GENDER AND IDENTITY

Gender and Identity

Gender and Identity

Gender identity

 Gender identity is defined as a set of behaviors, attitudes, symbolism and meanings that develop during the psycho-sexual development. It is a long process of imitation, education and learning model is based on representations that the child internalizes the way he should think and behave as a sexual being. The sex we identify male or female, but this does not mean that we can qualify for male or female. This gender identity, built throughout our lives in a constant interaction between the biological and socio-cultural, yet is crucial to our position in relation to another. (Tolman, 2008)

Most gender scholars today agree that gender is a socially constructed category of identity. This means that gender is something that is created by discourse, roles, and norms that are agreed upon by a given society. In lay conversation, gender is often conflated with the term sex, which is said to be biological and based on a person's chromosomal makeup, DNA, and genitalia. The most common categories of sex are male, female, and intersex (individuals), but there are myriad other “sexes” out there, existing in liminal spaces and identity formations. Gender, which is not necessarily correlated to biological sex, is judged on a continuum of how a person identifies himself or herself on a spectrum of masculine-androgynous-feminine. Different schools of thought have produced different ways to think about gender and identity. (Gramsci, 2008)

Sexual identity

Sexual identity is difficult to define and measure because it is an inner conviction that could be inconsistent with appearance or overt behavior, because it can change throughout life, and because it does not always reflect the perceptions of others. A man may be comfortable with his male body, act in a socially appropriate way for his culture, have occasional sex with men, but be married and see himself as a heterosexual. A woman could grow up a tomboy, dress and behave in “masculine” ways, and work in a male-dominated job but know she is a heterosexual woman. A “lipstick” lesbian could wear ultra-feminine clothing and accessories but live with a female partner. Outward expressions of sexual identity can also be altered to suit different social circumstances, or can be radically transformed through sex reassignment procedures. (Rubin, 2004)

It refers to behavioral, social and legal criteria, so in connection with the representations of what is on the order of masculine and feminine. The role of gender is the effective and visible individual expression as manifested by the individual. Sex determination is first-order biological sex of an individual is determined at fertilization by the sex chromosomes: XX for females, XY for males. (Gramsci, 2008)

Sexual identity has a least two meanings in the social sciences, both relating to inner convictions or claims about who and what we are. The first meaning refers to the various ways we see ourselves as male or female, and the second defines our sexuality or the kinds of erotic partners we ...