Gender+Identity

** Gender Identity ** ** Gender Identity is the awareness of being masculine or feminine, based on culture. **** This topic has been around since the beginning of time. **** Gender identity is most commonly referred to as common knowledge. In earlier times, babies would always wear green and at baby showers all of the presents would be green. It didn’t start until the early 1800's that more colors were brought up. The color blue was given to a boy because blue stands for masculinity and bravery. The color pink was given to girls because it was thought of as bubbly and girly. Many times there will be a situation where the parents don’t want to know if it is a boy or girl. When this happens, the majority of gifts and baby toys are green. A problem that can arise is gender identity disorder. This is when a person of one sex acts or behaves like someone of the other sex. This is most common in adults today, but children are starting to catch on. Gender identity disorder usually starts when a person is out of school. That’s when they realize that they don’t need to hide and they can express themselves. Most sex changes are a result of gender identity disorder. Normally, children learn to behave by watching their parents. If a young boy grows up around only females, he tends to be more feminine. If a girl grows up with only males, she tends to be more masculine. Gender can be easily confused with sex. Sex refers to the biological identity of a person, whereas gender refers to the socially learned behaviors that are associated with the two sexes. Many good and bad things can come from gender identity. For example, you will know your roles for your gender. Women are more feminine and fragile, whereas men are more masculine and strong. Women would not be able to do a lot of heavy work because it might be too much work for them. Men have the extra muscle and body strength to do heavy work. Most guys are born with this trait, but girls have to work hard to get it. Gender identity plays a big part in today’s society, and is still growing. ** Below are 3 video's showing how individuals cope with gender identity and gender identity disorder: [] [] []

Below are 3 pictures showing different types of gender identity. The first picture shows a young man who is a cross dresser. He is dressed like a man and half like a female. This picture shows that he is confident with his feelings about his gender. Next is a picture of a blue and a pink baby outfit. This picture shows the difference in the sexes. When a baby is born, the blue one would go to a boy and the pink one would go to a girl. In the last picture, it shows a young girl dressed like a boy. She would be called a "tomboy". The fourth picture is of a male and a female transgender couple. They are holding a rainbow flag and umbrella because a rainbow is the symbol for expressing yourself.

Three websites about gender identity and gender identity disorder: [] [] [] An article about gender identity: [] This is a graph showing the percent of males and females with gender identity disorder. It says that out of all the gender identity disorder cases, 67% are females and 33% are males. This shows the different types of laws based on gender: