Gender Wiki
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Terminology note: This page may use terms such as "theory" as meaning the same as "hypothesis", which are not how these terms are used in the scientific community, so in this context, "theories" is actually interchangable with "explanation"

This page is the hub of the theory of gender identity; how a person acquires a gender identity, what is a gender identity, etc. Unlike gender roles, gender stereotypes, and gender expression (which are explained nicely by current social learning theories), gender identity is a different beast altogether, hence this page.

Theories/models of the origin of gender identity[]

Scientific research[]

Science can easily explain why trans people don't identify with their own bodies, it was found that the brain of trans woman is more like the brain of cis woman than cis man, which proves that gender identity in the mind can, rarely, but still not align with biological sex, proving that some brains can be more or less masculine/feminine than others even if that does not exacly align with sex[1], we could say gender is a complicated topic, seeing how it's difficult to apply it to non-human creatures[2]

  • Gender: the behavioural, cultural, or psychological traits typically associated with one sex (Merriam-Webster Medical dictionary)
  • Gender: is a constitutive element of social relationships based upon perceived differences between the sexes and gender is a primary way of signifying relationships of power (historian Joan Wallach Scott [2]).
  • Gender: is the range of characteristics pertaining to, and differentiating between masculinity and femininity. Depending on the context, these characteristics may include biological sex (i.e. the state of being male, female or an intersex variation which may complicate sex assignment), sex-based social structures (including gender roles and other social roles), or gender identity [2]).
  • Since 2011, the FDA[2] started using sex as the biological classification and gender as a person's self-presentation as male or female, or how a person is responded to by social institutions based on the individual's gender presentation.

Some may draw a divide between gender expression and gender identity, the first definition may be pretty familiar, sex and gender are indeed different but very related in a social context[1]

List of theories[]

  • Blank-Slate - One of the earliest theories was that a child is a blank slate and a child could be raised as either gender. This theory was put to the test in the case of David Reimer. In short, David Reimer (whos assigned sex was male) and was raised as female. He was never happy as a girl and transitioned back to being a man later in life.
  • Inborn - Gender identity is either set at birth or learned in early childhood and resists change afterward.
  • Unconscious Control Only - This theory posits that gender identity is under the control of the unconscious mind, with a minimum (if any) control from the conscious mind. The advantage of this theory is that it gracefully handles genderfluid identities. It asserts that genderfluid individuals unconsciously change their mind about which gender they are.
  • identity evolution theory - Identity evolution theory posits that a cycle occurs wherein an individual identifies with a label, then molds the self to the label, which leads to increased identification with the label. An example of this cycle would be a child identifying as a boy and hence rejecting anything non-masculine. Afterward, he would identify more strongly as a boy. This cycle is self-reinforcing, Under this theory, the reason we don't become stereotypical boys or girls is because there are also other social and behavioral forces affecting the formation of identity.

See also:[]

Theories/models of gender/gender identity[]

  • The Transphobic Binary System (Proven to be wrong by science, see the start of this page to learn more) Genitals always suit the femininity vs masculinity of your brain
  • The Trans Binary System - Sees a divide between gender and sex but still does not include non-binary people
  • classic feminist gender theory- This theory asserts that there is no such thing as gender identity. It also asserts that gender roles, stereotypes, and hierarchies exist, all of which should be deconstructed and erased.
  • A Single Continuum- This theory asserts that gender is a continuum of entirely male to entirely female, and that an individual person can exist anywhere on the continuum.
  • 2D Graph Theory-This theory puts male and female on different axes of a graph, with agender at the origin and bigender at maximum X and Y position.
  • the N-dimensional gender space-This theory extends the previous graph theory with the idea that there are other genders not related to male or female (sometimes called Aporagenders).
  • gender graph theory-Gender can be connected to each other but don't nicely form a space
  • gender set theory-Gender set theory asserts that each so-called "gender" is actually a set of related genders and hence they are all umbrella terms. Therefore, "man", "male", etc. are not a gender, but rather they are set of all male genders and when we talk about "man", "male", etc., we are actually talking about what those genders share in common.
  • gender field theory-This theory is a combination of the dimensional models (A Single Continuum, 2D Graph Theory, and The N-dimensional Gender Space) with Gender Set Theory and scalar fields defined in mathematics. Under this theory, your gender is a field that either collapses when observed like in Quantum field theory or doesn't.

See Also[]

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