Moving Beyond Fixed And Natural Categories

Gender is the intersection of the relationships between sex, gender identity, sexuality and gender expression; gender is an achieved status

The word identity has become the most discussed idea in our society. It is described mostly, to be a word that stands for who we are. Therefore, because of who we are, identity has come to be a word that we use to claim and understand people’s actions in our society. So in this paper I will be analysing how social practices surrounding identity relates to gender in social, personal levels, through the work of three authors; by Ian Hacking on “kind making”, Margaret Somers on “Narrative construction of identity” and finally, Frederick Cooper and Rogers Brubaker on “beyond identity” . However, I will tilt more toward Frederick Cooper and Rogers Bruakers article on identity. This is because I feel that their article contributes better to my

Normalcy is an ever-changing concept in a variety of ways, and gender identity is among the primary areas in which the concept of “natural” or “normal” has been adapting very rapidly over the past century. First-wave feminists thought that woman and man were inherent (“normal”) categories, and that the two sexes (which were natural) had different characteristics. De Beauvoir, in turn, argues that women are made and remade through society’s continuous investment of cultural significance onto the bodies in which they are born, and sexed through direct differentiation from men. Judith Butler joined the gender debate when the second-wave sex and gender distinction reigned and was thought to parallel the distinction between nature and culture. Butler supports this second wave conception of gender, and she provides further support for it through her reading of Freud. Her analysis offers new support for the second wave’s conception of gender as a social construct, as well as new suggestions about how the process of social construction could take place.

Gender identity is an extremely personal part of who we are, and how we perceive and express ourselves in the world. It is a separate issue entirely from sex or sexual orientation. There are dozens of dynamic and evolving terms related to how people identify. “Although Children are taught that their genes decree whether they will grow into men or women, people are not born socially or culturally female or male. Like race and ethnicity, gender can be thought of as socially constructed” (Marsiglia & Kulis, 2015, p. 196). I identify as female because I was taught as a child that I am female because of the genital parts I was born with. I also feel like I am a female. I do have my beliefs on what being a female or male entails.

In light of performativity, political transformation via hegemonic cultural practices continues to advocate for gender parody. Overall, the recent exploration of alterity ethics complements performativity politics by exploiting the subversive potential of gender identity as well as female identity. For the oppressed individuals, power should be subverted via political strategy guided by the consequences and punishment with the objective of maximizing the good in the society. In other words, performativity politics described by the recent works of Butler takes the form of action consequentialism. Still, Butler’s politics is reversed by the ethics without coming to a satisfactory position.

Throughout the beginning of the course students have obtained a wide variety of new vocabulary, including many concepts and theories. Within this paper I will be discussing the following: gender, transgender, transsexual, sexism, four axioms of masculinity, and gender based harassment. I have focused on the following six terms because they all focus on sexuality and gender and how they differ throughout the expression and biology of oneself. All of these terms relate to the freedom of choice and allowing people to be their authentic self while also including some limitations that people have put on them for not conforming to heterosexual norms. I also have focused on the following two feminist theories: Queer Theory and Radical Theory. Both these theories helped to pull all six of my concepts together to be analyzed while also dividing them by allowing people to be themselves both biologically and by expression but also tying in the negativity that these people face every day for choosing to live their lives how they want.

The first article is “The Social Construction of Gender” by Judith Lorber. In this essay she states that sex and gender is constructed through the society in which we live and that, “Gender is so pervasive that in our society we assume it is bred into our genes” (Lorber, 64). Lorber’s article takes the standpoint that physical gender expression is such an important topic to individuals because when the conventions of gender are shifted, “we feel socially dislocated” (65). An example of this is when people who are not used to gender shifts encounter a “transvestite,” or in modern terms a transgender person, their perceptions are disrupted. If someone does not express physical gender “normally” with their bodies—i.e. a

To conceptualise sexual identity and gender expression, Judith Butler (1990) proposes a poststructuralist perspective; that gendered behaviour (masculinity and femininity) is learned, a performative act, and that gender is constructed through a ‘heterosexual matrix’. She describes this as

