How Gender Identity Is Construed Today Research Paper

Gender Identity

What is gender? Is it a biological condition or a social construction? In today's modern world, it appears that it can be one or the other or even a mixture of both. Transgender people like Caitlyn Jenner (formerly Bruce Jenner, an Olympian) have raised awareness about the issue of gender, and so have others, like the Wachowski siblings, famous Hollywood directors, who have brought attention to the issue through their exploration of sexual and gender identity issues. Researchers have also added to the debate about what is gender identity by performing both qualitative and quantitative studies about it, ranging from discussions of the difference between sex and gender to neurobiological brain scans of brain wave patterns in men, women, straight and transgender. Results, findings and conclusions remain contested and controversial, suggesting that even today little is known about why gender identity is an issue for some and not for others -- whether it is handed down through posterity as a result of patriarchal social conventions, or whether it is a function of biological patterns in the body manifested in psychological and behavioral expressions. This paper will attempt to answer the question of what is gender identity from the standpoint of biology vs. social construction, with a focus on the modern history of gender, including the issue of transgender identity.

If, as Virginia Woolfe wrote, "that even in the nineteenth century a woman was not encouraged to be an artist" (Woolfe), by the 20th century, the role of women was set to change. Women's suffrage was won, and the Feminist Movement re-conceptualized the way in which the gender of women was construed. While television icons like Mary Tyler Moore displayed an image of womanhood as smart, house-tied, always looking one's best (in heels), and nurturing, women like Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem began to challenge this identity. Friedan wrote The Feminine Mystique and held that she "came to political consciousness out of a disillusionment with her life as a suburban housewife" (Horowitz 2). She took the identity of woman, in other words, and coupled it with a political ideology -- the concepts of women's rights, equality, and women in the workforce (women having a roll outside the home). To a large degree, Friedan bore out and expanded upon the proto-Feminist doctrine of Simone de Beauvoir, who believed that "woman" is not what is born but rather what one "becomes" (Beauvoir 51) -- in short, the Feminists held that female gender identity was not based on biology but rather on action, on thought, and on manifestation of the will: gender identity was related to gender politics -- and suddenly in the 20th century, the entire paradigm of social order and patriarchy was being questioned as a result of a re-examination of the nature of gender.

The argument was that if gender was not linked to one's biology, then perhaps it was all just a social construct. Then again, as researchers would later show, there is a clearly distinct pattern in the brains of transgender individuals that is biologically similar to the patterns found in the genders with which they identify, suggesting that biology does play a part in the way one identifies one's gender (Rametti et al. 199). Thus, on the one hand the 20th century produced the concept that gender identity was a social construct (an idea used to reinforce the argument that women could do just as good of a job as men could do), and on the other hand it also challenged this narrative by asserting that gender identity was related to biology (an idea used to reinforce the argument that transgender people were actually natural and biologically geared towards the gender of their "choice").

The research into the brain wave patterns of transgender individuals is recent enough that it necessitates further testing in order to draw out conclusive findings. But so far, the research indicates that there are "a priori differences between men and transsexual patients" and that the main cause of these differences is the "neurobiological processes or task-solving strategies" within the brain (Schoning, Engelien, Bauer et al. 1858). In other words, the way the mind of a transgender individual and the way the mind of the individual's same-biology gender counterpart works/operates is different. The biology of the sex parts may be the same, but the biology of the mind is distinct -- in short, there is a neurobiology that informs the transgender of his/her identity. For these individuals, therefore, gender identity is more about "discovering" one's true gender rather than "becoming" or "proving" oneself by expanding or pushing the boundaries of the way in which society views a gender role.

In some respects, it was the role of the female artist in the 20th century that helped pave the way for transgender individuals to become more public about their issues with gender and gender identity. The photographic artist Nan Goldin depicted the lives of transgender individuals in New York City in the 1980s and 1990s. One of her most famous pictures is called Misty and Jimmy Paulette in a Taxi, NYC, 1991 and portrays to transgender individuals in the back of a taxi cab staring at the viewer with expressions of, "This is me -- this is who I am -- and I don't care if you don't approve" written on their face. Goldin represented a bold side of the gender issue by pushing into the public sphere the underworld of gender issues that was growing just beneath the surface of public culture in the 20th century. Goldin's transgender couple represent a drag queen side of society that mainstream America had not yet embraced (with the celebrity culture surrounding Caitlyn Jenner this is all changing and modern American society is more willing than ever before to accept cross-dressing and transgender individuals -- as even Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump has stated: "Caitlyn Jenner can use any restroom in Trump Tower she wants" -- a response to the controversy regarding the transgender bill in North Carolina that had media outlets running headlines for days on end about bigotry and prejudice in the state's laws) (Zaru).

Goldin's photography and her picture of Misty and Jimmy in particular set a tone in the American consciousness that challenged the American public to confront the issue off gender identity and question whether or not it would welcome or reject the gender identity issues brought up by the transgender community. The drag queens in Goldin's picture may not have cared whether the public accepted them or not, and their "sleazy" clothing, gaudy make-up, gold bras, white fish-net tops, and exposed bra straps coupled with the complete lack of interest in their faces (a discernible hint of scorn is even detected in their eyes) indicates that the issue of gender identity for them was not really a public one at all -- but rather a personal, private matter -- one that the public would sooner or later have to accept.

And essentially the public has accepted it -- to a degree. The North Carolina issue over whether transgender individuals have a right to use the public restroom of the gender with which they identity has revealed that tension and division still remain regarding this issue and that gender identity is still linked to gender politics and to politics as a whole, with is merely a representation of societal thinking and desires. How transgender individuals identify themselves remains controversial, therefore, even as celebrity transgender persons like the Wachowskis or Caitlyn Jenner grow in their status and in their ability to navigate mainstream culture. As Judith Butler notes, the life of the transgender individual is not an easy one and sometimes it takes years for such individuals to come to terms with themselves: "Drag has its own melancholia," Butler has remarked -- and it is an assessment that Jenner would certainly agree with, as he himself struggled to embrace his transgender identity, even after he began transgender hormone therapy (Butler 32; Robinson).

Thus, for transgender persons like Jenner, gender identity is both a response to social constructivism and biological necessity. Jenner's own journey or transition from being a man to being a woman began in the 1980s when he first started thinking about starting hormone therapy (Robinson). He was already cross-dressing in hotel rooms and identifying as a woman in terms of clothing that he would wear in private. "I felt like a liar," he would later confess, regarding how he felt about not being "true" to his neurobiological gender identity -- even if his biological sex identity showed that his gender was male (Robinson). Jenner's need to understand himself as a "her" is what began the escalation of the process, and his identity changed physically to match more accurately the identity he felt in his brain. Jenner's acceptance by the mainstream media in recent years has had an impact on the way that the American public views gender identity. The animated TV show South Park satirized Social Justice Warriors for…