LGBTQ Training 2 and 5. Gender -LSD 2.1.pdf

LIFE-SPAN DEVELOPMENT 122027301009
Navadeep.P (Tashi)
GENDER - DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY
• GENDER AND SEX TERMS
• DEFINITIONS IN PSYCHOLOGY
• HOW IMPORTANT IS GENDER?
• GOALS OF GENDER SOCIALISATION
• FACTS AND FICTIONS ABOUT SEX DIFFERENCES
• HOW TRUE ARE THE DIFFERENCES?
• HOME AND SCHOLASTIC INFLUENCE
• GENDER CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT
• GENDER ROLES STEREOTYPES DEVELOPMENT
• DEVELOPMENT OF GENDER-TYPED BEHAVIOUR
• WHY DOES GENDER SEGREGATION OCCUR?
• CULTURAL VARIATION IN GENDER-TYPING
• THEORIES OF GENDER TYPING AND GENDER-ROLE DEVELOPMENT
• PSYCHOLOGICAL ANDROGYNY
• GENDER - CHILDHOOD AND ADOLESCENCE
• GENDER BEYOND BODY
• GENDER DYSPHORIA
• GENDER BEYOND BINARY
• GENDER - COLONIAL HISTORY
1. Evolutionary Theory
2. Biosocial Theory
3. Psychoanalytic Theory,
4. Social Learning Theory
5. Cognitive-Developmental Theory,
6. Gender schema theory.

Sex :- Sex refers to the biological characteristics that define humans as female or male.
While these sets of biological characteristics are not mutually exclusive, as there are
individuals who possess both, they tend to differentiate humans as males and females.
Gender :- The sociocultural phenomenon of the division of people into various
categories according to their biological sex, with each having associated roles, clothing,
stereotypes, etc.; those with male sex characteristics are perceived as “boys” and “men,”
while those with female sex characteristics are perceived as “girls” and “women.”
Gender Identity :- One's innermost concept of self as male, female, a blend of both or
neither – how individuals perceive themselves and what they call themselves. One's
gender identity can be the same or different from their sex assigned at birth.
Sexuality :- a central aspect of being human throughout life encompasses sex, gender
identities and roles, sexual orientation, eroticism, pleasure, intimacy and reproduction.
Sexuality is experienced and expressed in thoughts, fantasies, desires, beliefs, attitudes,
values, behaviours, practices, roles and relationships. While sexuality can include all of
these dimensions, not all of them are always experienced or expressed. Sexuality is
influenced by the interaction of biological, psychological, social, economic, political,
cultural, legal, historical, religious and spiritual factors.” (WHO, 2006a)

Distinguishing between gender and sex has been an issue of debate in psychology, and the debate is not yet settled.
(Deaux, 1993; Ruble & Martin, 1998).
Sex refers to a person’s biological identity: his or her chromosomes, physical manifestations of identity, and hormonal
influences.
Gender refers to a person’s social and cultural identity as male or female.
‘the condition of being male, female, or neuter. In a human context, the distinction between gender and sex reflects the
usage of these terms: Sex usually refers to the biological aspects of maleness or femaleness, whereas gender implies the
psychological, behavioral, social, and cultural aspects of being male or female (i.e., masculinity or femininity). (APA)’
With this distinction in mind, let’s now begin our discussion of sex differences and gender-role development.
IN PSYCHOLOGY

• “Is it a boy or a girl?” is the very first one that most friends and relatives ask when proud new
parents announce the birth of their baby (Intons-Peterson & Reddel, 1984).
• Indeed, the ramifications of this gender labeling are normally swift in coming and rather direct. In
the hospital nursery or delivery room, parents often call an infant son things like “big guy” or
“tiger,” and they are likely to comment on the vigor of his cries, kicks, or grasps. Infant daughters
are more likely to be labeled “sugar” or “sweetie” and described as soft, cuddly, and adorable
(MacFarlane, 1977).
• A newborn infant is usually blessed with a name that identifies his or her sex, and in many Western
societies boys are immediately adorned in blue and girls in pink.
HOW IMPORTANT IS GENDER?

• Mavis Hetherington and Ross Parke (1975, pp. 354–355) describe the predicament of a developmental psychologist who
“did not want her observers to know whether they were watching boys or girls”:
Even in the first few days of life some infant girls were brought to the laboratory with pink bows tied to wisps of their hair
or taped to their little bald heads. . . . When another attempt at concealment of sex was made by asking mothers to dress
their infants in overalls, girls appeared in pink and boys in blue overalls, and “Would you believe overalls with ruffles?”
• Gender socialization (process by which individuals develop, refine and learn to ‘do’ gender through internalizing gender
norms and roles as they interact with key agents of socialization, such as their family, social networks and other social
institutions) continues from early in infancy onward as parents provide their children with “gender-appropriate” clothing,
toys, and hairstyles (Pomerleau et al., 1990).
• They also play differently with and expect different reactions from their young sons and daughters (Bornstein et al., 1999;
Caldera, Huston, & O’Brien, 1989).
• For example, parents tend to subtly encourage play with same-sex-typed toys for their daughters and sons. They also play
in closer proximity and with more verbal interaction when playing together with their daughters and feminine-sex-typed
toys than with their sons and masculine-sex-typed toys. So it is clear that a child’s caregivers view gender as an important
attribute that often influences how they respond to and care for him or her.

• Gender typing—the process by which children acquire not only a gender identity but also the motives, values, and behaviors
considered appropriate in their culture for members of their biological sex.
• Gender Concept - an understanding of the socially constructed distinction between male and female, based on biological sex but also
including the roles and expectations for males and females in a culture.
• A gender-role standard is a value, a motive, or a class of behavior that is considered more appropriate for members of one sex
than for the other. Taken together, a society’s gender-role standards describe how males and females are expected to behave
and reflect the stereotypes by which we categorize and respond to members of each sex.
• Girls have typically been encouraged to assume an expressive role that involves being kind, nurturant, cooperative, and
sensitive to the needs of others (Parsons, 1955). These psychological traits, it was assumed, would prepare girls to play the wife
and mother roles, keep the family functioning, and raise children successfully.
• Boys have been encouraged to adopt an instrumental role that involves being dominant, assertive, independent, and
competitive. These psychological traits, it was assumed, would prepare boys to play the role of a traditional husband and father,
and face the tasks of providing for the family and protecting it from harm.
• Similar norms and role prescriptions are found in many, though certainly not all, societies (Williams & Best, 1990).

• In one ambitious project, Herbert Barry, Margaret Bacon, and Irving
Child (1957) analyzed the gender-typing practices of 110 non-
industrialized societies, looking for sex differences in the socialization
of five attributes: nurturance, obedience, responsibility,
achievement, and self-reliance. As shown in Table here, achievement
and self-reliance were more strongly encouraged in young boys,
whereas young girls were encouraged to become nurturant,
responsible, and obedient.
• Children in modern industrialized societies also face strong gender-
typing pressures, though not always to the same extent and in the
same ways that children in nonindustrialized societies do. (An
example of a difference among cultures in gender typing is that
parents in many Western societies place roughly equal emphasis on
achievement for sons and for daughters, thus not gender-typing
achievement motivation; Lytton & Romney, 1991).
• Furthermore, the findings of this study do not imply that self-reliance
in girls is frowned on or that disobedience by young boys is
acceptable. In fact, all five attributes that Barry and his colleagues
studied are encouraged in both boys and girls, but with different
emphases on different attributes depending on the sex of the child
(Pomerantz & Ruble, 1998; Zern, 1984).

