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Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation: WTF?!

Posted in Fact Me Hard on Nov 12, 2008

I’ve shared to you on my previous post what sexual identity and what gender identity are. Now, let me share to you another set of terms that can help you further in studying human sexuality.

John Money and Anke Ehrhardt described gender role behavior as all those things that a person says or does to disclose himself or herself as having the status of boy or man, girl or woman, respectively. A gender role is not established at birth but is built up cumulatively through (1) experiences encountered and transacted through casual and unplanned learning, (2) explicit instruction and inculcation, and (3) spontaneously putting two and two together to make sometimes four and sometimes five. The usual outcome is a congruence of gender identity and gender role. Although biological attributes are significant, the major factor in achieving the role appropriate to a person’s sex is learning.

Research on sex differences in children’s behavior reveals more psychological similarities than differences. Girls, however, are found to be less susceptible to tantrums after the age of 18 months than are boys, and boys generally are more physically and verbally aggressive than are girls from age 2 onward. Little girls and little boys are similarly active, but boys are more easily stimulated to sudden bursts of activity when they are in groups. Some researchers speculate that, although aggression is a learned behavior, male hormones may have sensitized boys’ neural organizations to absorb these lessons more easily than do girls.

Persons’ gender roles can seem to be opposed to their gender identities. Persons may identify with their own sex and yet adopt the dress, hairstyle, or other characteristics of the opposite sex. Or, they may identify with the opposite sex and yet for expediency adopt many behavioral characteristics of their own sex.

Sexual orientation describes the object of a person’s sexual impulses: heterosexual (opposite sex), homosexual (same sex), or bisexual (both sexes). A group of people have defined themselves as “asexual” and assert this as a positive identity. Some researchers believe this lack of attraction to any object is a manifestation of a desire disorder.

On my next post, I will share to you how to play with these terms in describing one’s personality. I’m excited about this. Watch out for it! See yah!

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