Gender identity

Many people assume that the word "gender" is synonymous with the word "sex". But this opinion is erroneous. Gender is the totality of psychosocial and sociocultural characteristics that are customarily assigned to a particular biological sex. That is, a person will be a man by biological sex, may well feel and behave like a woman, and vice versa.

What does gender identity mean?

As already mentioned above, this concept defines both social and cultural attributes of belonging to the biological sex. Initially, a person is born with certain physiological sex characteristics, and not with gender. The infant simply does not know the norms of society, nor the rules of behavior in it. Therefore, a person's gender is determined by himself and is brought up by people around him at a more conscious age.

The development of gender identity will largely depend on the views on the relationship between the sexes of those people who surround the child. As a rule, all postulates and bases of behavior are actively inculcated by parents. For example, often a boy is told that he can not cry, because he is a future man, exactly as a girl is dressed in colorful dresses for the reason that she is a representative of the female biological sex.

Formation of gender identity

By the age of 18, a person, as a rule, already has his own idea of ​​what sex he considers himself. This happens as an unconscious level, that is, the child at an early age determines the group to which he wants to belong, and on the conscious, for example, under the influence of society. Many people remember how in childhood they bought toys that fit their sex, that is, boys received typewriters and soldiers, and the girls' dolls and cooking kits. Such stereotypes live in any society. We need them for more comfortable communication, although in many ways they limit the personality.

Formation of gender and family identity is necessary. In kindergartens special classes are organized to develop this process. With their help the child learns himself, and also learns to rank himself among a certain group of people. These subgroups are formed both by gender and by family. In the future, this helps the child to quickly learn the rules of behavior in society.

However, it may be that sex will be different from gender. In this case, the process of self-identification will also happen, but will require an individual approach.

How do you define gender?

There are various test methods to determine the sexual and gender identity of a person. They are aimed at identifying a person's identity, as well as determining his gender role in society.

One of the most popular methods suggests responding to 10 questions, with the help of which the above mentioned characteristics are revealed. The other is based on drawings and their interpretation. The validity of different tests is quite different. Therefore, to say that today there is at least one method that allows 100% to determine a person's sexual identity, does not exist.

The Sandra Böhm Questionnaire