• First goal of socialization is to encourage children to acquire those
traits that will enable them to become well- behaved, contributing
members of society.
• Second goal (but one that adults view as important nevertheless) is to
“gender type” the child by stressing the importance of relationship-
oriented (or expressive) attributes for girls and individualistic (or
instrumental) attributes for boys.
• As per these goals: Because cultural norms specify that girls should
assume an expressive role and boys an instrumental role, we may be
inclined to assume that girls and women actually display expressive
traits and that boys and men possess instrumental traits (Broverman et
al., 1972; Williams & Best, 1990).
GOALS OF GENDER SOCIALISATION

• Although some change has occurred in the latter half of the 20th century in the direction of more egalitarian gender
roles and norms (Boltin, Weeks, & Morris, 2000; Eagly, Wood, & Diekman, 2000), adolescents and young adults
still endorse many traditional stereotypes about men and women (Bergen & Williams, 1991; Twenge, 1997).
• For example, college students in one study (Prentice & Carranza, 2002) insisted that women ought to be friendly,
cheerful, compassionate, emotionally expressive, and patient. They thought women should not be stubborn,
arrogant, intimidating, or domineering. They thought that men ought to be rational, ambitious, assertive,
athletic, and leaders with strong personalities. They insisted that men should not be emotional, gullible, weak, or
approval seeking.

The evidence for sex differences in psychological functioning is not as clear as most of us might think.
In a classic review of more than 1,500 studies comparing males and females, Eleanor Maccoby and Carol Jacklin (1974) concluded
that few traditional gender stereotypes have any basis in fact. Their review pointed to only four small but reliable differences
between the sexes that were consistently supported by research.
Verbal Ability
One of the differences is that girls display greater verbal abilities than boys on many measures. Girls acquire language and develop
verbal skills at an earlier age than boys (Bornstein & Haynes, 1998) and display a small but consistent verbal advantage on tests of
reading comprehension and speech fluency throughout childhood and adolescence (Halpern, 2004; Wicks-Nelson & Israel, 2006).
Females also outscore males on math tests that require verbal strategies (Gallagher, Levin, & Cahalan, 2002) or are similar to verbal
strategies (Halpern, 2004). Boys, however, perform slightly better than girls do on tests of verbal analogies (Lips, 2006).
Visual/Spatial Abilities
Boys outperform girls on tests of visual/spatial abilities—that is, the ability to draw inferences about or to otherwise mentally
manipulate pictorial information The male advantage in spatial abilities is not large, although it is detectable as early as age 4 and
persists across the life span (Halpern, 2004; Levine et al., 1999; Voyer, Voyer, & Bryden, 1995).
FACTS AND FICTIONS ABOUT SEX DIFFERENCES

Mathematical Ability
Beginning in adolescence, boys show a small but consistent advantage over girls on tests of arithmetic reasoning (Halpern, 1997,
2004; Hyde, Fennema, & Lamon, 1990). Girls actually exceed boys in computational skills and even earn higher grades in math,
in part because girls are more inclined than boys are to adopt learning rather than performance goals, thereby working harder to
improve their mathematical competencies (Kenney- Benson et al., 2006). Nevertheless, boys feel more self-efficacious in math
than girls do (Simpkins, Davis-Kean, & Eccles, 2006) and have acquired more mathematical problem- solving strategies that
enable them to outperform girls on complex word problems, geometry, and the mathematics portion of the Scholastic Aptitude
Test (SAT) (Byrnes & Takahira, 1993; Casey, 1996; Lips, 2006). However, one need to see that social forces—namely the messages
boys and girls receive about their respective abilities—can also influence their mathematical, verbal, and visual/spatial reasoning
skills.
Aggression
Boys are more physically and verbally aggressive than girls, starting as early as age 2, and are about ten times more likely than
girls to be involved in antisocial behavior and violent crime during adolescence (U.S. Department of Justice, 1995). Girls are more
likely than boys to display covert forms of hostility toward others by snubbing or ignoring them or by trying to undermine their
relationships or social status (Crick, Casas, & Mosher, 1997; Crick & Grotpeter, 1995).

• Critics claimed that the procedures that Maccoby & Jacklin used to gather and tabulate their results led them to underestimate the
number of sex differences that actually exist (Block, 1976; Huston, 1983). More recent research, which often combines the results of
several studies and provides a better estimate of the reliability of sex-related differences, points to the following additional sex
differences in personality and social behavior.
• Activity Level: Even before they are born, boys are more physically active than girls (DiPietro et al., 1996)
• Fear, Timidity, and Risk Taking: As early as the first year of life, girls appear to be more fearful or timid in uncertain situations than are
boys. They are also more cautious and less assertive in these situations than are boys, taking far fewer risks than do boys (Christophersen,
1989; Feingold, 1994). Parental responses to risk taking are also important. Mothers of 6- to 10-year-olds report that they try harder with
daughters than with sons to enforce rules against risk taking. Why? Partly because they have had less success at modifying sons’ risky
behaviors and have concluded that “boys will be boys” and that taking risks is “in their nature” (Morrongiello & Hogg, 2004).
• Developmental Vulnerability: From conception, boys are more physically vulnerable than girls to prenatal and perinatal hazards and to
the effects of disease (Raz et al., 1994, 1995)
• Emotional Expressivity/Sensitivity: As infants, boys and girls do not differ much in their displays of emotion (Brody, 1999). But from
toddlerhood onward, boys are more likely than girls to display one emotion—anger—whereas girls more frequently display most other
emotions (Fabes et al., 1991; Kochanska, 2001).
• Compliance: From early in the preschool period, girls are more compliant than boys with the requests and demands of parents, teachers,
and other authority figures (Calicchia & Santostefano, 2004; Feingold, 1994; Maccoby, 1998).
• Self-Esteem: Boys show a small edge over girls in global self-esteem (Kling et al., 1999). This sex difference becomes more noticeable in
early adolescence and persists throughout adulthood (Robins et al., 2002).
CRITIQUE OF MACCOBY AND JACKLIN’S REVIEW AND OTHER SEX DIFFERENCES

SO HOW TRUE ARE THESE DIFFERENCES?
• In reviewing the evidence for “real” sex differences, we must keep in mind that the data reflect group averages that may
not characterize the behavior of any particular individual.
• Gender accounts for about 5 percent of the variation children display in overt aggressive behaviors (Hyde, 1984), so that
the remaining 95 percent is due to other differences between people.
• For example, women do better on tests of mathematical ability in societies such as Israel, where they have excellent
opportunities in technical training and technical occupations (Baker & Jones, 1992).
• And Chinese American girls perform as well as Chinese American boys in higher-level mathematics, including the
Scholastic Aptitude Test, even though European American boys outperform European American girls on the SAT by about
40 to 50 points (Lips, 2006).
• Thus these imply that most sex differences are not biologically inevitable and that cultural and other social influences play
an important role in the development of differences between males and females (Halpern, 1997).
• Contemporary scholars may quibble at times about which sex differences are real or meaningful (Eagly, 1995; Hyde &
Plant, 1995), most developmentalists can agree on this: Males and females are far more psychologically similar than they
are different, it is impossible to predict the aggressiveness, the mathematical skills, the activity level, or the emotional
expressivity of any individual simply by knowing someone’s sex.

