The Influence Of Media On Gender Identity

The television industry is not influential in forming gender identity in our Children’s formative years.

This boy’s family forces him to watch Sunday afternoon football each week. What then lures that five year old boy to his grandmother’s bedroom to play dress up with her makeup and high heels the moment the football game ends? Could the media make this feminine boy into a masculine man? Or is it something that is already a part of the brain that defines what our gender will be? Transgender men and women know at a very early age what gender they are and no amount of television or sports will change what is in our heads. After listening to many transgendered men and women talk
The limbic and anterior part of the brain that has us as little boys, lying in front of the television watching actresses and dreaming if we could only be them, the manual used by psychologists and psychiatrists is called the Diagnostic and Statistical manual, it is used to identify mental disorders. Gender identity disorder is someone that has strong and persistent cross-gender identification. Feels a persistent discomfort with their sex and this discomfort is not due to being intersex or hermaphrodite. The discomfort causes significant distress or impairment in their life, this may teach a child what their role as a male or female is in society as through the eyes of television and the media industry. Parents of a transgender child had a quote that I found to be so endearing. It is a monumental quote from Renee Jennings; for young transgender children across the globe. “You’re special. God made you special. There are not many little girls out there who have a penis.” Does that sound like it could have been influenced by any form of the media? No amount of gender oriented media is going to form our children’s gender