What Is Gender Identity?

The determination of gender identity is much deeper than whether a person is born a male or a female. The exact identifier that separates gender identity is currently unknown but researchers believe that genetics, hormones, reproductive organs, biological, and environmental factors all play a role in distinguishing a person’s gender identity. A person’s physical gender and their sense of gender are formed at two different times in two different parts of the body. A person’s gender is whether they are born male or female, but the way they identify themselves may be the opposite, which is not uncommon and has occurred since the beginning of time. In culture males are known to be the stronger, more aggressive sex, while females are the

To me gender is what you want to be seen as and sex is the body parts you are born with. Today there are even surveys including a “no comment” option along with male and female. Many factors contribute to gender identity, such as what sex you are attracted to, what sex you feel you belong alongside, or even how much testosterone our body produces. As soon as I came into this world, I was given a pink blanket. From then on I was expected to buy all the sparkly spirals and pink pencils. I am expected to love wearing skirts and dresses to school. I am expected to cross my legs and scorn people that tell inappropriate jokes. To the world is was out of the ordinary that I would pick the blue spirals and green pencils, wear jeans and a tshirt every single day, and to be the one telling those awful jokes my brother taught

Gender is defined as being male or female as defined by roles, social status, and attitude. The perception of oneself and what characterizes gender identity. Included in gender identity is hormone and behavior interaction, along with the examination of psychological, biological, and environmental influences on sexual separation.

The concept of gender is not as cut and dry as you might think. The term gender is often used incorrectly as a synonym for our biological sex. Gender is more of a predetermined set of ideas and characteristics used in identifying socially acceptable behaviors and appearances for the sexes. It is not determined by the biological sex of the person. From an early age we begin to develop ideas of what it means to be male or female by observing others. Gender falls on a spectrum from masculine to feminine with many combinations in between. Gender expression and gender identity are also not the same thing. Gender expression is not related directly to how a person perceives their gender,

Gender is a complex socially constructed idea. Often people interchangeably use gender to refer to someone’s sex. This is not the case. Sex is the biological characteristics that makes someone a male, female or intersex. Gender however is made up of expression, identity, and sexual orientation. Gender identity is how one views themselves such as a woman, man or transgender. Gender identity does not correspond to the sex of that person. Gender expression is how one expresses their gender identity. This could be through a masculine , feminine or androgynous expression. In Western societies, although there has been a push for change in our gender system, the gender system as been a binary system. This binary system only believes that there are

Traditionally speaking, most people view sex and gender as interchangeable, synonymous, and biological. As more studies and research are done, more professionals are realizing the vital difference between the two terms. Sex, according to sociologist Doctor Zuleyka Zevallos, is the “biological traits that societies use to assign people into the category of either male or female, whether it be through a focus on chromosomes, genitalia, or some other physical ascription”. She goes on to say that the definition of gender is “the cultural meanings attached to men and women’s roles; and how individuals understand their identities including, but not limited to, being a man, woman, transgender, intersex, gender queer, and other gender identities” (Zeyallos, 2014). We see sex as something we are assigned at birth due to the body parts we are born with, and we see gender as the way one identifies with their assigned sex. In the majority of cases, assigned sex and gender identity line up, but less often it does not. In these cases, we see individuals who are transgender, gender queer, gender fluid, and more. More people are coming forward about these different ways they are experiencing gender, so many people assume these ways of experiencing gender are new.

Gender Identity is a highly controversial in society today, people like myself often misinterpret a person’s sexual orientation and biological sex for a person’s gender identity rather than a concept of it. White, and Ciccarelli define gender identity as “The individual’s sense of being male or female” (302). A person’s sexual orientation is the enduring romantic, or sexual attraction to another individual (hrc.org). This term only describes what gender an individual is attracted to. The biological sex of an individual is the physical, genetic, and hormonal anatomy a person is born with (plannedparenthood.org). Neither of these term define how individuals identify with themselves. However, throughout research I’ve discovered American Culture

Gender identity is the personal conception of being a man or a woman and the society creates standards and comes up with gender roles basing them on existing norms and traditions which will in turn influence gender identity. For instance, most societies associate strength and dominance to be masculine roles while caring and assisting or subordination known to be feminine roles. This clearly makes gender identity be bred within the society. One’s identity is important as it influences his or her life through events like life experiences, how one is being taken or treated, how to do one associate or socialize with others, the type of job one will have to do and also opportunities that may come up favoring a certain type of gender identity. One is also likely to face obstacles or discrimination due to his or her identity.