Home Influences:
• Jacquelynne Eccles and her colleagues (1990) have conducted
a number of studies aimed at understanding why girls tend to
shy away from math and science courses and are
underrepresented in occupations that involve math and science.
They find that parental expectations about sex differences in
mathematical ability do become self-fulfilling prophecies.
• Parents, influenced by gender stereotypes, expect their sons to
outperform their daughters in math. Even before their children
have received any formal math instruction, mothers in the United
States, Japan, and Taiwan express a belief that boys have more
mathematical ability than girls (Lummis & Stevenson, 1990).
• Children begin to internalize their parent’s views, so that boys
feel self-confident whereas girls are somewhat more inclined to
become anxious or depressed and to underestimate both their
general academic abilities (Cole et al., 1999; Stetsenko et al.,
2000), and, in particular, their proficiencies in math (Fredricks &
Eccles, 2002; Simpkins et al., 2006).
• In fact, girls whose parents are nontraditional in their gender-role
attitudes and behaviors do not show the declines in math and
science achievement that girls from more traditional families are
likely to display (Updegraff, McHale, & Crouter, 1996).
• The negative effects of low parental expectancies on girls’ self-
perceptions are evident even when boys and girls perform
equally well on tests of math aptitude and attain similar grades
in math (Eccles, Freeman-Doan, Jacobs, & Yoon, 2000;
Fredricks & Eccles, 2002; Tennenbaum & Leaper, 2002).
Scholastic Influences:
• Teachers also have stereotyped beliefs about the relative
abilities of boys and girls in particular subjects. Sixth-grade math
instructors, for example, believe that boys have more ability in
math but that girls try harder at it (Jussim & Eccles, 1992).
• Girls, to a greater extent than boys, tend to be generalists at
school, striving to do well in most or all of their classes. Thus,
girls may be less likely to become exceptionally proficient in any
subject (particularly in “masculine” subjects like math and
science) when their time, energies, and talents are so broadly
invested across many academic domains (Denissen, Zarrett, &
Eccles, 2007).

LGBTQ Training 2 and 5. Gender -LSD 2.1.pdf

• By 6 months of age, (some say 4 months) infants are using differences in vocal pitch to discriminate female speech from
that of males (Miller, 1983); and by the end of the first year, they can reliably discriminate photographs of men and
women (women are the long-haired ones) and are beginning to match male and female voices with faces in tests of
intermodal perception (Leinbach & Fagot, 1993; Poulin-Dubois et al., 1994).
• Between ages 2 and 3, children begin to tell us what they know about gender as they acquire and correctly use such
labels as “mommy” and “daddy” and (slightly later) “boy” and “girl” (Leinbach & Fagot, 1986).
• By age 21⁄2 to 3, almost all children can accurately label themselves as either boys or girls (Thompson, 1975; Warin,
2000), although it will take longer for them to grasp the fact that gender is a permanent attribute.
• Many 3- to 5 year-olds, for example, think that boys could become mommies or girls daddies if they really wanted to, or
that a person who changes clothing and hairstyles can become a member of the other sex (Fagot, 1985b; Warin, 2000).
• Children normally begin to understand that sex is an unchanging attribute between the ages of 5 and 7, so that most
youngsters have a firm, future-oriented identity as a boy or a girl by the time they enter grade school or shortly thereafter
(Szkrybalo & Ruble, 1999).
• More recently, Susan Egan and David Perry (2001) have argued that one’s sense of gender identity includes not only the
knowledge that “I am a boy/girl and will always be a boy/girl,” but also such judgments as “I am a typical/atypical
member of my gender,” “I am content/not content with my biological sex,” “I feel free/not free to explore cross- sex
options,” and “I feel that my sex is/is not superior to the other sex.”
GENDER CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT

• Toddlers begin to acquire gender-role stereotypes at about the same time that they become aware of their basic
identities as boys or girls.
• Deanna Kuhn and her associates (1978) showed a male doll (“Michael”) and a female doll (“Lisa”) to 21⁄2 to 31⁄2-
year-olds and then asked each child which of the two dolls would engage in gender-stereotyped activities such as
cooking; sewing; playing with dolls, trucks, or trains; talking a lot; giving kisses; fighting; or climbing trees. Almost all
the 21⁄2-year-olds had some knowledge of gender-role stereotypes. For example, boys and girls agreed that girls talk
a lot, never hit, often need help, like to play with dolls, and like to help their mothers with chores such as cooking
and cleaning.
• By contrast, these young children felt that boys like to play with cars, like to help their fathers, like to build things,
and are apt to make statements such as “I can hit you” (see also Blakemore, 2003).
• The 2- to 3-year-olds who know the most about gender stereotypes are those who can correctly label photographs of
other children as boys and girls (Fagot, Leinbach, & O’Boyle, 1992). So an understanding of gender labels seems to
accelerate the process of gender stereotyping.
• Over the preschool and early grade-school years, children learn more and more about the toys, activities, and
achievement domains considered appropriate for boys and for girls (Blakemore, 2003; Serbin, Powlishta, & Gulko,
1993).
GENDER ROLES STEREOTYPES DEVELOPMENT

• Eventually, grade-school children draw sharp distinctions between the sexes on psychological dimensions, learning
first the positive traits that characterize their own gender and the negative traits associated with the other sex
(Serbin, Powlishta, & Gulko, 1993).
• In one well-known cross-cultural study, Deborah Best and her colleagues (1977) found that fourth- and fifth-graders
in England, Ireland, and the United States generally agree that women are weak, emotional, soft-hearted,
sophisticated, and affectionate, whereas men are ambitious, assertive, aggressive, dominating, and cruel.
• Later research reveals that these same personality dimensions (and many others) are reliably attributed to men and
women by male and female participants from many countries around the world (Williams, Satterwhite, & Best,
1999).
• Many 3- to 7-year-olds often reason like little chauvinists, treating gender-role standards as blanket rules that are not
to be violated (Banerjee & Lintern, 2000; Ruble & Martin, 1998).
• They are so rigid about them possibly because gender-related issues are very important to them between ages 3
and 7: After all, this is the time when they are firmly classifying themselves as boys or girls and beginning to suspect
that they will always be boys and girls. Thus, they may exaggerate gender-role stereotypes to “get them cognitively
clear” so that they can live up to their male or female self-images (Maccoby, 1998).
• By age 8 to 9, however, children are becoming more flexible and less chauvinistic in their thinking about gender
(Blakemore, 2003; Levy, Taylor, & Gelman, 1995; McHale, Crouter, & Tucker, 2001).

• However, just because grade-school children say that boys and girls can legitimately pursue cross-sex interests
and activities does not necessarily imply that they approve of those who do. When asked about whether they
could be friends with a boy who wears lipstick or a girl who plays football, and to evaluate such gender-role
transgressions, grade-school children (and adults) were reasonably tolerant of violations by girls. However,
participants (especially boys) came down hard on boys who tried to look and behave like girls, viewing these
transgressions as almost as bad as violating a moral rule. Here, then, is an indication of the greater pressure
placed on boys to conform to gender roles (Blakemore, 2003; Levy, Taylor, & Gelman, 1995).
• This could also be seen to understand the lesser value attributed to things that are supposedly feminine and
greater value to things that are masculine.
• Cultural Influences - although 8- to 10-year-olds from Western individualistic societies are becoming more
flexible in their thinking about many violations of gender stereotypes, the same pattern may not be apparent
elsewhere. In Taiwan, a collectivist society with an emphasis on maintaining social harmony and living up to
social expectations, children are strongly encouraged to accept and conform to appropriate gender-role
prescriptions. As a result, Taiwanese 8- to 10-year-olds are less accepting of gender-role violations (particularly
by boys) than their age-mates from a Western individualistic society (urban Israelis) (Lobel et al., 2001).

