An End to Transphobia

Although gender is a socially constructed idea, it is often suggested to be a natural phenomenon. Society plays an important role in reinforcing gender roles in a way that disguises itself as natural, and is thus accepted without question. The United States’ gender system emphasizes gender hierarchy and a binary system that forces individuals to conform. In order to progress gender equality, it is important to denaturalize these social constructions of gender.

Transgendered people in America have made many great strides since the 1990s. They have encountered violence, lack of health care, and the loss of homes, jobs, family and friends. There have been many phases of the struggle of being transgendered in America over the years. The current phase we must be in now is equal rights. There are many variations of discrimination against the transgendered community. In our society we simply do not like what we do not understand. It is easier to discriminate than to try and understand. We are all created different and we should appreciate our differences. The change must come by addressing the views of the public. There is much justification in the unequal rights of transgendered peoples. The Human

Gender is one of the greatest factors that can determine how we define ourselves and others. Although gender is determined at birth for many, it does not influence one 's identity of self until a later age. How society views the roles of each gender influences how a person views themselves. As the views changes, so does one’s identity. In the past, the roles of men and women were defined and separated. Men were expected to provide income for the family, while women were expected to take care of the home. Doing things outside these roles caused negative reactions from the community and frowned upon. Today, there is still a difference between men and women, but a lot of the roles have become acceptable for both.

My assumptions about gender have changed dramatically throughout the years and—honestly—in the past few months due to friends who have identified as someone other than a man or woman. When I think about gender, I immediately think that someone, more than likely, identifies as a man or a woman. My conditioning—or my influences—have shaped this in my life; however, there are multitudinous ways to describe someone’s gender or lack thereof, when I actually think

Before taking the course Sociology of Sex and Gender, I had not thoroughly or thoughtfully contemplated how gender affects my life and the world around me. The concept of gender, to me, was simply the anatomical sex of a person. One of the most interesting enlightening topics learned during this course was the concept of the gender binary that our society has created. I also found the concept of “doing gender” eye-opening. I discovered ways in which I didn’t realize I was obeying so many gender rules in my own life and fall into so many stereotypical gender roles. Another new concept that was introduced to me during this course was the intersections that gender has between all aspects of a person’s life. Throughout this course, I discovered that I was very naïve to the complexities of gender in our society.

“Gender” is a social construct that is developed solely by our society and the early developmental stages of an adolescent’s life. By introducing youths to the roles, behaviors, expectations and activities that correspond with males or females we give a clear guideline of what is accepted from a young male or female. An individual however can identify his or her gender based on their own system of beliefs without corresponding to their natural biological sex. Our lives are shaped by our true biological identities but the influence of the world and society is enough to define what a male and what a female truly is to an individual.

The National Center for Transgender Equality and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force accounted the housing discrimination and instability for transgender in Pennsylvania. The survey respondents experienced blatant housing discrimination, as well as housing instability, much of which appears to stem from the challenges they face in employment (Task Force and Transgender Equality). These data suggested: 10% were evicted, 15% were denied a home/apartment, 11% had become homeless because of their gender identity/expression, 25% had to find temporary space to stay/sleep, 25% had to move back in with family or friends and 36% reported owning their home compared to 67% of the general U.S. population (Task Force and Transgender Equality). The survey on harassment and discrimination at school was also done. Those who expressed transgender identity or gender non-conformity while in grades K-12 reported alarming rates of harassment (74%), physical assault (23%) and sexual violence (9%) (Task Force and

Gender has always been a hot button topic for me. I’ve experienced, first hand, discrimination that occurs based on gender, but this semester has taught me a lot more about gender than I expected. Thanks to the discussions on LGBTQ and gender, I understand that while the topics overlap, the idea of sexual orientation, sex, and gender are very different things. In the “Who Said It?” article, written by Jessica Press, it is stated that, “even before you’re born, doctors can tell if you’re a boy or a girl based on your body – that’s your sex. But your gender falls along a spectrum. ‘We hold onto these categories of being masculine or feminine, but there are degrees inbetween” (Press 16). Gender has too many stereotypes associated with it and I think it’s vitally important to help our future students deconstruct those stereotypes.

