Gender Identity

Gender Identity

Gender relates to the cultural meanings assigned to female and male social categories in society; psychologists have, therefore, focused on whether individuals define themselves under these cultural meanings. Gender identity is used to elaborate on the feminine and masculine self-definition of gender. Behavior relates to the individual external reaction to the environment. Behaviors are a construct of social norms that punish or reward behavior. This paper examines the relationship between gender identity and behavior. It examines how people identify themselves individually and within-group setups in terms of gender. Moreover, it identifies the emerging issues relating to gender as more studies are conducted within the subject.

Psychologists realize the importance of gender identity in psychology, which led to the rise of several constructs reflecting self-definition femininity and masculinity to a particular culture. Gender constructs have been organized within three angles; the first angle is the possession of gender types interests and personality traits. The second angle is having a female-typical and male-typical relationship with other people, and thirdly, subscribing to men or women membership as defined within a particular society. An angular analysis can examine gender constructs within the community as it relates to the individual.

In regards to social roles, gender identity represents the various role placements to women and men in society (Diekman & Eagly, 2008). These usual occupancies of gender roles are identified as socially acceptable expectations for both men and women’s behavior. When individuals continue to accept their gender roles, they are internalized into self-concepts. However, normative gender expectations do not apply equally among men and women; this is because it is personally self-defining and will differ in the level of gender incorporation within their identities. Transgender has been used since the 1990s to describe the individuals who defy societal assumptions and expectations in gender

Gender role content reflects attributes that facilitate sex-typical responsibilities in a particular society where more women are engaging in activities that involve domestic work and collective behavior, such as the provision of services to others and children nurturing. Psychological characteristics facilitate the behavioral gender roles under shared gender role expectations for the female gender, yet the roles of gender are founded on several cultural and biological factors (Wood & Eagly, 2002)

More research should be focused on a weak association between the constructs of gender. This will result in conceptual and empirical benefits to defining femininity and masculinity in terms of multifactorial constructs such as social roles, sexuality, personal appearance, occupations, personality and interest (Myers &nda, 1982)

Literature Review

Relating Gender Identity to Behavior

Diekman and Eagly (2008) contended that the principle of compatibility guides the choice of measures of gender identity. They further proposed that identity measures could predict responses if they are found within a similar domain as the measures. This principle was first developed to predict behavior from individual attitudes and is also essential in predicting behaviors from traits of personalities (Diekman & Eagly, 2008). As such, it can be comprehended that the best way to successfully predict behavior is through matching behavioral content measure to dispositional measures. Thus, disposition measure behavior would successfully predict through gender identities. According to compatibility principle, gender identity measures that analyze self-defined feminine or masculine personality traits would best predict related behaviors such as communal behaviors of women of nurturing children or agentic behaviors of assertiveness (Diekman & Eagly, 2008). However, most gender identity is composed of direct self-rating on relevant scales of response; identity can be acquired through the more indirect measure.

Through the aid of dual dual-process theories, it is possible to understand the difference in measurement approaches of gender identity. For instance, a statement such as “I identify with women” or “I am warm” requires that people have a conscious awareness of their gender identity, and in this is a willing verbal judgment of oneself, a direct measure is identified. The indirect measure mostly assesses the reaction of the respondent when making judgments related to gender identity. Faster response signifies a stronger identity of oneself and a particular gender identity.

Gender-Group Identification and Individual Differences   

Regarding group-gender identification and individual differences, Wood and Eagly, (2002), discussed that gender is also a representation of a collective identity that people adopt as they define themselves as belonging to a particular sex group as opposed to others. Group identity may also refer to the characteristics of group members, the emotional importance of group members, and the common fate of people belonging to the same group (Wood & Eagly, 2002). Such attributes are a consequence of self-identification; therefore, gender-group identification will be taken as the categorization of an individual as either male or female and the significance of this categorization to self-definition. Therefore, it is important to understand the points at which people invoke one identity, such as gender over others, such as musical taste or ethnic group.

“Self-categorization is flexible, and people have a repertoire of social category memberships that vary in relative importance to the self-concept” (Wood & Eagly, 2002). Some people are highly likely to identify with their gender groups compared to others in terms of collective gender identity. Moreover, the inclination of self-definition as either female or varies with gender salience in specific social contexts.

Collective measures of gender identity can refer to usual men and women, thereby analyze the definition of descriptive attributes to gender categories. Moreover, such categorizations may refer to ideal women or men, thus represent injunctive categories (individual’s beliefs of what is essential for their sexes) with identification, when it comes to direct measurement of collective gender identity, the importance of identity subscale of collective self-esteem of Luhtanen and Crocker’s (1992). When employed to gender groups, this method involves four elements that analyze the importance of being either a woman or a man according to their self-image. Indirect measures of collective gender identity utilize reaction time measures. And assess joint gender identify by measuring the speed at which individuals associate themselves versus others according to categories of gender. This system differentiates non –self words (others) from self-words (me) when each word is joined with words indicative of gender groups (female, he).