To level down the huge topic of LGBT, this research paper will be discussing about discrimination against transgender individuals. The word “discrimination” can be define as prejudice of different group of people, especially race, age, or sex (Oxford Dictionaries, 2013). News about discrimination against LGBT individuals can be seen on webpage, magazines, as well as newspaper. However, discrimination against transgender individuals is slightly different and sometimes more severe than discrimination against lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) individuals (American Civil Liberties Union [ACLU], 2013). There are a few countries that have legalized transgenderism rights law. For example, Spain has approved transgender rights law since 2007. Transgender individuals have been given right to change their gender document without undergo a sex change (“Pink News”, 2006). Other than Spain, Argentina

Gender identity ailment is customarily referred to as transexuallism. Transvestism refers to the apply of obtaining sexual pleasure by using dressing within the garments of the reverse sex. In these days the term move-dressing is more commonly used due to the fact that it does now not allow for a mistake of transsexualism, which is a whole gender exchange from the long-established sex. Transvestism is a paraphilia for which the major characteristic is severe sexual urges and sexually arousing fantasies involving dressing in garb of those of the reverse sex. It is totally fundamental to note that just since an man or woman is classified as a transvestite does now not mean that they're necessarily homosexual. Broad stories had been carried out

Gender appears to be a fundamental category taken place in our identity and has emphasized to us at an early age. Going to Wal-Mart and Target we discovered that tons of our preferences are made for us before we are even born. As an infant, it seems that boys prefer blue and girls prefer pink. Because of our gender ideology and socialization, it is easy to differentiate which clothes/toys are for boys and which are for the girls.

Gendered identity seemed to be well defined during the 1950s and this appeared to be reflected in fashion. These clearly defined roles and images however have not, historically, been consistent. At the beginning of the 20th century women’s style and fashion started to change intensely, this changing has helped women to fight for their independence of their style in fashion. Clothing moved to be more practical, a huge change from the narrowed and restricted frills and corsets of the 19th century. Fashion in the 1900s started to see a decline of the train on women’s dresses but soon enough hems began to develop (above the ankle). In the 1910s style began to concentrated more on the female shape, and just after one year later the world saw the beauty of slender silhouette. However, women were still required to keep the

Sexuality can be primarily defined as an individual’s “capacity for sexual feelings” (OpenStax College, 2012. Pp. 270). On the other hand identity, in this case, gender identity is “a person’s self-conception of being either male or female based on his or her association with the feminine of masculine gender roles” (OpenStax College, 2012. Pp. 262). People may be discriminated and be victimised based on their perceptions of sexuality and identity, especially if they fail to conform to the societal norms and expectations (Beemyn, 2012).

In this paper, I will talk about the differences of sex and gender from the aspect of transgenderism. To begin with we will provide a brief background on the sex and gender. Whenever a human born, they always have a natural sex with them. Sex, a more biologic and physiological meaning, which means two main categories, male or female, into which organisms are placed on this basis. On the other hand, gender is a social meaning pertaining to masculinity and femininity. (Urdy, 1994) It is including that biological sex, sex-based social structures or gender identity. (Haig, 2004) When we born in this world we cannot get rid of the influence of our context. As a result, sex and gender may be different for one person. Thus, some people, who have a difference sex from his or her gender, may struggle with themselves and all the world. The transgenderism suggests us about the differences of sex and gender from several parts and I will only discuss parts of them because of the limitation of words and time. For example, they have different meanings and also refer to different area. The most important is that they have different influence on how people identity themselves. Although sex and gender is different, they are many sociologists assume that we should consider sex and gender are the same. In next several sections I will elaborate the definition of sex and gender and their

For the purposes of this study the researcher will refer female-to-male transgender (FTM) to anyone who was assumed to identify as a girl, having been assigned female sex at birth, but who now identifies as a male. Male-to-female (MTF) transgender will be used to discuss those who’s were assumed to have male identity at birth but now identify as female. Trans will be used as an umbrella term that refers to all people whose gender expression transgresses the social norms of their natal sex.