Sexual Identity - Essay Example

What issues are raised by attaching a label to someone’s gender identity or sexual identity? Should we give labels to the gender identity of other people? Should the medical profession be engaged in helping people change their genders? Gender is an underlying characteristic of all societies and the social construction of gender roles, behaviors and expectations is an importance aspect of modern American society. With the aim of understanding how gender is constructed and how gender expectations influence our lives, the following will provide a personal exploration and an in-depth analysis of the social construction of gender roles, expectations and beliefs. Furthermore, I will discuss sex and gender and the role gender plays in modern American society with a focus on the social implications being transgendered. What issues are raised by attaching a label to someone’s gender identity or sexual identity? Should we give labels to the gender identity of other people? Should the medical profession be engaged in helping people change their genders? I will conclude with a conclusion of the research explored here and discuss the ramifications of gender role construction today. Unlike sex, gender is artificially imposed and although based upon biological differences between men and women, gender is socially constructed. As a social construct, gender roles, behaviors, attitudes and expectations are created by society and enforced by social norms. The funny thing about gender is that we are led to believe that it is innate and something that we are born with. Accordingly, “children themselves become active participants in the gendering process by the time they are conscious of the social relevance of gender, typically before the age of two” (Kivel 2000). As I child I always felt that gender was natural but now I know that it is the product of social forces. As transgendered male Aaron Devor so eloquently points out in his ground-breaking and incredibly illuminating essay, “Gender Role, Behavior and Attitudes”, gender is created, acquired and constructed by the greater society at large. Sex has a biological basis and is predetermined at birth. Gender, on the other hand, is a social construction and gender roles and expectations are unique to each and every society. As social actors, individuals play an important role in the construction and creation of gender roles, attitudes and expectations and are not simply passive recipients of societal expectations about how men and women are to behave. While women are expected to be docile and caring, “men in our society are supposed to be powerful” (Ore 2008). Gender role expectations are also explained through social cues such as body posture and demeanor, speech patterns, style of dress. The nature of these cues lends credence to the argument that gender is socially constructed and the way that we talk, they way we carry ourselves and the types of clothes that we wear are all determined by social forces. You would be hard pressed to find someone say today that women wear dresses because they have a biological need to do so; this would be an example of sex stereotypes and sexism. Accordingly, these norms are embedded with our consciousness and taken for granted (Devor 1993). What issues are raised by attaching a label to someone’s gender identity or sexual identity? There are many social and political implications associated with gender labeling and the division of power between men and women, most often ignoring transgendered people. Seeking to dispel the myths surrounding sex and gender, Ore (2008) persuasively argues that a gender hierarchy exists within our society and unmasks the argument for the naturalness of gender roles, behaviors and expectations. Asserting that gender roles are created and not innate, he argues that the naturalness argument for gender has no biological basis and is a social construction. Our society is organized under a patriarchal gender schema in which men and women, as dichotomous members of the gender hierarchy, are situated on opposite ends of the schema. While we are taught from a very young age to believe that gender differences are normal and natural, it is now commonly understood by scholars that a power imbalance underlies the gender hierarchy so prevalent in our society and informs our beliefs about gender. (Devor 1993). As someone who crossed over and made the transition for female to male, renowned transgender activist and scholar Aaron Davor provides an excellent insight into the issues of gender modification and crossing over. Accordingly, what are the emotional and societal problems of crossing over? There are many problems, both individual and societal, when it comes to gender modification and changing one’s gender. Individual problems include a feeling of isolation, hopelessness and being alone. Accordingly, many transgendered people feel as though they are the only people on the planet who feel as though they do not belong in their bodies and that the sex to which they were born is undeniably false. Fear of rejection and of the challenges associated with life living as a transgendered person are also important individual emotional problems which are commonly associated with crossing over. For thousands of transgendered people in America and around the world, feelings of fear, isolation and hopelessness are unfortunate features of life. What are the social ramifications of this transition? From a societal perspective, we live in a patriarchy in which heterosexuality is presumed to be the norm. Patriarchy is defined as a type of social structure in which men are perceived as being superior to women and it is impossible to understand the construction of gender roles and expectations in modern Western society without first understanding the omnipresent patriarchal nature of our society. Renowned scholar Judith Butler famously remarked that "to become a lesbian is an act, a leave-taking of heterosexuality," (2002) and for many lesbians in America this sentiment rings true. The binary logic of sex is inherently hierarchical and in modern American society, men are perceived of as being superior compared to women, according to this subjective sexual hierarchy. This hierarchy has important ramifications in the social, cultural, economic and political realms as access to social services, jobs, and political office are presumably easier for men than for women. Similarly, the binary logic of sexuality and gender also postulates homosexuals are inferior to heterosexuals, with results in the social, cultural, economic and political realms (Butler 2002). Concluding Remarks Many scholars now agree that gender is socially constructed and culturally specific. Accordingly, gender role expectations are largely a product of social forces and are the result of systemic power imbalances with our society. These expectations and attitudes serve to reinforces discrimination based upon gender and are socially constructed. The social construction of gender influences of behaviors, roles, attitudes and expectations and because of the hierarchical nature of gender in our society, masculinity becomes superior and femininity is deemed to be inferior. Should we give labels to the gender identity of other people? No, labeling is harmful and due to the socially enforced gender code, our engrained ideas about gender are incredibly difficult to change. We are all products of our own individual societies and we subconsciously impart the ideas and beliefs which make up our cultures. Transgendered people challenge these ideas and fundamentally challenge our beliefs about sex and gender. Ideas about gender roles are subsequently often unquestioned since they are perceived to be so integral to our understanding of how the world works. Understanding that gender is a construction is perhaps the first step in breaking free from the bonds of gender. The medical profession should most certainly be engaged in helping people change their genders since it is a duty of medical professionals to help others from a medical and scientific standpoint and remain impartial. Our personal ideas or beliefs about sex and gender should not influence the care that the medical professional is obliged to provide to all people, irrespective of factors such as race and gender. REFERENCES Butler, J. (2002). Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge. Devor, A. (1993). “Gender Role, Behavior and Attitudes”. Annual Review of Sex Research, 7, 44-89. Kivel, P. (1999). Boys will be Men. New York: New Society Publishers. Ore, T. (2008). The Social Construction of Difference and Inequality: Race, Class, Gender and Sexuality. London: McGraw-Hill. Read More