Gender, Sexuality And Transgender – Understanding The Differences

The Impact of Gender on Individuals

Questions:

Task 1- Introduction to Gender: Who am I? (Female, Muslim, Ethical – African)
• Need to focus on exploring Gender, the impact on the individual, Societies, Sexuality, Social rolls and Culture.
• The issue of identity which you will critically think about whether your values and beliefs are important to whom you are.
• 5 references

Task 2 – Gender and Sexuality: My Body is Wrong (The Transgender child)
• Introduction
• What is the reporter writing about the transgender child?
• What is the writer trying to say?
• What do you think the key issues are that have been identified?
• Do you think transgender is a choice or something inherent?
• Did you identify any other issues not reported?
• Critically analyse and reflect upon theories of oppression, discrimination and inequality:-
o Culture and attitudes
o Biology
o Medical theories
o Psychological factors
o Choice
• Offer your thoughts and views on what services you think should be made available to transgender children and young people.
• Conclusion
• 7 references which must appear to the relevant text.

Sex defines the everlasting and unchallengeable organic uniqueness general to persons in all civilizations and societies, while gender is character counterfeit all through the history of social relationships. Gender, even though it begins in intent biological divergences, it goes far away from the organic and physiological details of the two sexes in stipulations of the functions each is likely to play.

There are typically two genders, which are – male and female, both these genders have different impact on an individual. Impact of gender on males is that they are tall, masculine, broad-shouldered, self-confident, and aggressive and can do household repairs (Langan, 2015). Impact of gender on males is that they are passive, submissive, caring, small, graceful and soft. Though with change in time society has changed a lot, not to a large extent males and females are considered equal in the society, law gives equal rights to both the genders, but still there are certain societies that consider females inferior to males and in some societies females are looked down upon. Both males and females have sexual urges which they need to satisfy, both of them need to accept their sexuality. Sexually and physically a male is attracted to a female and a female is attracted to a male, these are natural instincts. Though both males and females have equal sexual urges still in many societies, mostly non – western women are just considered as objects, they are not allowed to celebrate and accept their sexuality, while a man can have a sexual relationship with many women, a woman is looked down upon if she does the same (Swisher, 1991). Social roles of both males are females are also different, even though with times it has changed and females have started accepting almost all the roles of males and vice versa, but from earlier times roles of males and females were different, while man was seen as a provider, he was required to look after the needs of the family and protect them provide them with food, while the duty of a woman was to take care of home and kids. With change in times there has been a role change and now women have also started working for earnings (James, 2013). Gender roles are defined according to culture, some cultures are more modern and open minded than the others. While in western societies where the culture is open, equal rights are given to both males and females, but in some Islamic countries even in today’s era there is a difference between males and females and women are not given equal rights in the society (Mead, 2012).

Social Roles of Males and Females

Identity is very important to each and every individual; each individual has a different set of values and beliefs, which he learns in his course of life. This beliefs and values make him different from others and help him in being a better person. There are some people fro whom their beliefs are very important to them and there are others who can easily compromise on them and change them accordingly (Smith, 1990).

References

James, R., 2013. Gender and Sexuality. Available at https://genderandsexuality.as.nyu.edu/page/home [Accessed on January 2015]

Mead, M., 2012. Men have always been afraid that women could get along without them. Available at https://www.trinity.edu/mkearl/gender.html [Accessed on January 2015]

Langan, D., 2015. Under the gun. Available at https://gendersociety.wordpress.com/ [Accessed on January 2015]

Smith, D.,1990. Gender & Sexuality, University Southern Queensland, Toowoomba, Australia,

Swisher, K.,1991. American Indian. Charleston, WV.

Transgender is the condition of one’s gender individuality or gender appearance not identical to one’s allocated sex. Transgender is autonomous of sexual course. A transgender can be a person who has a body off a male but has characteristics of a male and also feels like a female or vice versa. Transgender also include homosexuals or bisexuals, person who is attracted to people of same gender (Reis, 1999).