Analysis and Application

There have been several debates and controversies regarding gender identity and sexual orientation throughout the history of psychopathology. For many years the term “transsexual” was limited to persons who had gone through a medical procedure including surgeries of genital reassignments (Alderson, 2004). Lately, “transsexual” refers to all those individuals who have a gender identity different from the one assigned at birth, regardless of any medical procedure they may or may not have undergone, or they are working towards living as the member of the other sex different from one assigned at birth.

Discrimination and Mental Health Impacts

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transsexual (LGBT) people are victims of several forms of discrimination, social exclusion, and stigma – including persecution, bullying, economic alienation, psychological and physical abuse (APA, 2009). Many kinds of research indicate that discrimination experiences place members of LGBT at higher risk of mental distress. For instance, members of LGB are highly likely to commit suicide and are higher risks of major depression disorder, traumatic stress reactions, general anxiety disorders, and substance abuse. Thus, the research identifies the role of discrimination and stigma as an essential intervening variable in psychopathology among populations of LGBT (APA, 2009). However, the same study indicates that it is possible to mediate the relationship between stress and gender identity and sexual orientation through action factors such as low internalized homophobia, contact with other members of LGBT, or expectations of acceptance or rejections.

Controversies on Trans (Gender Diagnosis) and Gender Dysphoria

Mental health diagnoses specific to transgender people have been criticized because they enhance stigma on a population that is already experiencing stigma. Most certainly, the ascription of the term “mental disorder” to transsexual people has been the main cause of concern underlying prejudice. The revision of the “gender identity disorder” to “gender dysphoria” further escalated the discussion about gender. This new nomenclature was less discriminative as it stopped identifying a person’s gender as a disorder. Gender dysphoria is not another term for transsexuality; however, it is a clinical term describing symptoms of restlessness, malaise, and agitation that gender different people often express when seeking treatment (APA, 2009). The health profession community, transgender people, and human rights groups have proposed reform on diagnosis change into a separate approach from behavioral and mental disorders and the diagnosis of transsexualism into “gender incongruence.”

Mental Health Care

Evidence suggests that more LGBT individuals are seeking therapy compared to non-LGBT individuals. This means that they are vulnerable to exposures to ineffective or harmful therapy procedures, being that they are frequent users. Moreover, major accrediting international bodies in psychotherapy and counseling have identified the need for clinicians to be able to work effectively with clients from minority groups such as the LGBT. This requires that clinicians should familiarize themselves with the literature on mental healthcare and receive proper training and supervision.

Empirical research suggests that there still exist inappropriate clinical practices with clients from LGBT. “Conversion therapy” is one among mental health procedures used by some practitioners where they try to assist lesbian, gay, bisexual people into becoming heterosexual. Evidence suggests that such systems have low chances of success and may risk harming clients. Heterosexual bias in the therapeutic process and counseling may be presented under “sexual orientation blindness’, this is where the individual struggle to identify alleged neutrality and do away with specific related to non-heterosexual clients and minorities.

Recommendation

Gender identity is one of the most important social identities and therefore requires continued attention from psychologists. Moreover, when it comes to research, the disappointment in results obtained should not be blamed on the scales used but on the researcher and how they apply the specific research scaling method. A measure of gender identity in terms of agentic and communal personality has a satisfactory prediction. However, researchers should think about gender identity beyond individual behaviors. Thus, a wide variety of measures for treatment will be available.

I back recommendations that advise researchers to assess perceived victimization reasons or whether individuals believe that they are being discriminated against or victimized due to their gender identity or sexual orientation. Qualitative research is well suited to address questions about how individuals are discriminated against and the motivations of the people who stigmatize or victimize them. For instance, people of color who are members of LGBT interpret discrimination not only as homophobic but also as “efforts that punish them for not appropriately representing their racial communities.”

To be able to understand the impact of discrimination, it is essential to, first of all, identify how the LGBT interprets such discrimination.  For instance, gender minority individuals who believe they are discriminated against because of their sexual orientation may start experiencing internal homophobia; this may not be the case as they may be targeted for other reasons such as appearance or race or non-specified reasons.

Transgender psychologists have particular needs that may be relevant to the needs of their clients. Despite the little influence that APA has on certain filed such as in academia, it can enforce significant indirect influence through several ways such as promoting ethical standards, emphasizing non-discrimination and acceptance, providing training and educational resources to internship and doctoral training programs to the Commission on Accreditation, provision of a model for an institutional character that accommodates, values and welcomes transgender people and gender-variant people.

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