Gender And Gender Roles Have Work For Centuries

“I'm not like other girls,and I don't want to be. The person who people want me to be isn't who I am, but that doesn't mean I'm going to change my gender to fit the stereotypes. I'm going to remain a girl who loves boy things” (Anonymous). Science has crossed the line with gender reassignment surgery. The process of gender reassignment surgery is an unnecessary mutilation. It reinforces gender stereotypes. Also there is no scientific proof that the ‘disease’ that people claim to have even exist.

Through examining the ways intersex individuals are treated in a medical setting, one can see how science only allows binary bodies to be created. Crawley et al. (2007) discusses intersex individuals and the standard treatment of intersex children, being to alter their ‘abnormal’ genitalia to resemble one of the two genders. This has become the normal treatment as if this is necessary, but the only threat the child is in danger of is not fitting perfectly into the heteronormative standard of correct genitalia. Because surgical intervention proves we alter and change one’s sex, it becomes difficult to claim that sex and gender are solely biological, when clearly one’s gender and sex becomes largely altered the moment they are born into society. Anne Fausto Sterling, outlines her concept of the five sexes, explaining that intersex is a term used to describe any individual that doesn’t fit into the narrow categories of male and female. She explains that the same process that was in play in the Middle Ages is

Gender identity, as defined in Webster’s Dictionary is, “the totality of physical and behavioral traits that are designated by a culture as masculine or feminine” (Webster, 2014). The first words said in the delivery room are often “it’s a boy!” or “it’s a girl!” Intersex children, who fall in between the scientific gender spectrum for male or female, are put through genital mutilation surgery and hormone treatment to abide by one of the two categories. Children who are born with an intersex condition where reproductive or sexual anatomy that do not fit typical females or a typical male’s norms should not have sex assignment surgery performed. This should be decided by the child when they are mature enough to make that decision for themselves. This is morally wrong because the social and cultural need to place intersex individual’s into the category of one sex or the other can have negative impact on their mental and physical health and many of the surgeries done on intersexed infants were done more for the benefit of parents, healthcare practitioners, and society, than for the infant. In the long run, this surgery done at such a young age can cause an unstable quality of life filled with shame and a feeling of exclusion from society along with the possibility of losing sexual functions. I will be mentioning evidence of cases that demonstrate that it’s impossible for intersex individuals who have had sex reassignment surgery that it did not help them identify with the rest

Kristen A. Burgess, Emory University School of Medicine and Charles F Gillespie M.D., PhD, department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Emory University School of Medicine, state that “gender identity disorder is a mental disorder in which gender identity is incongruent with anatomical sex”. Individuals experience different degrees of unhappiness with their sex at birth, which in turn causes them to pursue the life and body of the opposite sex (2010).

only mean that a person identifies with the opposite gender. It also can be used by

A long term study of people who chose to undergo sexual reassignment surgery found that their suicide rates were considerably higher than the rest of the population. McHugh's research suggests that today's sexual education gives teenagers a skewed view of reality. Children and adults alike are led to believe that a physical surgery will fix or confirm their physiological status, but this is apparently not the case. McHugh ends his research with this statement, “'Sex change' is biologically impossible. People who undergo sex-reassignment surgery do not change from men to women or vice versa. Rather, they become feminized men or masculinized women” (McHugh). You cannot physically alter you're natural sex thus it would be far better to deal with such situations on the physiological level rather than misleading people into thinking a surgery will fix all of their

In general terms, I have never given gender identity much thought prior to this reading. Yes, I saw headlines about various people undergoing surgery to change their gender, but I did not consider all of the implications, and how it affects many people, other than the person who is receiving the surgery. Gender dysphoria affects social, medical, and even cultural perspectives, Yarhouse points out, when a child begins to show behaviors similar to the opposite sex, it places a lot of responsibility on the parents to how they should handle the situation. This leads off into how companies treat their employees who identify as transgender, and at various other places such as schools at all levels of education (Yarhouse, p. 15). As well as to how

Throughout history, the roles of genders have acted in many different ways. Women seemed to be considered fragile, while men were the strong and emotionless. Coming into the light in the 1920’s was Ernest Hemingway’s novel that switched these positions. Hemingway displayed gender roles in The Sun also Rises in a cunning new way. The traditional ways of the 1920’s for men and women were incorporated into his novel making the reversed roles more realistic to his readers.

