What Are The Main Influences Of Our Gender Identity?

How Has Gender Identity Naturally Altered Over Time? 

6 to 8 min read

Views on Gender and Sex... 

In the eighties, some psychologists described men as experiencing 'autogynephilia' if they were sexually aroused at the idea of being a woman. If sexual cross-gender fantasy can entice male to female transition it may reveal one psycho-sexual example for what we call gender identity. This theory differs to what the World Health Organisation advise (WHO), along with people like Judith Butler, who insist gender is a social construct based on shared beliefs. For me, such ideas are poppycock, given for starters, how beliefs can be altered! Human biology causes gender. I might be wrong, blinded by my own biases, so let's explore... 

How is Gender Constructed? 

We are unique sheep, and truthfully, I think men transition for various reasons. Masculine and feminine traits arise like bio-determinants. Therein exists part of a dichotomy; a bottom-up emergence of gender, rooted in biology, versus the top-down imposition of gender which is developed by ideology. From a spiritual perspective, if you have the soul of a female, but you exist inside the body of a male, does your inner ghost or essence have a vagina and breasts? If not, how do you recognise your soul is female? 

Innate beliefs and urges to be the opposite sex can be deep-seated impulses that drive our behavior. Yet, there is always more to the story! Consider, for instance, this 2020 study identifying significant links between neurodevelopmental conditions like autism and gender diversity. Society is an expression of our collective biology, it operates way above the underpinnings of our molecular bedrock. 

The Game of Branding Ourselves

Centuries of scientific and medical data collected and analysed has established norms: the majority of us identify as binary gender because that is the default socialised state of affairs. However, we could imagine a contrarian society challenging our conception of gender like we see forming today. Gender identity classifications impact on how humanity might express itself, while also confusing gender pay gap, statistics for example. Be that as it is, a redefined concept of something is not the thing in itself; gender might be a top down regulation one day, but in reality it has always been a bottom up expression of humanity and tensions seem to exist somewhere in between. 

Being Particular... 

Clothing primarily served as a necessity to cover and warm a person. Eventually, it become a legal requirement to cover nakedness. Attire was designed to fit male and female shapes before any gender definition was considered. Of course, over time, with trends in fashion and style coming and going, male and female clothing did propogate attraction, attributing gendered qualities from our sex and shape. 

Do We Become What We Say We Are? 

When our words that describe the way we feel get logged as symptoms by doctors, it helps to form new medical diagnoses over time. After Gender Identity Disorder was introduced, it was changed to Gender Dysphoria to remove the connotations of mental illness which did not fit the desired outcome. Why psychiatry failed to re-name Personality Disorder is mind boggling. Nothing could be more invalidating to a person than that label, don't you reckon? 

Pushing For Illogical Change... 

An Italian university lecturer I know was reprimanded for using the word 'mother' instead of ' birthing person' when teaching her students. Gender-based political correctness is autocratic and often unwelcome. English, her second language, did not include pronouns like: ze/hir/hirs and xe/xem/xyr—which are non-medical, non-traditional and un-academic. 

In the future, we will see growing complaints of new gender based problems in our health statistics. New and exciting identities will be constructed in LGBTQ+ circles and promoted across social media—this could become mainstream.