Gender identity

Gender Identity

PSY/265

Gender Identity

When it comes to way that one perceives their sexual identity as either male or female, there are many reasons a person goes one way or the other. There are genetic reasons, mental reasons, and ways in which a child raised. There are plenty of arguments about nature vs. nurture, but the truth is, no one knows for sure. It seems to be a little bit of both. A child can be born with sex organs. A girl can be born with a vagina on the outside but male testicles inside, and this child may identify more as a male than a female. This child, because it was born with the outside genitals of a girl can be raised a girl, put in dresses, have long hair, but grow and identify herself more as a male than a female. There can be regular genitals on a person, a man with a penis and testicles, but they may identify themselves more as a female than a male. His can be from genetics, or mental connection one has with the other sex. I do believe that gender identity starts early and children have no control of which sex they identify with. We can treat a child as one ex there whole life, and they grow up and change, and the parents can be wrong. This does occur often but can happen at any time.

People assign certain characteristics to being feminine and masculine. People would say a man or woman is masculine if they show that they are active, opinionated, capable, realistic, hardheaded, and stingy. A woman or a man act feminine if they behave affectionate, nervous, charming, self-pitying, dreamy, softhearted, fault finding, and suggestible. These are ways that some people would describe someone as being feminine or masculine. I think this is ust ridiculous. I use myself as an example. I grew up being raised by my daddy and having 2 brothers. My mother was around a little but not much. I was always really girly and at the same time I was strong, stubborn, confident, and strong-willed. I behaved like a lady but I had the same characteristics as my brothers. I never questioned if I ever felt like a woman or a man, I knew I was a girl and I was attracted to men. I always knew this, but I had times in my life where people would say I was a lesbian because I was too strong, too thick skinned, too much like one of the boys. But I knew that even though I was a girl and I knew I was strait, I was raised kind of like a boy, lived around boys my whole life, and I always found this to be ridiculous. Women and men can be who they want to be and behave however they want; one’s behavior does not show what they feel about their gender or sexuality.

In closing, I feel that even though there are certain scientific reasons that a person can be raised as one gender but identify more with the opposite; there are also plenty of unexplainable reasons. I feel that one’s brain development in the wound has a lot to do with the choices me make about our gender identity. I think you can raise a child however you want to but they are going to grow up and be who they are meant to be, you cannot control this once they are born and out of the wound. God makes us all the with a little something special, some peoples thing that makes them special is that their body parts on the outside don’t match who they really are on the inside. We need to become more understanding of this and let people be who they want or need to be. It cannot be stopped or controlled and if they hurting no one let them be who they are to be. Our bodies don’t always get it right. I feel that our minds, our hearts and our souls determine who we are more than our body parts. We need to let people explore their gender identity till they know who they want to be and what feels right.