Understanding Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity in Society
Often sex and gender are interchangeably used and to distinguish the meaning of the terms is not as simple as it seems. It is predominant to understand the distinction between these two words to point out that they are not synonymous. This is sexual orientation and gender identity essay in which the topic of these terms will be considered.
The biological attributes of females and males as determined by their anatomy. It referred as sex it is something attributed to birth and genetically differs in humans. Gender, on the other hand, refers to the physiological aspect. It is a socially constructed role and behavior of each. Sex in a given society it is how one defines himself herself internally and expresses this definitions externally. At birth the physical body characteristics dictate the sex of a person, it is a fixed categorization, however, that may be different from how gender develops, As they grow it is not related to sexual orientation because it is a view of themselves or their gender identity. It can either match the sex they are assigned or much more of a combination of both sexes and or other genders. Gender, as discussed, is a socially constructed role and behavior of a person in a society. Traditionally we are taught that man and woman are the only two genders and we are confined to the said genders. In reality gender is not binary because it is a spectrum. It is also the same term used to denote a range of identities that do not solely correspond to the traditional ideas of male and female. Some are not identified with any gender while others are with multiple and this personal intelligence of gender refers to gender identity.
There are many different gender identities it may differ in names or terms such as but not limited to cisgender, transgender, agender, bigender, gender diverse, genderfluid, genderqueer, intersex, nonbinary, two-spirit none or a combination of all of these. To comprehensively discuss each identity we need to know the importance of acknowledging how a person wants to be recognized. My sister and I ended up having different gender perceptions as we grew up. Despite being both born female we came from the same family we studied in the same school attended mostly the same gatherings and having almost the same hobbies and somehow both were exposed to the same environment still developed an opposite perception of our gender.
The society that provided us a standard of the socially acceptable ways of how we both should act and think as a female was the same society that influenced and varies our learnings experiences interactions and perceptions about gender differences we learned, what is expected from us as a female by what our parents taught us, what we religiously and culturally believed, what we picked up in school. Still we took this agreed identification in our different way. Society provided us a diverse array of how things should be and how it should not. However we believed what manner we should be socially identified and how we should be socially accepted rooted not from what sex we are born with, but rather on how we want to be identified in society. Whether it is what is socially agreed or not. I having the gender that matches the same-sex assigned to me at birth and her being happy having different perceptions and liking.
Feminism is an attempts for equality of both sexes and not about women being superior to men. It main aims is to reconstruct gender roles in order for people to feel empowered and live unrestricted to the traditional norms. This attempt will be beneficial to both sexes so everyone should get involved. According to Alannah Marsden, in order to achieved gender equality, empower men and women to live freer and more complete lives, we need to embrace feminism. And that made feminism important in the discussion of sex and gender.
There are wide variety of issues that relates to sex and gender. Some of which are questioning one’s sexual orientation and gender identity. Oftentimes an individual is forced to hide what they really feel and think because they fear social judgement. I can attest to this because some of my family member personally experienced this. They are expected to act, move, speak, wear, based on the sex they are born with. Because of this they are then deprived of happiness and liberty to be themselves. They hide inside the closet just to be equally accepted and respected. They had constant battle in their minds and hearts of who they really are just because they are expected to be someone they are not. To conclude, this issue is actually not just an issue experience by my family member but rather of all those individuals whose sexual orientation and gender identity differs from what the society dictates.
