Lecture 3 Hum Dvlpmnt. -Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation

Regulation of Gender Expression

-we live in a very strictly gender binary society

-benefits: create a feeling of belonging and identity, provide a way to communicate your identity or group, help people to feel kinship, foster community, collaboration, working together and pride

-harms: ostracize those who don't fit in, limit people's potential, and foster discrimination and harassment

Gender nonconformity

-tends to make us uncomfortable because of how we are socialized, not because there is anything wrong with it

Gender Identity

-internal sense of self, of being male, female, both, something in between, or neither

-can't be seen unless it is expressed

-some options: female-identified, male-identified, bigender (both), nonbinary or genderqueer (a combination), agender (without gender), cisgender (gender ID matches biol. sex), or transgender (different from biol. sex)

Gender Identity, How is it determined?

-Nature vs. Nurture

-Nature= an inherent biologic trait; born this way, not changeable

-Nurture= a result of how one is raised; learned, depends on environment, can change

Gender Identity: Nurture

-Gender neutrality theory

-Dr. John Money at Johns Hopkins

-worked with intersex individuals who were assigned to one gender at birth and treated surgically

-found they did just fine being raised as the gender to which they were assigned

-concluded that we all were born gender-neutral, but the way we were raised taught us to be one or the other.....

-FAIL!!

Gender Identity: Nature

-sexually dimorphic areas of the brain

-certain regions of the brain are very different in people who identify as male vs. people who identify as female

-this difference is still seen regardless of what hormones they were exposed to during adulthood

-twin concordance- indicates genetic component

-presence of transgender and gender diverse people throughout different cultures and throughout history

Gender Identity: Nurture vs. Nature=settled!

-all of the evidence we have to date supports the hypothesis that gender identity is an inherent, biological fact (that it's innate)

Cis Vs Trans

-gender identity may be congruent with biologic sex (cis-gender) or not (trans-gender

Transgender identity & Gender Dysphoria

-individuals whose gender identity is incongruent with their biologic sex may suffer from gender dysphoria

-an intense discomfort due to biologic sex not matching gender identity and not being able to live in the world as their true gender

-if unaddressed, suicide rate is >40%

-can often be alleviated by transitioning to living in the congruent gender: Socially (name, pronoun, gender expression), Medically (hormones), and/or Surgically

-not all transgender people "transition"

Discrimination against transgender persons

-rejection from family and friends
-employment
-health care (many insurance companies don't cover medically necessary transition-related care and medical providers are untrained and/or undertrained to care for people who are trans)
-harassment
-violence
-bathrooms

Psychological development: Sexual Orientation

-the genders of people to whom you are attracted and/or with whom you tend to engage in romantic and//or sexual relationships

-definitions: Heterosexual (attracted to people of the opposite sex), Homosexual (attracted to people of both sexes), Bisexual (attracted to people of both sexes), Pan sexual (not restricted by biologic sex or gender identity), or Asexual (not sexually attracted to people)

Sexual Orientation: Kinsey Scale

a way to describe a persons sexual orientation based on their experiences or feeling of attraction. Ranges from 0-6