Being a transgender is very difficult as transgender are looked down upon in the society and are many times not given equal opportunities in the society. In case of a child being a transgender becomes all the way more difficult as at such a young age he is not able to understand what is wrong with him, he does not feel like a normal person and is not able to understand his body (Pardo, 2008). In many case a child feels like a female trapped in a male body or vice versa, he becomes confused between what the society wants him to be and what actually he is, he goes under a lot of pressure because of his body. There are times when he tries to explain to his family what he feels and what he wants, but most of the time their reply is that this is just a passing phase which shall pass with the time and advice him how to act like a boy or a girl, totally falling to understand that how the body of the child is actually designed. It should be noted that being a transgender is not a choice it is just the way some one’s body is designed and nobody can do anything to change it (Bernat, 2006).

A transgender is always oppressed in the society; people hate him and bully him. There are many case where transgender people and sexually abused and made fun off, they are not given equal opportunities and they cannot even complain about it as they are not taken seriously by even the administration.

Transgender are always discriminated in the society, as they don’t fall in the usual category of male or female. Many times even their family members disown them. Many of the transgender have made their communities only because we people don’t treat them equal. These people are much difficulty in getting jobs; as a result they have no other choice left other than going into flesh trade.

Importance of Identity

Transgender people are seldom given equal rights in our society; they are kept away from our society and are not considered equal just because they are not like us.

 Treatment of transgender also depends on the culture and attitude of the people, if the people are civilized then there are chances that they will treat transgender people with equality, but these chances decrease if the people in question are not cultured.

Bodies of transgender are different from regular males and females. There are two medical theories about transgender which are –

In spite of research representing a variety of gender individuality and terms (Denny, the medical approach identifies sex inside a binary build of male or female, and gender inside a linear binary, that is men are masculine and women are feminine. With its main focus on SRS, this model does not put room for a wider variety of healthy transgender individuality.

The Authentic Model –

The Authentic Model explains that gender survives on non-binary male and female proportions. In this model, unbeaten individuality growth is open to individualized routes. Individuality consolidation does not need SRS as is required in the medical model. Rather, in this model individuality is attained through authentic self- coherence (Bolin, 1988).

Transgender people have to go through a lot of stress and pressure, especially when they are young, as they feel different and left out, as kids they are always bullied and made fun of. They cannot make many friends and remain isolated. The worst stress that they face is that they are not able to express their feelings and even their own parents are not able to understand them and look down upon them. These people feel that the society hates them and it will never be possible for them to live a normal life. They see that their future is dim and they don’t have any possibility of getting a job and can only become prostitutes (Fitzpatrick, 2005).

The worst part is that the people believe that they have become like this from choice, people feel disgusted from the fact that they are attracted to the same sex.

Society should be made aware about transgender and their problems. There should be classes in schools where students should be explained about how difficult the lives of transgender people are, how they feel and how much pressure they have to go through from the society. Young students should also be taught to empathize with such people; young kids should be taught about their body. Not only young people but also adults should be taught about this issue, which is still a taboo in many cultures. Parents should be taught about how they should treat their transgender child and encourage and motivate him (Lev, 2004). Parents should be counseled in such a way that they develop an understanding with their kids and understand immediately whenever their kid tries to explain them something different with his body. Parents should be taught to except their kids the way they are, and should also be explained what hiding the orientation of their kids can do to them. Young kids should also be counseled regularly; government should also come forward and try to help this quantity. There are still many countries that prohibit same sex marriages, governments should look into this matter and try to understand that being transsexual is not a disease or choice, but an orientation which is impossible to change. Government should also give some reservations to transsexual people in jobs (Denny, 2004).

From the above we can conclude that transgender is a reality in our society, but still there are societies which try to avoid this fact and don’t give equal opportunities to transgender people, equal opportunities for transgender people is need off the hour.

References

Bernat, H., (2006). Healthy Youth Development: Science and Strategies, Washington, D.C.

Bolin, A., (1988). In Search of Eve: Transsexual rites of passage, New York: Bergin.

Denny, D., (2004). Changing models of transsexualismBinghamton, NY: Haworth.

Fitzpatrick, K., (2005). Gender role, sexual orientation, and suicide risk. New York: Bergin.

Lev, A., (2004). Transgender emergence: Therapeutic guidelines for working with gender-variant people and their families, Binghamton, NY: Haworth 

Pardo, S., (2008). An exploratory study of identity conceptualization and development in a sample of gender nonconforming biological females, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY.

Reis, B., (1999). Eighty-three thousand youth: Selected findings of eight population. Available at https://www.safeschoolscoalition.org/83000youth.pdf [Accessed on January 2015]