Genitalia Essay

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.

When I saw this, I knew we had to take a moment and think about it, sex is biological, gender is a man created social construction. It tends to start at birth when a child is called either a male or female. It happens when we give a child a name according to their gender. For example, a girl would be named Jennifer and a boy would be named Adrian. As growing we are influenced by what’s around us. As children our parents and our community taught us how we are supposed to dress, how we should appear to other people and our actions according to our “genders”. Gender construction is assigning roles, characteristics, jobs, and names to our sexes. We are not born men and women, yet we become

The body once established as “natural” and binary sex an unquestioned “fact,” is the alibi for constructions of gender and sexuality, which can purport to be the just-as-natural expressions or consequences of a more fundamental sex. It is on the foundation of the construction of this natural binary sex that the binaries of gender and heterosexuality are likewise constructed as innate. This narrative “gives a false sense of legitimacy and universality to a culturally specific and, in some cases, culturally oppressive version of gender identity” (Butler 329). Without a critique of sex as produced by discourse, Butler claims, the distinction of sex and gender used to contest the constructions of binary gender and enforced heterosexuality would be wholly ineffective.

International, national and provincial policy needs revision as the legal rights still vary from different countries and states when it comes to gender identification and poses a significant threat to discriminate against intersex individuals. This lack of support from society strengthens the urgency of medical assignment and surgical interventions to intersex children. However, the psychological ramifications of surgical interventions cannot be ignored. While scholars, ethicists and scientist continue to provide insights and work on the ideal approach, surgical interventions are still being practiced today; heavily influenced by socio-cultural views of gender binarism. In an ethical standpoint, nurture over nature raises the question of who gets to decide what normal genitals should look like? Having the “correct” genitals, chromosomes and hormones shouldn’t be the only way to guarantee a legal spot in a

We are currently living in a society where the lines between gender are blending in unimaginable ways. Male makeup artist have begun to pop up everywhere, Facebook has expanded the gender options to more than 50, gender neutral bathrooms are a necessity, and the prevalence of the singular pronoun “they” has increased and been accepted by many. The hard rigid lines of gender and being bent and broken, and we are watching the world as those who do not fit demand change. We are getting closer to destroying the gender binary for good. In the following I will compare Ali Smith’s “How to Be Both”, to several articles regarding the topics of the ambiguity of gender, the differences between sex assigned at birth, gender, and gender expression, as

So in case of a what they call a “state of medical emergency, ” where there is an urge to give the child a sex, doctors take immediate action and pressure the parents to take a quick decision (Hanley). “Adult "patients" were simply left behind—traumatized by unwritten rules of silence and forced surgeries, deprived of sexual sensation and riddled with painful scars”(Zwischengeschlecht.org). Since most of these procedures are done with mere facts of what that Childs chromosome count or sex really is, these children often face traumatic events that often lead them to take drastic decisions, so drastic that many even consider suicide as an open doorway way to end their confusion. In the long run when these children try to identify their true sex, they have a tendency to suffer from psychological traumas. Many of them find out that they are able to carry a baby in their body, while others feel that they were given the wrong sex, and then there are the ones that had their testes removed who feel more identified with the masculine gender. Scientist insist on giving every condition a terminology which creates the separation amongst individuals. The ignorance of scientist is the reason why these individuals feel as if they are excluded from the normal world. Scientist cannot fix or even try to manipulate the sexual preference of a human body. Inter-sex individuals do not need

Many cultures and countries, traditionally, have viewed gender as naturally immutable, as biologically determined at birth, and as binary – either male or female. Because gender binary is accepted as a norm in many cultures and countries, many have ideas and expectations toward newly born infants – these infants are expected to fit neatly into either male or female, and their sexual anatomies are expected to be distinct from one another. When infants are born with intersexual condition, however, medical authorities not only consider these intersex births as anatomic abnormality but intervene also to “fix” these intersex infants back to “normal” by performing highly invasive genital modification surgeries. Because they believe that intersex

This is a bias that I am working very hard to unlearn. In terms of gender and sexuality, I was raised in a world where everyone was a cisgender person and heterosexual. If we're not either of those, you were othered. With that said, traditional gender roles were very much the norm. Despite efforts, I began to categorize people based upon their presumed gender; for example a masculine woman must be a lesbian. However, this changed once I became older and realized presuming somebody’s gender/sexuality based on their outer appearance is not okay. Then I realized I was an LGBT person.

