Gender Identity is a strong topic that many discuss in day to day living. It’s important to understand that gender identity has three different terms, according to Dictionary.com. A lot of people have many different opinions about gender identity. You’re probably thinking There is only two genders in this world male and female. I too, believe that there are only two genders in this world and that people are born straight. Grysman explains, “Gender is among the earliest categories that infants become aware of, and from toddlerhood on, children categorize both themselves and others as female or male.” (613.) People are not given a choice to be who they want to be, since your gender is assigned at birth.
In this essay, I will be explaining how
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In the past Johns Hopkins was a center for patients with a gender disorder. John Money, PhD worked in the Psycho-hormonal Group as a head. He had a very strange theory. He would apply his theory to actual patients, not knowing or expecting what would happen. The experiments he attempted on children and adult literally had no boundaries. One of well-known cases of gender identity disorder was about a boy. He was inducted into the Johns Hopkins center because of what happened during a normal ‘surgery’. The boy’s penis was accidently burnt during the circumcision. He underwent a surgery that made him have female body part. The little boy was raised as a girl. The boy raised as a girl felt as if he was a boy. When the family decided he was old enough to know they told him about what had happened during his circumcision. Once he had heard of this he decided to not be living as a female anymore. He later committed suicide. What we have learned from this experiment is that it comes with a lot of depression. Van Meter stated, “Because of the failures that began to materialize from Money’s ideology, the Psycho-hormonal group was abolished and Money was forced into retirement.” (239.) They are steps being taken to provide the best medical treatment and social environment with those who are suffering GID. I added this piece of information because I thought it was something we all show know about how the past has …show more content…
There are many different factors that display the “social norm” for genders. Religion plays a role along with social media. Females are to wear pink and play with dolls. As females grow from girls into women. They are supposed to clean, cook, do laundry, and anything their husbands ask them to do. They have the ‘okay’ to show emotions on how they feel about something and not get picked on it. As where boys, they are not allowed to wear pink or play with dolls. They are to wear blue and play with monster trucks or play in the dirt. They are not typically allowed to show emotions. When little boys grow up to be men, they are supposed to go to work, pay the bills, and they typically want their supper on a plate ready when they get home. Katz proclaims in his article, “More than anything else, boys are supposed to learn how to handle themselves.” (59.) Meaning, they are not allowed to show emotions to other kids not even to their own parents. They are just supposed to ‘handle’ themselves. How does a little kid just handle themselves and not show emotions? Pollitt states, “Women’s looks matter terribly in this society, and so Barbie, however ambivalently, must be passed along.” (74.) I must strongly agree with this remark. They do everything you watch on a TV. The TV Ads advertise women with makeup and being tall and skinny. Gardner claims, “By helping children understand the similarities of different
For those who feel unsure of their inner feeling of their sex they prefer to be described as other, they, or them. For example, in “The freedom to Choose Your Pronoun” by Conlin, she talks about the 16 year old Katy, who mentions ‘For those of us in the nonconforming gender community, it is great to see Google make the option more mainstream’”. Teenagers are by nature prone to rebellion and sometimes only act a certain way to make parents or others mad or just to give the contrary. With something like choosing your own pronoun, as in deciding if they want to be a female today and a male tomorrow shouldn’t be taken as serious, but if they insist on being a gender as oppose to the one they were born with, take them seriously and help them. Many clubs and organizations exist out there for those who need the help in deciding how they feel within themselves. Giving individuals the right to choose their pronoun will make them feel accepted in society. Now, not always will this happen. Naturally, everyone knows that if an individual looks like a girl and have all characteristics of a girl then she will be pointed as a her, she and vice versa for boys. Not everyone is going to have the same mentality, some people will not agree in letting a girl choose to be a boy and boys to choose to be a girl but the importance is how the individual
We all come in to this world either as male/female and that’s something we don’t get to choose. However, we do get to decide who we like to identify as. Whether you stay the same, transition to the opposite sex, or identify as neither, it’s all up to you. That’s the power of “freedom of choice”. Well at least it is here in Northern America.
Gender roles are not the product of innate biology; They are formed based on the cultural and societal beliefs that surround an individual during their development. These factors play a very important role in gender identity, and often lead individuals to believe in stereotypical representations of gender identity such as gender roles. The way in which these cultures interpret the expression of gender identity heavily impacts the way an individual chooses to express themselves.
The evolution of human species has lead to roles we have placed on males and females and what we expect them to do for our society. With the gender norms we have developed over time towards each gender, in order to break the cultural barrier, this requires us to put down the norms we know for each gender and to accept that some males and females maybe different from the norm. These differences should not be considered as harmful to our society or deviant acts that interfere with our gender norms that we have set for our society but should be considered accepted. As human rights beings to increase, humans should be also given the rights to act outside of how society views males and females on its own but should open up to different acts
Predominantly, there are thought to be two sexes: male and female, and two genders: masculine and feminine (Kitzinger 1999), but nowadays we live in a society where intersex/transgender people are the new norm, whether we’d like to accept it or not. While sex and gender are two completely different concepts, oftentimes it is misinterpreted by the members of our society, to mean gender is related to sex. All the while people are being ignorant to intersex/transgenders, claiming that they are being affected by their existence. Gender roles are a part of our society and that people claiming “equal rights and equal privileges are fighting a losing battle, if not are actually hurting their own cause.” (Why Feminism Is Not The Fight for Equal Rights).
