers. They may try to change who they are, how they act, or how they dress in order to fit in. As one gets older, society can influence one’s view on what they should look like, how they should act, or how they should think. If society tells us that a certain body type or hair color is beautiful, that is what some people strive for and want to become in order to be more liked. This was especially true with Avery as she longed for the proper clothes to fit into a social group and began to change the way she spoke to match those around her. As a young and impressionable sixth grader, she allowed herself to become somewhat whitewashed in an attempt to fit in with the other girls. However, Avery did not really become friends with any of those girls; her only real friend was
Our lives are defined by our experiences of growing up and of who people are when people are developing. Both, in their respective regards, are something that can be difficult to alter to the individual. Gender, race, classes, and other building blocks of our identity are always shifting to who anyone is and while a person can’t affect themselves, society can, and often does change their perspective towards their own identity and how they interact with the stimulation outside of their psyche.
For instance if one was born a boy then they should act like a boy and want to do boy-oriented things for that matter. “Like most children, I once thought it possible to divide the world into male and female columns. Blue/Pink. Roosters/Hens. Trousers/Skirts” (Cooper 135). In this quote when Cooper says “like most children” is an important part because he is right, most children do not know that males can do female things and vice versa. They also do not yet know about the mysteries of the world or things that shouldn’t be but are like transvestites for instance. And it’s like that because their parents and society made it that way. Instead of parents encouraging their son to wear dresses or cheerlead those parents would encourage him to dress like a male and play a male sport like football or basketball, because most of society doesn’t agree with things not easily explainable. So when Cooper’s parent saw him acting like one of the girls from his class, they immediately took him to an athletic club with other boys. “Shortly after the Injijikian incident, my parents decided to send me to a gymnastics class at the Downtown Athletic Club” (Cooper 136). Here his parents were thinking about what society would have thought and wanted him to perform and act masculine, so therefore sent him to a boys
Identity is 'how you view yourself and your life.'; (p. 12 Knots in a String.) Your identity helps you determine where you think you fit in, in your life. It is 'a rich complexity of images, ideas and associations.';(p. 12 Knots in a String.) It is given that as we go through our lives and encounter different experiences our identity of yourselves and where we belong may change. As this happens we may gain or relinquish new values and from this identity and image our influenced. 'A bad self-image and low self-esteem may form part of identity?but often the cause is not a loss of identity itself so much as a loss of belonging.'; Social psychologists suggest that identity is closely related to our culture. Native people today have been faced with this challenge against their identity as they are increasingly faced with a non-native society. I will prove that the play The Rez Sisters showed this loss of identity and loss of belonging. When a native person leaves the reservation to go and start a new life in a city they are forced to adapt to a lifestyle they are not accustomed to. They do not feel as though they fit in or belong to any particular culture. They are faced with extreme racism and stereotypes from other people in the nonreservational society.
Piaget believed that a child’s development is neither intrinsic (learning based on interest) or extrinsic (learning from an outside force, such as a parent). He believed that a child develops based on his or hers interactions in the environment (Mooney 2000). Piaget created four stages of cognitive development, some of which can be seen in the film “Cheaper by the Dozen”. A few examples of characters that display Piaget’s theory are the twins, who are in the preoperational stage and lack the concept of conservatism, and the mastermind, who is in the concrete operational stage and show's the concept of decentralism. These characters will have Piaget’s theory applied to them in the following paragraphs.
When growing up with diagnoses such as autism spectrum disorder and depression, my gender identity was the least of my problems for a long time.
In November 19, 2016, Alberta Canada, a mother was ripped away from full custody over her four-year-old child because authorities found her guilty of child neglect for allowing her child to wear the opposite gendered clothing. This article was posted on The Guardian by Ashifa Kassam and quickly made headlines in the media. According to Kassam, Susan Smith said she gave birth to a male but soon after the child turned two it began to identify as female. At first, the child was questioning why it had a penis, and as any parent would, Smith explained that because you were born a boy you had a penis. This greatly unsettled the child to the point of the child waking up screaming, “Mom, I don’t want to be a boy…I’m going to cut off my penis, I want my penis off.” This alarmed Smith and immediately she sought help from professionals who she hoped would guide her and her child.
A person’s identity is shaped by many different aspects. Family, culture, friends, personal interests and surrounding environments are all factors that tend to help shape a person’s identity. Some factors may have more of an influence than others and some may not have any influence at all. As a person grows up in a family, they are influenced by many aspects of their life. Family and culture may influence a person’s sense of responsibilities, ethics and morals, tastes in music, humor and sports, and many other aspects of life. Friends and surrounding environments may influence a person’s taste in clothing, music, speech, and social activities. Personal interests are what truly set individuals apart. An individual is not a puppet on the string of their puppet-master, nor a chess piece on their master’s game board, individuals choose their own paths in life. They accomplish, or strive to accomplish, goals that they have set for themselves throughout their lifetime. Individuals are different from any other individual in the world because they live their own life rather than following a crowd of puppets. A person’s identity is defined by what shaped it in the first place, why they chose to be who they are, and what makes them different from everybody else in the world. I feel that I have developed most of my identity from my own dreams, fantasies, friends, and idols.
Noah is the one of the main characters of The Notebook. He is the hero of this novel. Noah represents true love and true loyalty. In a way, The Notebook is similar to every modern day romance movie, and Noah represents the “dream man” that all the girls always imagine of having. The characters in movies are used to symbolize ideas, and in this novel, Noah represents true, faithful, committed love. Noah remains loyal to Allie even in the situation where he is unsure whether they will ever meet again or not.
One of my favorite tv show character, Rachel Green, said once, “It’s like all my life everybody has told me, ‘You’re a shoe! You’re a shoe! You’re a shoe!’ and then today I just stopped and I said, ‘But what if I don’t want to be a shoe? What if I want to be a purse, you know? Or a hat?’”. I did not add this quote in just to make this longer, but because when I thought of some of my identities, I realized that some of them weren’t me. Some of the things I “identified” with, I didn’t identify with. Like for example, my religion.
The complexities of gender identity extend far beyond its definition—gender refers to the socially constructed roles assigned to biological sex. Non-binary gender identity, also referred to as being transgender, is a complex and highly misunderstood concept. Transgender people are typically born with male or female anatomy but from a young age feel born in the incorrect body. Someone who was born of the female sex may identify as a man, and therefore they consider themselves of a transgender. Aside for experts in the academic fields of gender and sexuality, few professionals who encounter cases of complex gender identities are prepared for what it entails. Specifically, cases of young transgender children are often deemed illegitimate simply