9781422283752

14 BE I NG TR ANSGENDER

“While gender identities are internal to a person, gender roles are handed to us by society,” says Dr. Laura Erickson-Schroth, who studies transgender health issues. “We should be teaching our children that whatever bodies they live in, they can choose to reject gender roles. For some gender-nonconforming people, it feels right to live in the bodies into which they are born, but to challenge gender- normative behaviors.” Although we’ve certainly made progress in that direction, we still have a long way to go. In America, gender-nonconforming women are everywhere, but gender-nonconforming men . . . not so much.

CLOSE-UP: SEX VERSUS GENDER

Many people assume that gender and sexuality mean the same thing, but they are actually two different concepts. According to the World Health Organization: – Sex refers to the biological and physiological characteristics that define men and women. – Gender refers to the socially constructed roles, behaviors, activities, and attributes that a society considers appropriate for men and women. To put it another way: Male and female are sex categories, whereas masculine and feminine are gender categories. Aspects of sex do not vary substantially among different human societies, but aspects of gender can vary greatly.