Gender identity is “one’s subjective sense of being a man (or boy) or a woman (or girl). This sense is usually acquired by the age of 3” (King, 2012). “As children move into the larger

Society has a tremendous effect on the way people see themselves as well as the way they see others. When it comes to sex and gender, these two words are used interchangeably, even though they are different. Sex is what a person is biologically born with, whereas Gender is how a person is seen in society, their roles, and their accepted behavior. Gender identity is a person’s inner sense of being male or female and a display of that. Jayme Poisson writes an article, “Parents Keep Child’s Gender Secret,” on two parents that decided to raise their newborn child genderless. The couple also allows their other children to display whichever gender they choose, not conforming with “how they’re expected to look and act based on their sex,” (Poisson 366). Kwame Anthony Appiah describes the idea of being able to respect the traditions of others without having to agree with or understand them in “Making Conversation”. Women and men are, not surprisingly, treated very differently in society. In “Human Dignity” Francis Fukuyama writes about equality and the essence that humans possess. Society creates a stigma for men who act feminine and women who act masculine, creating a negative impact on ones gender identity, specifically on the description of gender roles, and how certain products are marketed.

Gender, as defined by the United Nations, includes the psychological, social, cultural, and behavioral characteristics associated with being female or male. It further defines acceptable and allowable behavior in for both men and women in a broad cultural sense (United Nations, 2016). Gender identity impacts our development and how we interact with society. Our daily life decisions are impacted by our gender role beliefs.

Gender is not based on physical attributes. Sex is the word that should be used when speaking about biological characteristics. So, based on the definition of gender by LeVay, gender identity is one’s personal attitude towards being more male or female.

Gender, however, is the social and psychological characteristics that are associated with being masculine or feminine. Gender is someone’s personal feelings of how they identify. Someone who identifies with the gender they have been assigned based on their sex is cisgender. Someone who does not identify with the gender they have been assigned is transgender. Agender people do not identify with any gender. There is a broad spectrum of genders because it is not limited to just two possibilities. Gender is really about how someone feels in context with their body and their personality.

The current debate is on the question of gender identity, and if it is environmentally or biologically constructed. Gender identity is ones sense of being female, male, a combination of both, or neither regardless of their biological sex, and is connected to ones core sense of self. I was instructed to argue that gender identity is biologically constructed (J. Janke, Personal Communication). Your gender identity is not something that develops over time, but rather something that you begin to understand and acknowledge overtime. Because it may take you a while for you to understand your feelings, it is possible for individuals to experience a change within their gender identity as they mature. Overall, there are three main points of evidence that allow me to believe that gender identity is a biological construction. These points included the fact that specific areas of an indivudals brain, as well as their size are correlated to sexual orientation, the idea that prenatal exposure to specific hormones are related with ones gender identity, and the existence of sex development disorders.

According to Kathleen Stassen Berger, author of Invitation to the Life Span, gender identity is “a person’s acceptance of the roles and behaviors that are associated with the biological categories of male and female”(p. 388). As a child, we think in a very simple way, which means we take on the idea of gender schema, the general belief of difference between males and females according to a child, but as we grow older we begin to question our gender identity due to Piaget 's concept of hypothetical reasoning. The reason behind the questioning can be that gender identities consist of a wide range of different categories that adolescents may be curious or may even identify as which includes gender (no gender), bigender (two genders), third gender (neither male or female), transgender (does not correspond with their birth sex), and many more.