• Soon after early adolescence, gender-role prescriptions once again become less flexible, with both
boys and girls showing a strong intolerance of cross-sex mannerisms that reflect atypical identities
(for example, boys wearing lipstick or girls sporting crew cuts), whether displayed by males or
females (Alfieri, Ruble, & Higgins, 1996; Sigelman, Carr, & Begley, 1986; Signorella, Bigler, &
Liben, 1993).
• This adolescent’s increasing intolerance of cross-sex mannerisms and behaviors is tied to a larger
process of gender intensification—a magnification of sex differences that is associated with
increased pressure to conform to gender roles as one reaches puberty (Boldizar, 1991; Galambos,
Almeida, & Petersen, 1990; Hill and Lynch, 1983).
• Boys begin to see themselves as more masculine; girls emphasize their feminine side (McHale,
Updegraff, et al., 2001; McHale, Shanahan, et al., 2004).

• Parental influence and peer influence are important contributor.
• As children enter adolescence, mothers become more involved in joint activities with daughters and fathers
more involved with sons (Crouter, Manke, & McHale, 1995)—especially in families with both sons and
daughters in which each parent may take primary responsibility for properly socializing children of the same
sex (McHale & Crouter, 2003; Shanahan, McHale, Crouter, & Osgood, 2007).
• Adolescents increasingly find that they must conform to traditional gender norms in order to succeed in the
dating scene.
• A girl who was a tomboy and thought nothing of it may find during adolescence that she must dress and
behave in more “feminine” ways to attract boys, and a boy may find that he is more popular if he projects a
more sharply “masculine” image (Burn, O’Neil, & Nederend, 1996; Katz, 1979).
• Adults may remain highly intolerant of males who blatantly disregard gender-role prescriptions (Levy, Taylor,
& Gelman, 1995).

• The most common method of assessing the “gender appropriateness” of children’s behavior is to observe whom
and what they like to play with.
• Sex differences in playful gestures and toy preferences develop very early—even before the child has established a
basic gender identity or can correctly label various toys as “boy things” or “girl things” (Blakemore, LaRue, &
Olejnik, 1979; Fagot, Leinbach, & Hagan, 1986).
• Leif Stennes and associates (2005) found that in the early pretend play of 13-month-olds, girls emitted more
actions and communication gestures centering on themes of pretending to be a parent, whereas boys’ play actions
and gestures were often imitations of such masculine activities as pounding with a hammer or digging with a
shovel.
• By age 14 to 22 months, boys have come to prefer trucks and cars to other objects, whereas girls of this age would
rather play with dolls and soft toys (Smith & Daglish, 1977).
• In fact, 18- to 24-month-old toddlers will often refuse to play with cross-sex toys, even when there are no other
objects available for them to play with (Caldera, Huston, & O’Brien, 1989).
• Children’s preferences for same-sex playmates also develop very early. In nursery school, 2-year-old girls already
prefer to play with other girls (La Freniere, Strayer, & Gauthier, 1984), and by age 3, boys are reliably selecting
boys rather than girls as companions.
DEVELOPMENT OF GENDER-TYPED BEHAVIOUR

• This gender segregation, which has been observed in a wide variety of cultures (Leaper, 1994; Whiting & Edwards,
1988), becomes progressively stronger with each passing year.
• By age 61⁄2, children spend more than 10 times as much time with the same-sex as with opposite-sex companions
(Maccoby, 1998), and when a young child does play with other-sex peers, there is usually at least one same-sex
comrade present (Fabes, Martin, & Hanish, 2003).
• Grade-school and preadolescent children generally find cross- gender contacts less pleasing and are likely to behave
more negatively toward opposite-sex than same-sex peers (Underwood, Schockner, & Hurley, 2001).
• Interestingly, even young children believe that it is wrong to exclude a child from such contexts as doll play or playing
with trucks on the basis of gender (Killen et al., 2001), but they often do so anyway (see also Brown & Bigler, 2004).
• Alan Sroufe and his colleagues (1993) found that those 10- to 11-year-olds who insist most strongly on maintaining
clear gender boundaries and who avoid consorting with the “enemy” tend to be viewed as socially competent and
popular, whereas children who violate gender segregation rules tend to be much less popular and less well adjusted.
In fact, children who display a preference for cross-sex friendships are likely to be rejected by their peers (Kovacs,
Parker, & Hoffman, 1996).
• However, gender boundaries and biases against other-sex companions decline in adolescence when the social and
physiological events of puberty trigger an interest in members of the opposite sex (Bukowski, Sippola, & Newcomb,
2000; Serbin, Powlishta, & Gulk, 1993).

• Eleanor Maccoby (1998) believes that it largely reflects differences between boys’ and girls’ play styles—an
incompatibility that may stem from boys’ heightened levels of androgen, which fosters active, rambunctious
behavior.
• Throughout childhood, boys prefer playing or working together in same-sex groups, whereas girls are more likely
than boys to withdraw in group settings, choosing instead to focus attention on individuals and functioning best in
same-sex dyads (Benenson & Heath, 2006).
• Girls are expected to play quietly and gently and are subject to criticism (by both boys and girls) should they become
loud and rough like the boys (Blakemore, 2003).
• Cognitive and social-cognitive development also contribute to the increasing gender segregation children display.
• Once preschoolers label themselves as boys or girls and begin to acquire gender stereotypes, they come to favor
the group to which they belong and will eventually view the other sex as a homogeneous out-group with many
negative characteristics (Martin, 1994; Powlishta, 1995).
• In fact, children who hold the more stereotyped views of the sexes are the ones most likely to maintain gender
segregation in their own play activities and to make few if any opposite-sex friends (Kovacs, Parker, & Hoffman,
1996; Martin, 1994).
WHY DOES GENDER SEGREGATION OCCUR?

• Some research on social-class and ethnic variations in gender typing reveals that:
• (1) middle-class adolescents (but not children) hold more flexible gender-role attitudes than their low-SES peers (Bardwell,
Cochran, & Walker, 1986; Canter & Ageton, 1984) and
• (2) African-American children hold less stereotyped views of women than European-American children do (Bardwell, Cochran,
& Walker, 1986; see also Leaper, Tennenbaum, & Shaffer, 1999).
• Researchers have attributed these social class and ethnic variations in gender typing to differences in education and family
life.
• One reason may be that the African-American community has historically endorsed more favorable attitudes toward gender
equality in the sharing of family responsibilities (King, Harris, & Heard, 2004), so that the behavior of mothers and fathers
toward their children may not differ as much as is true in other ethnic communities.
• Jaipaul Roopnarine and associates (2005) recently found that unlike the mother-nurturer/father-playmate roles that parents
often assume with infants in European-American families, African-American fathers are less constrained and are as inclined (or
even more so) than mothers to provide their infants with nurturing comfort, vocal stimulation, and lots of affection.
• children raised in “countercultural” or “avant-garde” homes (in which parents strive to promote egalitarian gender-role
attitudes) are indeed less gender-stereotyped than children from traditional families in their beliefs about which activities and
occupations are appropriate for males and females (Weisner & Wilson-Mitchell, 1990). Nevertheless, these “countercultural”
children are quite aware of traditional gender stereotypes and are just as “gender-typed” in their toy and activity preferences
as children from more traditional families.
CULTURAL VARIATION IN GENDER-TYPING

• Several theories have been proposed to account for sex differences and the development of gender roles.
• Some theories emphasize the role of biological differences between the sexes
• Others emphasize social influences on children.
• Some emphasize how society influences children, others the choices children make as they try to understand
gender and all its implications
• We will look into
1. Evolutionary Theory
2. Biosocial Theory
3. Psychoanalytic Theory,
4. Social Learning Theory
5. Cognitive-Developmental Theory, and
6. Gender schema theory.
7. Integrative Theory
THEORIES OF GENDER TYPING AND GENDER-ROLE DEVELOPMENT

