Reflection About Gender Identity

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The authors define gender identity as being “from the inner, self-reflective location and manifests as a person’s more authentic gendered self as a woman, man, or transgendered person”. Sex is based on what the genitalia look like a birth. Whether it is a vagina or a penis, the fact that the individual was born with either one can never be changed. Gender expression refers to behaviors, such attire, demeanor, and language, through which we intentionally or unintentionally communicate gender. Gender identity refers to a person’s internal self-concept with regards o gender categories like man, woman, transgender and genderqueer”. In the past, I assumed sex and gender were the same, not in the manner in which the book describes. I learned the difference between the two when I first started my studies in community college. I believe the terms confirm each other. “Transgender …show more content…

Of all the systems of oppression explored in this course so far, which do you feel you understand best or relate to the most?
Of all the systems of oppression I relate to is gender oppression. As a child, my father would become upset when I would not “act like a little girl”. Instead I was a tomboy. I played sports with the boys, climbed trees, watched football, baseball and wrestling. I had Barbie Dolls but I rather played with toy cars.
What analogies can you draw between transgender oppression and that system?
In both systems, society dictates how the systems is supposed to “work”. For example women are supposed to behave like women by wearing makeup, dresses, stay at home with the children and clean house, while men are expected to behave like men by dressing like men, don’t behave like a “sissy”, be strong and fearless and most of all don’t wear makeup and dress like a woman. Like other systems, gender and transgender is discriminated against.
What aspects of the systems are not analogous?
I would have to say that transgender oppression receives more discrimination then gender

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