Reyes | Alexis Reyes Professor Corti Ditch English 113A 30 September 2015 From a Different Perspective From the beginning I was so sure that gender and sex were the same thing, but I've come to learn and realize that they are two completely different things. Not knowing the difference and then learning the difference has really opened my eyes and has made me see through a completely different perspective. Now that I understand the differences between sex and gender | question if gender even exists or if it’s just something that was made up since taken the fact that \ /) Weare able to construct and reconstruct it. Ax Sex and gender are two completely different elements. “Gender is so much of the routine \ f \y ground of everyday activities that questioning is taken for granted assumptions and presuppositions is like wondering about whether the sun will come up” (Lorber 19). Gender is \ | nothing more than an everyday routine, we do gender by participating in dressing in a feminine Jor masculine way. “Gender is so pervasive that in our society we assume it is bread into our (genes (Lorber 19). Many people think that they understand what gender means but in reality they‘have no ails ‘They think that if you're female then your gender is female and the same more males, Gender isn't built into our genes, gender is really what we make of it. “Sex Bockting says, is assigned at birth based on the appearance of external genetalia” (Kantrowitz and Wingert 70). Sex is the biology, your physical features. The outer genitalia that separates you from female and male.) ae Leh ‘ xe gy TZ po A fit X6 Awe 5 Kal ? LOW ITO»Reyes 2 Asa young girl I was brought up to be feminine as many of the other girls that I grew up with, There was just one girl that was always in an odd place with what she wanted to be perceived as. My best friend Avery Wallace was born a girl but she never dressed like one. Well \ from what I knew at the time she didn’t dress like a normal girl, Avery from the very beginning dressed like a little boy, she had cut her hair short and she would dress as if she was a boy. As little kids we really had no idea that we were doing gender by saying she was wearing boy clothes and that she was a boy. Not many of the kids growing up knew she was a girl until she walked into a girl's bathroom, She even stopped playing baseball and started playing softball. \ With playing a sport with all girls she thought it would have made her fel like that’s were she \\ belonged, and in a sense she did belong but not because we were all girls but because we were able to make her feel comfortable with the way she was. ‘Ata young age I was never one to judge someone if they seemed different, I was young and didn’t know much about anything. Growing up wth Avery wearing clothes ofthe opposite i” sex didn’t really bother me at all. It all seemed nothing but normal to me, but to other children it | /) - ‘was abnormal. Witnessing Avery grow up has really hit me hard with people having gender identity issues. I know that by certain age you should already be identifying yourself into one or the other but some people still have difficulty doing so. As we grew older and matured witnessed Avery’s struggle in finding herself and being accepting to who she was. She always talked to me about her not feeling herself meaning that she felt she was a boy trapped ina girls \ body. With society being so judge mental she had a hard time being herself. So for a very long time she would dress like a girly girl just to fit in. She ended up growing her hair long, always 5 ‘wanting to wear dresses, and wearing pink all the time, vReyes 3 With all this going on it put an extreme amount of pressure on her and she began to have suicidal thoughts. She was so unhappy with herself that she thought it was best for her to just escape from it all. Being there for Avery and talking her through how it’s okay to be who you feel you should be, that it’s okay to no be ashamed of how you feel. It really made her realizes \ hy W What makes her happy and what she relly wants to do. She then decided that she wanted to further the way she felt into actually going through the process of her sex change, Through this process she had to go through a massive load of paperwork with her parents and had to register i A herself as a gender neutral. This meant that she wasn’t able to participate in any school activities or even go so a public or private school due to the transition. She then stopped playing the sport <\ she loved with the people she loved because “boys” don’t play softball with girls. This is another ‘gender norm that has been established in our society. On how only boys can play baseball and girls play softball \ Ithas been almost two years since hs transition and he said that he couldn't be anymore / happier with his decision and I've supported him the whole way through. Athough it was a long and hard process that is still ongoing she finally found herself and is very complacent at this Point in his life, “7o determine mine a person's gender identity, you have to wait unil they grow up and describe how they idenify their gender” (Kantrowitz and Wingret 70). This explains how in a matter of time they will then fully be able to idemtfy their gender but does anything have a gender? I think it doesn’t for many reasons. Why is that girls can only wear certain clothes and boys can only wear certain clothes? Why is I different if I wear a tux ora dress? In my opinion teri Ayu Y gfdt® _- “Most people find it hard to believe that gender is created and recreated out of human interaction, out of social life, and is the texture and order of social life” (Lorber 19). With allReyes 4 this experience with Avery I have been able to understand the way society has built these gender norms and how they are created and recreated everyday, As society grows we except things more. For example now that more and more people are more self confident in the person they are they come out with how they feel, Just like my best friend Avery. It may have taken him a while to finally figure himself out and be comfortable with who he is and who he’s become. Media has helped both in a negative and positive way. With more people being proud of their transition and being more opened about it has helped many people. With more people talking about it and showing ther feelings towards these subjects it has made more and more people aware of how || these peoples lives are and how tough of a road itis to take. This has made it a little easier on people because it helps them realize that they aren’t alone and that there are people out there just like them . With that being said we are recreating and creating what the norm is. If we are able to create gender norms and recreate gender norms so frequently, we should be able to stop it all together. I believe that gender doesn’t exist and that our society is moving ‘ towards a genderless future because of the differences people are making in better understanding other situation like Avery's. We were able to create the colors boys and girls should wear, and how they should dress, and how they should talk and walk. I feel that we will eventually create everything to be the same, and gender not even being a factor anymore because everything will \ end up being normal. Everything will be considered the same even though they might be different in certain aspeets. I definitely see this all coming together, it may not be soon and it may take a while but it may also come sooner than you expect it. The only things that will be Y separated into different groups will be sex, females and males. Genderless future maybe coming faster than you know it. Just sit back and wait and see. “There is no way that six billion people| Reyes 5 | ‘can be categorized into two groups"(Kantrowitz and Wingert 71). There isn’t a way to separate | | them into two groups. Why even have groups at all? Lets just get rid of gender once and for all. Abn, | pnd ben ily Phu awa 04 bUYGLL fo regan ne fhA hne]. Be rN OE | if Fl WLS bhReyes 6 Works Cited Groner Rachael and O’Hara John F. Composing Gender. Boston, Massachusetts. Leasa Burton, 2014. Print, Judith Lorber. “Night to His Day:The Social Consruction of Gender” Composing Gender. 2014. Print. Barbara Kantrowitz and Pat Wingert. “Are We Facing a Genderless Future”. 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