• Evolutionary psychologists (e.g., Buss, 1995, 2000; Geary, 1999, 2005) contend that men and women faced different
evolutionary pressures over the course of human history and that the natural selection process conspired to create
fundamental differences between males and females that determined gender divisions of labor.
• To successfully raise children, women presumably evolved in ways that would make them kind, gentle, and nurturant
(expressive characteristics) and to prefer men who would display kindness toward them and would provide resources
(food and protection) to help ensure children’s survival.
• Men should become more competitive, assertive, and aggressive (instrumental traits) because these attributes should
increase their chances of successfully attracting mates and procuring resources.
• According to evolutionary theorists (Buss, 1995, 2000), males and females may be psychologically similar in many ways
but should differ in any domain in which they have faced different adaptive problems throughout evolutionary history.
• David Buss (2018) argues that gender differences are extensive and caused by the adaptive problems people have
faced across their evolutionary history.
• Consider the male superiority in visual/spatial performance. Spatial skills are essential for hunting; few kills would be
made if hunters could not anticipate the trajectory of their spears (or rocks, or arrows) in relation to the path of a
moving prey animal. Thus, the pressure to provide food necessary for survival might ensure that males, who were most
often the hunter- providers, would develop greater spatial skills than females.
EVOLUTIONARY THEORY

Criticism:
• It applies mainly to sex differences that are consistent across cultures and largely ignores differences that
are limited to particular cultures or historical periods (Blakemore et al., in press).
• Proponents of the social roles hypothesis have argued that psychological sex differences do not reflect
biologically evolved dispositions. Instead, they emerge because of variations in (1) roles that cultures
assign to men and women (provider versus homemaker, for example) and on (2) agreed-upon socialization
practices to promote traits in boys and girls (assertion versus nurturance, for example) to properly enact
these roles (Eagly, Wood, & Diekman, 2000).
• According to the best-known interactive theory of gender typing, biological correlates of gender, in
concert with important social influences, steer boys and girls toward different patterns of behavior and
gender roles.
• Even many biologically oriented theorists take a softer, less essentialist stance, arguing that biological and
social influences interact to determine a person’s behaviors and role preferences.

Money and Ehrhardt (1972) proposed that there are a number of critical events that affect a person’s
eventual preference for the masculine or the feminine gender role.
1. Inherits either an X or a Y chromosome from the father. If a Y chromosome is present, the embryo
develops testes; otherwise, ovaries form.
2. The testes of a male embryo secrete two hormones: testosterone, which stimulates the development of a
male internal reproductive system, and mullerian inhibiting substance (MIS), which inhibits the
development of female organs. In the absence of these hormones, the embryo develops the internal
reproductive system of a female.
3. 3 to 4 months after conception, secretion of testosterone by the testes normally leads to the growth of a
penis and scrotum. If testosterone is absent (as in normal females) or if the male fetus has inherited a
rare recessive disorder, called testicular feminization syndrome (TFS), that makes his body insensitive to
male sex hormones, female external genitalia (labia and clitoris) form. Testosterone is also thought to
alter the development of the brain and nervous system. For example, it signals the male brain to stop
secreting hormones in a cyclical pattern so that males do not experience menstrual cycles at puberty.
Once a child is born, social factors immediately come into play.
BIOSOCIAL THEORY

• Although biological forces may steer boys and girls toward different activities and interests, Money and Ehrhardt (1972)
insist that social-labeling influences are also important—so important, in fact, that they can modify or even reverse
biological predispositions.
• Money’s findings indicate that early social labeling and gender-role socialization can play a very prominent role in
determining a child’s gender identity and role preferences.

• Freud believed that one’s gender identity and preference for a gender role emerge during the phallic stage as children
begin to emulate and to identify with their same-sex parent.
• Freud claimed that a 3- to 6-year-old boy internalizes masculine attributes and behaviors when he is forced to identify
with his father as a means of renouncing his incestuous desire for his mother, reducing his castration anxiety, and thus
resolving his Oedipus complex.
• Freud also believed that gender typing is more difficult for a young girl who lacks a penis, already feels castrated, and
experiences no overriding fear that would compel her to identify with her mother and resolve her Electra complex.
• Freud suggested, that the object of a girl’s affection, her father, was likely to encourage her feminine behavior—an act that
increases the attractiveness of the mother, who serves as the girl’s model of femininity. So by trying to please her father (or
to prepare for relationships with other males after she recognizes the implausibility of possessing her father), a girl is
motivated to incorporate her mother’s feminine attributes and eventually becomes gender typed (Freud, 1924/1961).
Criticism:
• Many 4- to 6-year-olds are so ignorant about differences between male and female genitalia that it is hard to see how
most boys could fear castration or how most girls could feel castrated as Freud says they do (Bem, 1989; Katcher, 1955).
• Freud assumed that a boy’s identification with his father is based on fear; but most researchers find that boys identify more
strongly with fathers who are warm and nurturant rather than overly punitive and threatening (Hetherington & Frankie,
1967; Mussen & Rutherford, 1963).
PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY

Social learning theorists such as Albert Bandura proposed that (1989; Bussey & Bandura, 1992, 1999),
children acquire their gender identities and gender-role preferences in two ways.
1. Direct tuition: Children are encouraged and rewarded for gender- appropriate behaviors and are
punished or otherwise discouraged for behaviors considered more appropriate for members of the other
sex.
• Parents are actively involved in teaching boys how to be boys and girls how to be girls (Leaper, Anderson,
& Sanders, 1998; Lytton & Romney, 1991) and their shaping of gender-typed behaviors begins rather
early.
• Beverly Fagot and Mary Leinbach (1989), for example, found that parents are already encouraging
gender-appropriate activities and discouraging cross-gender play during the second year of life, before
children have acquired their basic gender identities or display clear preferences for male or female
activities.
• Children are influenced by the “gender curriculum” their parents provide.
SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY

• Parents who show the clearest patterns of differential reinforcement have children who are relatively
quick to :
Label themselves as boys or girls,
Develop strong gender-typed toy and activity preferences, and
Acquire an understanding of gender stereotypes (Fagot & Leinbach, 1989; Fagot, Leinbach, &
O’Boyle, 1992).
• A child’s earliest preferences for gender-typed toys and activities may well result from their
parents’ (particularly fathers’) successful attempts to reinforce these interests.
• Other factors conspire to maintain these gender-typed interests:
• Including the behavior of siblings and same-sex peers (Beal, 1994; McHale, Crouter, & Tucker, 1999)
• Peer influences are especially powerful: Even before they have established their basic gender identities,
2-year-old boys often belittle or disrupt each other for playing with girl toys or with girls, and 2-year- old
girls are quite critical of other girls who choose to play with boys (Fagot, 1985a).
• Peers continue to reinforce this gender typing throughout childhood (Martin & Fabes, 2001).

2. observational learning: Children acquire many of their gender-typed attributes and interests, according to social
learning theory (Bandura, 1989), is by observing and imitating a variety of same-sex models.
• Same-sex models, including peers, teachers, older siblings, and media personalities, as well as their mothers or
their fathers (Fagot, Rodgers, & Leinbach, 2000).
• Researchers often find that 3- to 6-year-olds learn much about typical patterns of both male and female behavior
by carefully observing models of each sex (Leaper, 2000; Ruble & Martin, 1998).
• Children of employed mothers (who play the masculine instrumental role) or of fathers who routinely perform such
feminine household tasks as cooking, cleaning, and child care are less aware of gender stereotypes than are
children of more traditional parents (Serbin, Powlishta, & Gulko, 1993; Turner & Gervai, 1995).
• Similarly, boys with sisters and girls with brothers have fewer gender-typed activity preferences than children who
have only same-sex siblings (Colley et al., 1996; Rust et al., 2000).
• Children do begin to attend more selectively to same-sex models and are now likely to avoid toys and activities
that other-sex models seem to enjoy (Frey & Ruble, 1992; Ruble, Balaban, & Cooper, 1981).