The research looking at the differences between Asians and Caucasians related to sexual experience is consistent and immense. For one, A number of studies have noted that asians tend to be less sexually experienced than caucasians (Cochran, Mays, & Leung, 1991; McLaughli, Chen, Greenberger, & Biermeir, 1997; Sasaki & kameoka 2009; Schuster, Bell, Nakajima & Kanouse 1998; Randolph, et. al. 2009, Meston & Ahrold 2008, Laumann et al. 2005, Meston, Trapnell, & Gorzalka 1998, Huang & Uba 1992). This trend has been identified in multiple studies and a range of age samples, including a study on 4593 high school students (Sasaki & Kameoka 2009). Saskaki and Kameoka reported that the odds of sexual intercourse were significantly lower for Japanese students.

Its a boy or its a girl but before categorizing based on genitalia, its a human. As humans, all have the freedom to choose how one chooses to identify his/herself. These categories are not based on the written rules of science but the unwritten rule of society that goes back centuries. If one is born with a male reproductive organ, he must associate himself with all aspects of a boy. The same goes for those born with a female genitalia, she must be considered a delicate princess. What if the delicate princess decides that she does not want to be a princess but a strong athlete? Here is where individual choice takes part in gender identity. All individuals have the freedom to choose how to live their lives. However, when the subject is about

For many years we have been living in a society where depending on our sexuality, we are judged and expected to behave and act certain way to fulfill the society’s gender stereotypes. How is so? Since the day we are born we are categorized as a boy or girl bases on our sex. Frequently, we heard the nurses in the Maternity facility saying things like, “Oh is a strong boy or is beautiful fragile princess.” Yet, not only in hospitals we heard this types of comments but we also see it on the media, where they are referring to guys as tough and girls as delicate and weak ones. The truth is that in our society gender role is more important than sexuality. But does sexuality and gender really matter? What if someone breaks these stereotypes? Does our sexuality really reveal what type of things as individuals are capable of accomplishing? To start with we have to see know what these terms: gender and sex mean and what the famous gender role’s guidelines are. Therefore, we have to analyze and most important understand what is gender and how is seen in our society.

Sex is a popular subject; it is on television, in advertisements, in magazines, and practically everywhere. One very serious side effect of an increase of sexual activity is the risk of contracting sexually transmitted diseases. They affect more than twelve million Americans each year. Sexually transmitted diseases are becoming common and widely spread throughout Americans because of unprotected sex, permiscuity, and multiple sex partners. Some of the most commonly found sexually transmitted diseases are gonorrhea, chlamydia, HIV/AIDS, and syphilis.

When a child is born, the most common question asked is what is the baby’s sex? This question is asked because, sex is biologically determined, from the second we come out of the womb, by our chromosomes, genitalia, reproductive organs, and hormones. People often group sex and gender together as if they are the same thing, but really they are two separate categories. Gender is a category that splits bodies into a binary system of women and men. Ultimately the two terms intertwine because, one’s biologically determined sex is assigned a gender role to play. The main difference between the two is that gender excludes biology. Sex represents the body’s anatomy and physiological workings and gender represents social forces that mold behavior.

Since the dawn of time, the male sex has been dominating over the female sex. As a result, society rewards them with a broader spectrum of opportunities. There are certain expectations and privileges that society holds and allots for each sex; with the males often “reaping the benefits” of these dispensations. In the book Sex and Gender by Hillary M. Lips, she addresses the constraints that society places on each sex through gender expectations and suggests that as a result of these limited cultural perceptions men are exposed to more openings: “change from male to female would involve a restriction of activities and horizons, whereas change in the opposite direction would involve a widening of possibilities” (Lips 402). After analyzing the implications of gender presumptions in class, I agree with Hillary’s statement. As a result of the guidelines that society places on gender through the feminist theory of Patriarchal dividend and stereotypical language, outlined by Laurel Richardson, there is often a divide in opportunity between genders. Lois Gould’s X: A Fabulous Child’s Story and Robert L. Allen and Paul Kivel’s Men Changing Men further supports Lips’ argument as it challenges the idea of typical gender roles by showing how these expectations impact an individual’s life. There are many attributes that contribute to an individual’s access to opportunities as Kimberelé Crenshaw highlights through her theory of Intersectionality and these attributes combined with gender

One’s sex is what determines our place in the patriarchal society that is the United States. Politically and Legally, most laws and regulations have been designed to acquire about our sex and not our gender. In the more recent decades, gender has become more prevalent than ever before, and the issue of where gender lies in these exclusive laws has become a widespread issue in our society today. The textbook definition of one’s sex is “the biological and physiological characteristics that define men and women.” (Mills) Whereas one’s gender is referred to “the socially constructed roles, behaviors, activities, and attributes that a given society considers appropriate for men and women.”(Mills) Historically women have always been portrayed as