With the new age of technology and the incredibly fast ways anyone can access information, having conversations about controversial social topics is not uncommon. When talking about the grey area that is sex and gender, the argument of gender dysphoria and the surgery that goes behind it is questioned. Gender dysphoria, often the biological condition that goes behind gender reassignment surgery, is a health condition that emanates when one lives with ongoing feelings of being physically incongruous with his or her birth sex. The general public is divided in the situation, either against the surgery and the transgender population, or advocates of the medical advancements that society has achieved. There are an abundance of components and processes that goes into sex reassignment surgery (SRS), ranging from physical surgeries to the psychological and hormonal changes amid the various procedures and practices.

A Swedish study performed over 30 years (1973-2003) attempts to evaluate the mental health stability of transgendered patient having undergone some form of sex reassignment surgery or hormonal treatment. The study was attempted to help better clarify the outcomes of sex reassignments impact on gender dysphoria as previous studies seemed to have inconsistent results. The study took a mix of 324 reassigned male-to-females and female-to-males and followed them long term after their sex reassignments. The results of the study showed that the sex reassigned individuals did not experience a better quality of life or mental stability after their reassignment and were actually worse off than their birth sex counter parts because of increased number of suicides, psychiatric morbidity rates, and higher health issues overall possibly due to lack of overall treatment.

For many years now gender has been certain. To many people, gender is something that should not be changed, and if you do attempt to change your gender by a surgical procedure, it is believed to be wrong. According to the Oxford Dictionary, gender means “the state of being male or female.” Being a male is defined as “the sex that produces small, typically motile gametes, especially spermatoea, with which a female may be fertilized or inseminated to produce offspring,” and female is defined as “the sex that can bear offspring or produce eggs, distinguished biologically by the production of gametes (ova) that can be fertilized by male gametes.” These definitions are accepted by and believed to be correct by a large amount of people. Some of these people believe in such so whole-heartedly, they do not like when their idea of gender identity is questioned. Strict gender roles have work for centuries, so there is no reason why these people are wrong. However, there are many other people who do not agree with this opinion, but that does not mean that their opinion is invalid either.

Patients are able to undergo surgery following at least one year of hormone treatment and living in the role of their preferred gender, as well as alongside continued psychotherapy. For FTM patients, the most common gender confirmation surgery is breast reduction (Tangpricha & Safer, 2016). Genital related surgeries can include hysterectomies, oophorectomies, or vaginectomy wherein varying degrees of a patients female sex organs are removed permanently. Genital reconstruction, which can include the creation of a neopenis or a phalloplasty, which is where the vagina is reconstructed into a semi-functional penis (Tangpricha & Safer, 2016). The primary benefits of gender confirmation surgery for FTM patients include the reduction in inherent female hormone production that is accompanied with the removal of female sex organs (Tangpricha & Safer, 2016). Other strengths of this treatment include overall increased quality of life, with 90% of patients reporting increased quality of life (Durand & Barlow, 2016). In a study done in China, out of the FTM patients over the age of 20 (N=39) who underwent some form of genital reconstruction, 38% reported sexual desire and 60% were satisfactory with outcome (Zhang, et al., 2013). Weaknesses of gender confirmation surgery include not meeting patient expectations in

They are uncomfortable with their bodies and sexual organs. They often dress in the attire of the opposite sex and would rather be recognized in public as members of the opposite sex. Many individuals who are affected by gender identity disorder request for sexual reassignment surgery, or more commonly referred to as a sex change operation (Kenneth & Bradley, 2002).

One in every 2,000 babies born every year are neither male nor female, they are what is known as hermaphrodites. These children and their families are forced into a life of hardship and encounter many conflicts, which need to be addressed. Should the parents choose the assignment of the sex to a newborn child and subject them to a life of surgery and doctor visits? There are 100 to 200 pediatric surgical reassignments every year. Many of these children are subjected to doctor visits for the rest of their childhood. Worst of all, many of these children find themselves resembling or identifying with the gender opposite of that which their parents chose for them.

In today's world, many people are confused about their gender. This has led numerous people to plastic surgery. A countless number of them feel the only way to truly be themselves is through getting a sex transformation. Even though many of them get the surgery on the down low, the effects from the surgery eventually come to light. On the Jerry Springer show, a number of episodes involved the audience guessing what the gender of the person was before they underwent surgery. It’s sad to say, that the majority of the women on the show were originally men. The expenses of buying a whole new lifestyle, the emotional drainage they are likely to face, and the periods of physical pain in hormonal change all are factors they deal with after plastic surgery.