MEDIA INFLUENCE:
Children also learn about gender roles from reading stories and watching television.
It is similar in the world of television: Males are usually featured as the central characters who are
professionals, make important decisions, respond to emergencies, and assume positions of leadership,
whereas females are often portrayed as relatively passive and emotional creatures who manage a home or
work at “feminine” occupations such as nursing (Signorielli & Kahlenberg, 2001).
And, children are influenced by these highly traditional role portrayals, for those who watch a lot of
television are more likely to prefer gender-typed activities and to hold highly stereotyped views of men and
women than their classmates who watch little television (McGhee & Frueh, 1980; Signorielli & Lears, 1992).

• Lawrence Kohlberg (1966) proposed a cognitive theory of gender typing that is quite different from the other theories
• Kohl- berg explains why boys and girls adopt traditional gender roles even when their parents may not want them to.
• Kohl- berg’s major themes are:
1. Gender-role development depends on cognitive development; children must acquire certain understandings about gender before they
are influenced by their social experiences.
2. Children actively socialize themselves; they are not merely passive pawns of social influence.
• In contrast to psychoanalytic and social learning theory, Kohlberg proposes and argues that children first establish a stable gender
identity and then actively seek out same-sex models and other information to learn how to act like a boy or a girl.
• It’s not “I’m treated like a boy; therefore, I must be one” (social learning view). It’s more like “Hey, I’m a boy; therefore, I’d better do
everything I can do to find out how to behave like one” (cognitive-developmental view).
• Kohlberg believes that children pass through the following three stages as they acquire a mature understanding of what it means to be a
male or a female:
Basic gender identity: By age 3, children label themselves as boys or girls.
Gender stability: Later, gender is perceived as stable over time. Boys invariably grow up to become men and girls grow up to be women.
Gender consistency: The gender concept is complete when the child realizes:
• that one’s sex is also stable across situations. Five- to seven-year-olds who have reached this stage are no longer fooled by appearances.
They know, for example, that one’s gender cannot be altered by cross-dressing or taking up cross-sex activities.
KOHLBERG’S COGNITIVE-DEVELOPMENTAL THEORY

• According to Kohlberg, self-socialization begins only after children attain gender consistency. So for
Kohlberg, a mature understanding of gender instigates true gender typing.
• Studies conducted in more than 20 different cultures reveal that preschool children proceed through
Kohlberg’s three stages of gender identity in the sequence he describes and that attainment of gender
consistency (or conservation of gender) is clearly associated with other relevant aspects of cognitive
development, such as the conservation of liquids and mass (Marcus & Overton, 1978; Munroe, Shimmin,
& Munroe, 1984; Szkrybalo & Ruble, 1999).
Criticism:
• In contrast to what Kholberg proposed, one can see gender typing is well under way before the child
acquires a mature gender identity.
• Kohlberg badly overstates the case in arguing that a mature understanding of gender is necessary for
gender typing to begin whereas only a rudimentary understanding of gender permits children to acquire
gender stereotypes and develop strong gender-typed toy and activity preferences.

• Carol Martin and Charles Halverson (1981, 1987) proposed Gender Schema Theory (actually, an
information-processing theory)
• Like Kohlberg, Martin and Halverson believe that children are highly motivated to acquire interests,
values, and behaviors that are consistent with their “boy” or “girl” self-images.
• Unlike Kohlberg, they argue that this “self-socialization” begins as soon as the child acquires a basic
gender identity at age 21⁄2 or 3 and is well under way by age 6 to 7 when the child achieves gender
consistency.
• According to Martin and Halverson’s gender schema theory, establishing a basic gender identity
motivates a child to learn about the sexes and to incorporate this information into gender schemas—
that is, organized sets of beliefs and expectations about males and females that influence the kinds of
information attended to, elaborated, and remembered.
• First, children acquire a simple “in-group/out-group” schema that allows them to classify some
objects, behaviors, and roles as “for boys” and others as “for girls” (e.g., trucks are for boys, girls can
cry but boys should not, etc.).
GENDER SCHEMA THEORY

• In one research program, 4- and 5-year-olds were shown unfamiliar gender-neutral toys (e.g., spinning
bells, a magnet stand), were told that these objects were either “for boys” or “for girls,” and were asked
whether they and other boys or girls would like them. Children clearly relied on the labels to guide their
thinking.
• Even highly attractive toys soon lost their appeal if they were labeled as for the other gender (Martin,
Eisenbud, & Rose, 1995).
• According to this theory, children also construct an own-sex schema, which consists of detailed
information they will need to perform various gender-consistent behaviors.
• So a girl who has a basic gender identity might first learn that sewing is “for girls” and building model
airplanes is “for boys.” Then, because she is a girl and wants to act consistently with her own self-concept,
she will gather a great deal of information about sewing to add to her own-sex schema
• Gender Schema theory model describe how gender-role stereotypes might originate and persist over
time, and it also indicates how these emerging gender schemas might contribute to the development of
strong gender-role preferences and gender-typed behaviors long before a child may realize that gender is
an unchanging attribute.

• Biological, social learning, cognitive-developmental, and gender schema perspectives have each contributed in
important ways to our understanding of sex differences and gender-role development (Ruble, Martin, &
Berenbaum, 2006; Serbin et al., 1993). The processes that different theories emphasize seem to be especially
important at different periods. and thus Integrative model proposes to see all the theory in continuation to
each other and not as a contradiction.
• Of course, summarizing developments in an integrative model such as this one does not mean that biological
forces play no further role after the child is born or that differential reinforcement ceases to affect development
once the child acquires a basic gender identity.
• An integrative theorist would emphasize that, from age 3 on, children are active self-socializers who will try very
hard to acquire the masculine or feminine attributes that they view as consistent with their male or female self-
images.
• All theories of gender-role development would agree that what children actually learn about being a male or a
female depends greatly on what their society offers them in the way of a “gender curriculum.”
• We must view gender-role development through an ecological lens and appreciate that there is nothing
inevitable about the patterns of male and female development that we see in our society today.
• In another era, in another culture, the gender-typing process can produce very different kinds of boys and girls.
INTEGRATIVE THEORY

• Today many developmentalists believe that these rigidly defined gender-role standards are actually
harmful because they constrain the behavior of both males and females.
• Sandra Bem (1978), for example, has stated that her major purpose in studying gender roles is “to help
free the human personality from the restrictive prison of sex-role stereotyping and to develop a conception
of mental health that is free from culturally imposed definitions of masculinity and femininity.”
• For many years, psychologists assumed that masculinity and femininity were at opposite ends of a single
dimension. If one possessed highly masculine traits, one must be very unfeminine; being highly feminine
implied being unmasculine.
• Bem (1974) challenged this assumption by arguing that individuals of either sex can be characterized by
psychological androgyny—that is, by a balancing or blending of desirable masculine-stereotyped traits
(e.g., being assertive, analytical, forceful, and independent) and desirable feminine- stereotyped traits
(e.g., being affectionate, compassionate, gentle, and understanding).
• In Bem’s model, then, masculinity and femininity are two separate dimensions of personality.
• The androgynous person possesses both masculine and feminine traits.
PSYCHOLOGICAL ANDROGYNY

• Bem (1974) and other investigators (Spence & Helmreich, 1978) have developed self-
perception inventories that contain both a masculinity (or instrumentality) scale and a
femininity (or expressivity) scale. In one large sample of college students (Spence &
Helmreich, 1978), roughly 33 percent of the test takers proved to be “masculine” men or
“feminine” women, about 30 percent were androgynous.
• Janet Boldizar (1991) developed a similar gender-role inventory for grade-school children
and found that approximately 25 to 30 percent of third- through seventh-graders can be
classified as androgynous. So androgynous individuals do exist, and in sizeable numbers.
• And a recent study found that androgynous boys and girls had higher self-esteem and fewer
internalizing problems than masculine or feminine individuals (Pauletti & others, 2017).