Gender Identity is defined as the gender a person identifies with or is certain they are. It should be noted that just because an individual may appear to be one gender physically, does not mean he/she feels they are the gender they appear to be. For example, a person who appears to be a woman physically and contains all the female reproductive organs and body make-up may claim to be a man with the wrong gender body. Gender identity is often shaped by societal and cultural influences. So, it is no wonder that people who identify with a gender different from what society has tried to engrave in their minds, are left feeling confused or rejected.
What decides what your gender is? Some argue that it is a biologically based thing that a person truly has no choice in. With the study of hormones and how they differ in men and women, this has been a decently proven theory. Although, this is not the only form of belief that is held about gender and what makes a person at in accordance to their gender. There are people, like Judith Butler, who believe that a gender is a performative act. This means that some hold the belief that you are not actually born with a gender, but you develop and act in accordance to one as you grow up within your society.
Sex and gender do not always align. Cis-gender describes people whose biological body they were born into matches their personal gender identity. This experience is distinct from being transgender, which is where one’s biological sex does not align with their gender identity. Transgender people will undergo a gender transition that may involve changing their dress and self-presentation (such as a name change). Transgender people may undergo hormone therapy to facilitate this process, but not all transgender people will undertake surgery. Intersexuality describes variations on sex definitions related to ambiguous genitalia, gonads, sex organs, chromosomes or hormones. Transgender and intersexuality are gender categories, not sexualities. Transgender
Gender-identity is a person’s perception or identification of their gender, which does not always correspond with their physically gender assigned at birth. Some men identity as women, and some women identify as men. Some people believe they aren’t meant to be either gender; in this case they can identify as genderless, bigender, genderqueer, or whatever they choose. People who don’t identify with their assigned gender and identify as another are often times discriminated against. Some people don’t agree with people changing their gender because it wasn’t the way God intend them to be, and it isn’t natural. However, in this day and age, it has become more common to identify with a different gender and change your gender complete. Some people are very against this, while some people continue to fight for their gender identity rights.
Currently the citizens living in the United States are imprisoned within the binary of two genders. It is only acceptable for a person to identify as a male or a female. Depending on the gender the person identifies, as there is an expectation of how that person should look and act. The person identifying as the specific gender, must maintain the gender norms that are in place. These gender binaries are so prevalent in our lives; it is to the point where a large group of Americans are being overlooked. This group of Americans identifies as transgender, which means they do not fit society’s expectations of how a specific gender should look and behave. (gaycenter.org, 2012). The trans population does not fit the expected gender molds that are
Society expects different attitudes and behaviors from boys and girls. We are socialized to conform to certain gender roles based on our biological sex. For an example, masculine roles are associated with strength, dominance and aggression, while feminine roles are associated with passivity, nurturing, and subordination. Our family, friends, religious beliefs and media influence how we perform our
In the news, there have been more stories discussing gender and what gender actually means. Celebrities like Laverne Cox and Caitlin Jenner have been paving the way for transgender youth, but society is still not accepting. Transgender youth still suffer from the effects our society has on them both as who they appear as and who they view themselves as. Dysphoria is generally described as “a state of unease or dissatisfaction with life.” By attaching gender to dysphoria it becomes discomfort towards a person's assigned sex and gender, or in more specific terms “the condition of feeling one's emotional and psychological identity to be opposite to one's biological sex.” I have suffered from gender dysphoria for years, and the effects this dysphoria has had on me, both mentally and physically, have altered me forever.
As discussed before when it comes to gender identity is when a person self-identifies as either a female, male, both, and or neither from their opposite gender (Hays & Erford, p.
When a person is seen they are first identified by their gender. We are born either male or female. Gender is given not chosen. It is supposedly meant to define our identity. In the World today, humans have decided and found ways to change their gender because they felt they did not connect with the one they were given. In the novel Some Assembly Required by Arin Andrews, Arin decides to become a transgender because he felt he would connect better with a different gender. His hatred for female fashion which led to his undeniable love for males’ fashion, his dislike for female puberty changes that made him like male puberty changes, and his non confronting of his given sexuality, shows that Arin’s gender does not in any way define his identity.
Gender identity has always been a controversial topic in our society. While some people think of gender as either being a male or a female from the time of birth, some believe that gender does not necessarily have to be similar to the one that was assigned at the time of birth. Gender is an important phenomenon which needs to be taught to people in our society as it creates problem for those who identify themselves as homosexual, bisexual or transgender. This is because of the people still holding the traditional viewpoint of gender being either a man or a woman, and thus, not accepting the transgender or bisexual people, and further, forcing them to adhere to these societal norms. This concept of gender could be explained to people in an effective