Nonconformity Of Gender Essay

As mothers to-be across Western nations pop balloons, bite into cupcakes, or release confetti cannons, excitement colored with blue or pink fills the air. Although a gender reveal party seems exciting, harmless in nature, many aspects of the blue versus pink, sports versus makeup, guns versus glitter schemes play into stereotypes. What will the parents do when their precious, dainty daughter later decides she wants to play football? How will they react if she comes out to them as transgender? Depicting gender as a strict binary with set characteristics harms the children and adolescents who must grow up within it and alienates those who identify outside of it.

The Gender Binary and Beyond As noted by the World Health Organization (2017), the term gender concerns the “socially constructed characteristics of women and men,” including mannerisms, appearances, and careers. Sex,

As noted by the Brown University Child & Adolescent Behavior Letter (2012), gender nonconformity often goes accompanied with harassment, anxiety, and a slew of other traumatic issues for children and adolescents to. According to Fig. 2 (2018), 41% of transgender people have attempted suicide, and 50% of them have been raped or assaulted by a partner. The psychological issues commonly associated with gender nonconformity, including depression and anxiety, frequently mature with the children, following them into adulthood. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) almost always accompanies such illnesses and the hate crimes brought on in response to them. According to Fig. 2 (2018), transgender people of color are six times more likely to experience violence from police officers than their cisgender, white counterparts. Many of these issues can be sourced from a cultural consensus of rejection, apathy, and disrespect. Something here must