• The amount, timing, and intensity of gender socialization differs for girls and boys (Beal, 1994).
• Boys receive earlier and more intense gender socialization than girls do.
• Researchers have found that “effeminate” behavior in boys elicits more negative reactions than does “masculine” behavior in
girls (Martin, 1990).
• Boys might have a more difficult time learning the masculine gender role because male models are less accessible to young
children and messages from adults about the male role are not always consistent.
• For example, most mothers and teachers would like boys to behave in masculine ways, but also to be neat, well mannered, and
considerate. However, fathers and peers usually want boys to be independent and to engage in rough-and-tumble play. The
mixed messages make it difficult for boys to figure out how to act.
• Concern about the ways boys are being brought up has been called a “national crisis of boyhood” by William Pollack (1999) in
his book Real Boys.
• Pollack, as well as many others, argues that boys would benefit from being socialized to express their anxieties and concerns and
to better regulate their aggression.
• Although gender roles have become more flexible in recent years, the flexibility applies more for girls than for boys (Beal, 1994).
• Girls can count on receiving approval if they are ambitious, competitive, and interested in sports, but relatively few adults are
equally supportive of boys’ being gentle, interested in fashion, and motivated to sign up for ballet classes.
• Instrumental traits and masculine gender roles may be evolving into a new norm for everyone.
GENDER - CHILDHOOD

• As females and males undergo the physical and social changes of early adolescence, they must come to terms with new definitions of
their gender roles (Pascoe, 2017).
• Some theorists and researchers have proposed that, with the onset of puberty, girls and boys experience an intensification of gender-
related expectations.
• Puberty might signal to socializing others—parents, peers, and teachers, for example—that the adolescent is beginning to approach
adulthood and therefore should begin to behave in ways that more closely resemble the stereotypical female or male adult.
• The gender-intensification hypothesis states that psychological and behavioral differences between boys and girls become greater
during early adolescence because of increased pressures to conform to traditional masculine and feminine gender roles (Galambos,
2004; Hill & Lynch, 1983).
• Some researchers have reported evidence of gender intensification in early adolescence (Hill & Lynch, 1983), but others have found
no evidence for intensification in masculinity or femininity in young adolescents (Priess, Lindberg, & Hyde, 2009).
• Joseph Pleck (1995) argues that definitions of traditional masculinity include behaviors that do not have social approval but
nonetheless validate the adolescent boy’s masculinity.
• That is, in the male adolescent culture, male adolescents perceive that they will be thought of as more masculine if they engage in
premarital sex, drink alcohol, take drugs, and participate in delinquent activities.
• One study revealed that both boys and girls who engaged in extreme gender-typed (hyper-gender) behaviors had lower levels of
school engagement and school attachment (Ueno & McWilliams, 2010).
GENDER - ADOLESCENCE

• Cisgender: Can be used to describe individuals whose gender identity and expression conform to the
gender identity assigned at birth (Hyde & others, 2019).
• Transgender: Transgender is a broad term, coined by Virginia Prince, an activist (King & Ekins,
2000), used for Individuals who adopt a gender identity that differs from the one assigned to them at
birth (Budge & Orovecz, 2018; Budge & others, 2018; Hyde & others, 2019; Sinclair-Palm, 2019).
• Includes Transmen, Transwomen, Genderqueer, Non-gender confirming, Non-binary, Agender folks.
• A transgender identity of being born male but identifying with being a female is much more common
than the reverse (Zucker, Lawrence, & Kreukels, 2016).
• Transgender persons also may not want to be labeled “he” or “she” but prefer a more neutral label
such as “they” or “ze” (Scelfo, 2015).
• Because of the nuances and complexities involved in such gender categorizations, some experts have
recently argued that a better overarching umbrella term might be trans to identify a variety of gender
identities and expressions different from the gender identity that was assigned at birth (Galupo &
others, 2019; Sinclair-Palm, 2019).
GENDER BEYOND CONVENTIONS

• Transgender individuals can be straight, gay, lesbian, or bisexual. A research review concluded that
transgender youth have higher rates of depression, suicide attempts, and eating disorders than their
cisgender peers (Connolly & others, 2016).
• Among the explanations for higher rates of disorders are the distress of living in the wrong body and the
discrimination and misunderstanding they encounter as gender-minority individuals (Budge, Chin, &
Minero, 2017).
• Some transgender individuals seek transsexual surgery to go from a male body to a female body or vice
versa, but most do not. Some choose to receive hormonal treatments, such as biological females who use
testosterone to enhance their masculine characteristics, or biological males who use estrogen to increase
their feminine characteristics. Yet other transgender individuals opt for another, broader strategy that
involves choosing a lifestyle that challenges the traditional view of having a gender identity that fits within
one of two opposing categories (King, 2017, 2019).

• When there is discrepancy between an individual’s sex and gender role and their expected expression or
identity, this may be termed gender non-conformity, but if it causes significant discomfort or distress it may be
termed gender dysphoria.
• Some people who are transgender will experience “gender dysphoria,” which refers to psychological distress
that results from an incongruence between one’s sex assigned at birth and one’s gender identity. Though gender
dysphoria often begins in childhood, some people may not experience it until after puberty or much later. (APA)
• Gender dysphoria involves a conflict between a person's physical or assigned gender and the gender with
which he/she/they identify. People with gender dysphoria may be very uncomfortable with the gender they were
assigned, sometimes described as being uncomfortable with their body (particularly developments during
puberty) or being uncomfortable with the expected roles of their assigned gender.
• People who are transgender may pursue multiple domains of gender affirmation, including social affirmation
(e.g., changing one’s name and pronouns), legal affirmation (e.g., changing gender markers on one’s
government-issued documents), medical affirmation (e.g., pubertal suppression or gender-affirming hormones),
and/or surgical affirmation (e.g., vaginoplasty, facial feminization surgery, breast augmentation, masculine chest
reconstruction, etc.). Not all people who are transgender will desire all domains of gender affirmation, as these
are highly personal and individual decisions.
GENDER DYSPHORIA

The DSM-5 defines gender dysphoria in adolescents and
adults as a marked incongruence between one’s
experienced/expressed gender and their assigned gender,
lasting at least 6 months, as manifested by at least two of
the following:
• A marked incongruence between one’s experienced/
expressed gender and primary and/or secondary sex
characteristics (or in young adolescents, the
anticipated secondary sex characteristics)
• A strong desire to be rid of one’s primary and/or
secondary sex characteristics because of a marked
incongruence with one’s experienced/expressed
gender (or in young adolescents, a desire to prevent
the development of the anticipated secondary sex
characteristics)
• A strong desire for the primary and/or secondary sex
characteristics of the other gender
• A strong desire to be of the other gender (or some
alternative gender different from one’s assigned
gender)
• A strong desire to be treated as the other gender (or
some alternative gender different from one’s
assigned gender)
• A strong conviction that one has the typical feelings
and reactions of the other gender (or some
alternative gender different from one’s assigned
gender)
In order to meet criteria for the diagnosis, the
condition must also be associated with clinically
significant distress or impairment in social,
occupational, or other important areas of
functioning.