Within Western society, frequently, we hear the terms ‘gender’ and ‘sex’. However, each of these terms are used interchangeably and therefore incorrectly. We are born, assigned a sex, and sent out into the world. For many people, this is cause for little, if any conflict. However biological sex and gender are contrasting; gender is not inherently nor solely connected to an individual’s physical anatomy. Even so, one’s biological gender or ‘sex’ is determined at birth through physical attributes, including external genitalia, sex chromosomes, sex hormones, and internal reproductive structures. We are assigned a sex simply to be identified as either male or female. Whereas gender is a complex interrelationship between an individual’s sex (gender biology) and one’s internal sense of identity as male, female, both or neither (gender identity) as well as one’s visible mannerisms and appearance, (gender expression) which communicates their personal perceptions and foremost their own gender role. Collectively, the juncture of these three dimensions creates an individual’s genuine sense of gender, both in how people experience their own gender as well as how others perceive it.

For the majority of people, it is understood before high school what the difference between sex and gender is. Sex refers to the biological differences at birth amongst males and females, but in today’s society the definition of gender is not so black and white. While the dictionary still incorrectly defines gender as, “the properties that distinguish organisms on the basis of their reproductive roles” the current meaning and proper definition of the word gender has evolved (”Gender”). Breaking free from the constraints placed by society and the obsolete dictionary definition, this word has expanded and taken on an entirely new meaning that appropriately corresponds with the way it is presently being used and interpreted. The definition

Gender is important to Western society, and fittingly, it is deeply woven into the infrastructure of the United States. Whether it comes from the media, school, work, or church, people are fed innumerable amounts of messages everyday instructing them how he or she should look and behave based on their sex, and there is no escaping it. While these gender values have been challenged more frequently and intensely in recent years, one, growing up in a culture that places so much important on gender performance (based on sex), cannot help but be exposed and influenced by it to some degree. At this point, it is crucial to differentiate between the words “sex” and “gender,” which tend to be used interchangeably, an issue that leads to much

Are gender issues as important as the media makes them to be, or is it as pointless as arguing over the correct pronunciation of tomato or tomatoes so to speak. While we can agree gender discrimination is not something to joke about, but is it that prevalent in today’s society? Is enforcing gender roles as damaging as experts argue? Finally the “issue” of gender identity, is it important at all? Is gender identity a more complex form of gender roles? What is the difference between someone deciding to wear the opposite gender's clothes and identity as the opposite gender? Gender discrimination is the only real gender issue, while it is not as prevalent today it is still important. Gender roles and gender identity are not as prevalent as the media paints them to be, the idea of gender is an over analyzed human conception and has no real importance.

Even in a developed, so-called forward thinking country such as the United States, there is no escape from the claims of inequality between men and women. Most would say without hesitation that women have disadvantages compared to men. However, these issues, while very real, aren’t as bad as they are made out to be. In fact, women have it pretty good, their place in society by now established. The arguments of equal rights, in order to support certain views, almost always completely disregard a group that falls into neither of the aforementioned categories. This group, of course, is the genderqueer community. For the sake of statistics, trans men and women will be included, though they are respectively men and women. “Transgender” will be used as the catch all term to refer to non-cisgendered people, though that technically refers to people designated one binary gender who identify as the other.

In order to help the readers to thoroughly understand the issue, it is necessary to acknowledge what “sex” is composed of and what “gender” is made of. In the article “Doing Gender”, Candace West and John Zimmerman clarify that “sex is ascribed by biology: anatomy, hormones, and physiology” (175). At the same time, they also argue that “gender is an achieved status which is constructed through psychological, cultural, and social means” (175). Thus, it can be said that sex is the difference of the body’s organs and reproductive system that biologically characterize one body from another. Meanwhile, gender helps people differentiate “men” and “women” by solely looking at based on their clothes, their actions, their hobbies, and relationships that society push one to form “his” or “her” self-identity. There are always two sections in the shopping stores, one for male and another for female. Therefore, a person would typically look at those tags and decide where to go. A male can be seen picking clothes

A topic that has been heavily discussed throughout this course is the difference between sex and gender. For past several centuries the word gender has been used particularly as a substitute for sex and vice versa. It has proven to be quite a useful term in the past, however, distinctions between the terms sex and gender, in instances where one word would be more proper to use than the other, have not been fully recognized. In most instances, particularly casual conversations, the words sex and gender are substitutable. They are used as synonyms to describe defining characteristics of an individual without altering the direction of the conversation. In scientific, medical, legal, and even religious contexts the use of the terms lead to misperception and lack of understanding. Although many people believe that sex and gender are essentially the same thing, it is evident that they are inherently different defining characteristics of an individual and that each plays a separate, yet impactful, role in defining who we are. In simple terms, sex refers to a person’s anatomical orientation and gender refers to the characteristics that the person, society, or culture defines as either masculine or feminine. This paper discusses the meaning of gender and sex, as defined through society, and delves into the fundamental differences between the two terms.