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The Role Of Gender Non-Conformity In America

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The world of a person who identifies as transgender is complex and challenging. In today’s America, when a person’s gender identity, gender expression or sexual orientation deviates from their biological make-up, they are at risk of rejection or physical harm. Many will struggle with the challenges as a result of a world that medicalizes and stigmatizes gender non-conformity. The transgender population needs more understanding, support and protection as they face the many psychological, social and economic issues during their life time. Our Federal and State governments are reluctant to pass laws that protect the rights of transgender people. Far too often, given this lack of legal protection, society is able to discriminate against …show more content…
Children learn very early in life what it means to be a boy or a girl. The binary gender expectations are reinforced and reconfirmed by family, friends, media, religion and even politics (Dietert & Dentice, 2009). From the beginning, children are taught that boys play rough and girls play nice. They understand there are certain roles and activities that are expected and accepted according to their gender and begin to develop firm views about the gender norms. (Johnson, Sikorski, Savage & Woitaszewski, 2014). Children learn that the gender of an individual is permanent and realize that boys grow up to be fathers and girls grow up to be …show more content…
In the past, society thought that gender identity issues could be resolved with psychotherapy if some confusion existed between a person’s biological sexual make-up and mental sexual inclination. The accepted practice was to sit through therapy until the conflict or issue was resolved in favor of the biological self (Winograd, 2014, p 55). The feelings of confusion with their biological bodies may lead to gender dysphoria. The fear of rejection by family and society is real and many suffer from self-doubt and worry about ‘imposing’ on the lives of others if they transition. Although the psychological issues are internal, they result from the judgment they face from the rest of the world. Therefore, social and psychological concerns are not separate but rather are interrelated (Lenning & Buist, 2013).
Many transgender people have feelings of rejection which in addition to discrimination, could lead to depression, hate crimes and denial of basic civil rights. These issues often cause transgender people to seek help from mental health professionals (Nuttbrock, Hwahng, Bockting, Rosenblum, Mason, Macri, & Becker,

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