Gender identity
Gender identity is an individual’s self-conception as being male or female, as distinguished from actual biological sex. For most persons, gender identity and biological characteristics are the same. There are, however, circumstances in which an individual experiences little or no connection between sex and gender; in transsexualism, for example, biological sexual characteristics are distinct and unambiguous, but the affected person believes that he or she is―or ought to be―of the opposite sex. Gender identity is not fixed at birth; both physiologic and social factors contribute to the early establishment of a core identity, which is modified and expanded by social factors as the child matures.
Basic gender identity―the concept “I am a boy” or “I am a girl”―is generally established by the time the child reaches the age of three and is extremely difficult to modify thereafter. In cases where biological sex was ambiguous at birth and errors in sexing were made, it has been almost impossible to reestablish the proper identity later in childhood or adolescence. Furthermore, a secondary gender identity can be developed over the core identity, as sex-associated behaviours may be adopted later in life; heterosexual or homosexual orientations also develop later.
Like an individual’s concept of his or her sex role, gender identity develops by means of parental example, social reinforcement, and language. Parents teach sex-appropriate behaviour to their children from an early age, and this behaviour is reinforced as the child grows older and enters a wider social world. As the child acquires language, he also learns very early the distinction between he and she and understands which pertains to him- or herself.
People who feel that their gender identity is incongruent with their physical bodies are called transgender or genderqueer.
Gendering
Some believe society is constructed in a way in which gender is split into a dichotomy by social organizations, which constantly invent and reproduce cultural images of gender. Joan Ackner (2000) believes gendering occurs in at least five different interacting social processes:
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The construction of divisions along the lines of gender such as those which are produced by labour, power, family, and the state even allowed behaviours and locations in physical space.
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The construction of symbols and images such as language, ideology, dress and the media, that explain, express and reinforce, or sometimes oppose, those divisions.
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Interactions between men and women, women and women and men and men, which involve any form dominance and submission. Conversational theorists, for example, have studied the way in which interruptions, turn taking and the setting of topics re-create gender inequality in the flow of ordinary talk.
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The way in which the preceding three processes help to produce gendered components of individual identity, i.e. the way in which they create and maintain an image of a gendered self.
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Gender is implicated in the fundamental, ongoing processes of creating and conceptualising social structures.
Gender is transfigured into a vehicle for the social division of power. Gender difference is merely a construct of society used to enforce the distinctions made between that which is assumed to be male and female, and allow for the domination of masculinity over femininity through the attribution of specific gender-related characteristics.