There has been a lot of controversy around gender assignment. Some believe that all individuals should fit into the male or female category. Others feel as if they were born into the wrong gender assignment and have no true allegiance to either role. According to Linda Brannon in her book Gender Psychological Perspectives, individuals who do not or cannot identify as male or female are placed into a third sex group. Characteristics of individuals who fit into the third sex category is based upon culture. New Guinea, India, Afghanistan, and Native American cultures all have different methods of identifying third sex individuals.
New Guinea focuses on the biological aspect of this intersex condition. For instance, New Guinea acknowledges individuals with normal male internal genitalia and with external genitals that looks similar to a female (Brannon 2015). At the beginning of puberty these individuals have the appearance of a girl but as they transition through puberty their appearance changes to a boy. Although the New Guinea government
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For example, some men and women may identify themselves as transvestites which are men who dress in women’s clothing. Others may consider themselves as transgendered. Transgender individuals are men and women who wish to or have undergone genital surgery to become the opposite sex. Lastly, citizens are able to associate themselves with the intersex group. Intersex groups are people whose genitals are not clearly male or female. India identifies individuals that fall into the third sex category as hijras. Some believe that hijras are men who worshiped a Hindu goddess by sacrificing their genitals and promising to live without sexuality (Brannon 2015). Hijras are also believed to have power to confer fertility and are often invited to special events (Brannon 2015). India is not the only country that believes third sex citizens have spiritual callings on their
This is clearly not the case.”. She continues with, “Gender, like kinship, does have a biological referent, but beyond a universal recognition of male and female "packages," different cultures have chosen to associate very different behaviors, interactions, and statuses with men and women. Gender categories are arbitrary constructions of culture, and consequently, gender-appropriate behaviors vary widely from culture to culture.” (23). Gender roles are completely defined by the culture each person lives in.
Sex exists in a binary system of male and female, and people can be forced into this binary. A mother of an intersex child states that the surgery comes from “the message that a child’s body is not acceptable as-is and should conform to what the state thinks it should be” (“Their Baby Was Born”). Sex, just like gender, exists in a binary, and when individuals do not fall into the two categories, society becomes uncomfortable. Sex, like gender, is socially constructed (Fausto-Sterling). This means that sex is a spectrum and not the binary it has been made to be. However, society continues to see the binary as normal and will attempt to force individuals to fit the already established system. Because they are in the middle of the sex spectrum rather than at the ends, most intersex individuals in the documentary experienced and continue to experience the same pressures to conform described by the mother and Fausto-Sterling. One person identified with the female gender, but her mother raised her as male. Despite her gender identification, she was continually told to be more masculine and to conform to her assigned male sex and gender. Others also had their appearance shaped through surgery and other means to fit into the sex-gender binary but now choose to identify as neither male nor female. However, this lack of gender-sex identification can leave them socially isolated since
While sex refers the biological characteristics that make up a person, their gender is determined by the behaviors and attitudes considered “proper” by society according to their sex.
“Boys will be boys, and girls will be girls”: few of our cultural mythologies seem as natural as this one. But in this exploration of the gender signals that traditionally tell what a “boy” or “girl” is supposed to look and act like, Aaron Devor shows how these signals are not “natural” at all but instead are cultural constructs. While the classic cues of masculinity—aggressive posture, self-confidence, a tough appearance—and the traditional signs of femininity—gentleness, passivity, strong nurturing instincts—are often considered “normal,” Devor explains that they are by no means biological or psychological necessities. Indeed, he suggests, they can be richly mixed and varied, or to paraphrase the old Kinks song “Lola,” “Boys can be girls and girls can be boys.” Devor is dean of social sciences at the University of Victoria and author of Gender Blending: Confronting the Limits of Duality (1989), from which this selection is excerpted, and FTM: Female-to-Male Transsexuals in Society (1997).
The first category of Dr. Bushong's theory is genetics. Due to defects in fertilization, fetuses can have a chromosomal pattern of XXXY (mosaic hermaphrodite), XXY, or XYY. These abnormalities result in deformed genitalia, sterility, or an individual whose physical appearance as one sex does not match their genetic makeup as a member of the other...
Across the globe, gender systems vary in ways that often exclude individuals who don’t identify within their realms. From the binary structure of the West, to the ternary system of India, there are many ways in which societies conceptualize gender. Gender systems are generally considered inherent to humanity, and are seldom questioned or altered. This has led to the marginalization and discrimination of individuals who diverge from the implemented structure.
