The Consequences Of Gender: Gender And Gender Roles

Gender is a complex spectrum of identity that is much greater than the binary of man or woman. It is the performance of cultural, social, and psychological traits in which people express themselves. These characteristics are gender cues that have been culturally agreed upon to identify the gender or sex of another person. This expression of traits manifests through appearance and behavior and includes hairstyle, clothing, gait, vocal inflection, body shape, and facial hair. Socially, it is expected for these characteristics to align themselves to either a man or woman. The binary is determined at birth according to biological sex, but it is also common belief that it is necessary for people to exist at all. However, people have historically identified with different genders regardless of biological sex; such as transgender, genderqueer, and nonbinary. In spite of not identifying with the binary there is …show more content…
When a person whose gender identity and performance coincides with the traits that were assigned according to their biological sex, they are cisgender. Linda Lindsey explains in Gender Roles: A Sociological Perspective,“Transgender is an umbrella term describing people who do not conform to culturally defined traditional gender roles associated with their biological sex” (36). It is also a term most commonly used for people who either identify as a woman but was born in a masculine body, or a man who was born in a feminine one. In addition to these more basic form of gender expression, the following is a list provided by Trans and Queer Terms of multiple gender identities.
An agender or non-gender person does not identify with any gender; they do not perform gender.
A person who identifies as bigender has the tendency to move between masculine and feminine gender-typed behavior depending on context; two separate genders in one