Gender dysphoria 1. discontent with the physical or social aspects of one’s own sex. 2. in DSM–5, a diagnostic class that
replaces gender identity disorder and shifts clinical emphasis from cross-gender identification itself to a focus on the possible
distress arising from a sense of mis- match, or incongruence, that one may have about one’s experienced gender versus one’s
assigned gender. Diagnostic criteria for gender dysphoria in children include significant distress or impairment due to marked
gender incongruence, such as a strong desire to be—or a belief that one is—the other gender, preference for the toys, games,
roles, and activities stereotypically associated with the other gender, and a strong dislike of one’s sexual anatomy. In adults, the
manifestations of gender dysphoria may include a strong desire to replace one’s physical sex characteristics with those of the
other gender (see sex reassignment), the belief that one has the emotions of the other gender, and a desire to be treated as the
other gender or recognized as having an alternative gender identity.
Gender identity disorder in DSM–IV–TR, a disorder characterized by clinically significant distress or impairment of functioning
due to cross-gender identification (i.e., a desire to be or actual insistence that one is of the other sex) and persistent discomfort
arising from the belief that one’s sex or gender is inappropriate to one’s true self (see transsexualism). The disorder is
distinguished from simple dissatisfaction or nonconformity with gender roles. The category gender identity disorder not
otherwise specified is used to classify gender-related disorders distinct from gender identity disorder, such as gender dysphoria
related to congenital intersex, stress-related cross-dressing behavior (see transvestism), or preoccupation with castration or
penectomy (removal of the penis). In DSM–5, gender dysphoria entirely replaces gender identity disorder as a diagnostic class
and emphasizes the clinical significance not of cross-gender identification per se but, instead, the possible distress arising from
the sense of incongruence that one may have between one’s experienced gender and one’s assigned gender.
American Psychological Association:

• So far we have seen that the long-existing (for more than a century) concept of gender as having just two categories—
male and female—is being challenged.
• In a recent analysis, leading expert, Janet Shibley Hyde and her colleagues (Hyde & others, 2019) described a
number of aspects of gender where this challenge is occurring.
• These include the following developments:
1. Neuroscience research indicates the pres- ence of a gender mosaic rather “his or her” brains that are highly different;
2. Endocrinology research reveals more hormonal similarities in males and females than had been previously
envisioned;
3. Recent conceptual changes in gender role classification go far beyond characterizing individuals as masculine or
feminine and add a number of new gender identity categories such as trans people, transgender, cisgender, and
many others;
4. Developmental research indicates that the tendency to view gender as a binary category is not due only to biological
factors but is also culturally determined and malleable.
• Further, gender categories are not mutually exclusive because an individual can identify with more than one category.
• Also, gender categories are fluid because an individual’s gender identity can change over time.
GENDER BEYOND BINARY

In 2018 a group of 2617 scientists consisting Biologists, Geneticists, Psychologists,
Anthropologists, Physicians, Neuroscientists, Social Scientists, Biochemists, Mental Health
Service Providers, and others, (this includes 1100+ biologists, 180+ geneticists, and 9 Nobel
laureates), signed an open letter opposing the US Administration’s proposed legal definition of
gender, saying that it cannot be supported by the scientific evidence and is an unethical assault
on human rights and basic dignity. They spoke out in response to the proposal that intends to
legally define gender (as a binary condition) as either male or female, determined at birth based
on anatomy, or later using unspecified genetic tests.“There are no genetic tests that can
unambiguously determine gender, or even sex,” the letter states, and “even if such tests existed,
it would be unconscionable to use the pretext of science to enact policies that overrule the lived
experience of people’s own gender identities.

• People across the world have long lived outside of the western gender binary system. They were (and continue to be)
forcibly assimilated into western gender as a tactic of colonisation.
• Nigerian scholar Dr. Oyeronke Oyewumi draws from history of her Indigenous Yoruba culture to show how the category
‘woman’ did not exist in Yorubaland prior to European colonisation. She critiques how maintains the fictions that:
• Gender categories are universal
• Gender is the fundamental organising principle in all societies.
• There is universal category of woman
• The category of ‘woman’ exists preculture fixed in time and place in opposition to the category ‘man’.
• In Yoruba society the primary feature of social hierarchy was age, not gender. Yoruba people acknowledged distinct
reproductive roles (Obinrin and Okunrin) without using them to establish social hierarchy and distribute power.
• As Dr. Oyewumi argues, the “creation of women as a category was one of the very first accomplishments of the colonial
state.”
GENDER - A BRIEF COLONIAL HISTORY

• Gender neutral gods were replaced with male ones.
• Despite the fact that non-men had long participated in political and public life, the new colonial authority only recognised ‘male’
leaders and refused to acknowledge the existence of ‘female’ chiefs, effectively excluding ‘women’ from all colonial state structures.
• Yoruba people were forcibly assimilated into western patriarchy.
• Dr. Greg Thomas argues that the need to challenge gender and sex categories begins with decolonisation and accounting for the
legacy of chattel slavery. Modern gender and sex categories are not natural, they were created specifically in the context of
western empire as a way to naturalise slavery and colonialism.
• Gender is not just a social construct, it is a culturally specific western bourgeois social construct.
• Jamaican philosopher Dr. Sylvia Wynter argued that “from the very origin of the modern world … there were never simply men
and women.”
• Also The sex binary (the idea that there are only two, distinct, opposite sexes) is the 19th century colonial construction. While some
cultures across the world has previously divided society into men and women, scientific developments particular to this time period
enabled western scientists to argue that sex difference was anatomical (different brains, skeletal systems, nervous systems).
• Scientists argued that white people were superior because of their unique ability to display visual difference between males and
females. Black people, Indigenous people, and other people of colour (BIPOC) were regarded as indistinguishable.

• When speaking about ‘women’ scientists were exclusively speaking about ‘white women’. Terms like ‘lower races’ were used
without reference to sex because scientists believed there were not significant sexual differences in BIPOC communities.
• In 1886 German sexologist Kraft-Ebbing wrote: ‘The higher the development of the race, the stronger the contrasts between
man and woman.’ In 1897 William Thomas echoed: ‘the less civilised the race the less is the physical differences of the sexes.’
• Scientists did not believe men and women of different races shared the same nature. Instead, they maintained that sex was
race-specific. The belief was that as societies progressed from ‘savagery’ toward ‘civilisation’ over time, the physical
distinction between males and females increased. White people were seen as constantly evolving towards becoming the
ultimate civilisation on Earth, but black people (in particular) were seen as stuck in primitivity/animality, unable to achieve
sexual differentiation.
• According to Social Darwinist Herbert Spencer, the reason that white women looked so different from white men, is because
unlike their ‘primitive BIPOC counterparts, they were homemakers. The understanding was that if civilisation (patriarchal
binary gender norms) were brought to ‘primitive’ peoples then they would eventually develop sex differences over time.
• Even 19th century white feminists saw womanhood as ‘an advanced state of mental, physiological, emotional, and
anatomical specialisation only achieved by the civilised.
• Gender and sex are not universal concepts, they are located in specific cultural systems, histories, and societies.

LGBTQ Training 2 and 5. Gender -LSD 2.1.pdf

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