The concept that gender is limited strictly to two categories, male and female, has been around since the beginning of mankind. The notion, also known as gender binarism, states that “human beings are by nature either male or female” (Shalko). In past societies, people have followed this idea of only two genders; however, in more recent years, people have uncovered a whole new variety of gender identities. This concept is called gender fluidity; it is the idea that gender has no boundaries that prevent people from expressing who they really are. In today’s world, gender is a touchy subject to speak or write about. Many people are unaccepting of the idea that there are more than two genders. It goes against everything they have ever learned.
When considering gender and sex, a layman’s idea of these terms might be very different than a sociologist’s. There is an important distinction: sex, in terms of being “male” or “female,” is purely the physical biological characteristic differences – primarily anatomical differences. (There are also rare cases of “intersexual” individuals as outlined in the Navarro article, “When Gender Isn’t a Given”.) Gender, on the other hand, is an often misconstrued concept that is commonly mistaken as synonymous with sex. A non-sociologist might surmise the following, “men act masculine and women act feminine, therefore, it must follow that gender is inherent to sex,” however, this is not necessarily the case.
When someone says ‘gender categorization and identity’, I think of the 1950’s and places where women aren’t worth as much as men. They hold some negative connotations for me, but they aren’t bad in their essence. Categorization is placing things into classes, to organize them. We categorize gender as children because of our culture. A doll is assessed as a girl because it wears a dress, yet it cannot be female. People are assigned the most basic identity in gender, no matter who they are. A black male would be categorized differently than a black female would be. Erving Goffman takes this debate a step further to say that some behaviors are “somehow inherent in their sex” (qtd. by Tannen; 63). Behaviors of men and women seem to fall into patterns with their corresponding genders. Not everyone fits into these neat little boxes. This does, however, show gender categorization. Gender identity is the opposite of gender categorization. This is the way we see
The sex and gender binary is a socially-constructed classification of sex and gender into two distinct and biological forms of masculine and feminine. The binary is a restricting concept that enforces the ideology that solely two genders exist—it is a social boundary that limits people from exploring gender identity or mixing it up (Larkin, 2016). As Mann depicts it, the binary constrains us to take on one gender identity, and to follow through with the expected roles assigned to that gender. The implications are that it compels people to fit into the binary and follow the patriarchal, heteronormative traditions of society (Mann, 2012). However, the binary was not always so clear-cut, but certain concepts from scientific research such as the
Transgender identified people are those who identifies with another gender from which they were given to at birth. For example, a female sex assigned girl or woman transition man, or a male sex assigned boy or man to a woman. Transsexual identified people are those that identify with a sex different than assigned. For example a female sex assigned person who identifies as male and vice versa. In some other cultures, such as the Native American culture give the freedom for transgender identified people to be able to live as they identify. Today the western ideology shut out and out casts trans people. Europeans have always out casted trans people. Beemyn (2014:504) states “The Europeans nations that colonized what is today the United States rejected and often punished perceived instances of gender nonconformity. But many Native American cultures at the time of European conquest welcomed and had recognized roles for individuals who assumed behaviors and identities different from those of the gender assigned to them
In order to grasp the concept of social construction of gender, it is essential to understand the difference between sex and gender. Biologically, there are only two reproductive genital organs that are determinants of sex: the vagina and the penis. Sex is established solely through biological structures; in other words, genitalia are the basis of sex. Once a sex category is determined, gender, a human categorization socially attached to sex, is assigned based on anatomy. Gender typically references social or cultural differen...
In conclusion, Eastern and Western cultures clearly vary in the level of tolerance and acceptance they each have towards what is considered outside of the social norm for sex and gender. This is evident with the amount of acceptance of homosexuals and transsexuals in our everyday society as well as in some religious places of worship. There is also a great deal of tolerance for the idea of a third sex within the Indian and Hindu culture. Eastern cultures are definitely more accepting and open then Western cultures. Many studies have been done to prove this information and this paper draws on some of them.
is a type of issue that has raised many questions over the years in defining and debating if both male and female are equal. Today gender is constructed in four different ways. The
In order to discuss the biology of gender identity and sexual orientation, it is necessary to first examine the differences between multiple definitions that are often mistakenly interchanged: sex, gender, sexual orientation, and gender identity. Sexual orientation is defined by LeVay (2011) as “the trait that predisposes us to experience sexual attraction to people of the same sex as ourselves, to persons of the other sex, or to both sexes” (p. 1). The typical categories of sexual orientation are homosexual, heterosexual and bisexual. Vrangalova and Savin-Williams (2012) found that most people identify as heterosexual, but there are also groups of people that identify as mostly heterosexual and mostly gay within the three traditional categories (p. 89). This is to say that there are not three concrete groups, but sexual orientation is a continuum and one can even fluctuate on it over time. LeVay (2011) also defines gender as “the ...