Nature Made Him in Psychology,

¶ … Nature Made Him

In psychology, core gender identity is the gender(s) or lack, in which a person is able to self-identify. It is not necessarily based on biology (overt sexual characteristics), or sexual orientation. In fact, researchers have found that gender identity is really a fluid, sliding scale -- it may be male, female, both, or a unique and individual mixture of the two (Vassi). The term "gender identity" became part of the popular lexicon as a medical term used to explain sex reassignment. Numerous disciplines use the term as a more appropriate means of expressing gender (gender studies, feminist studies, sociology, and anthropology). In psychology, the formation of gender identity remains elusive. It may be predominantly genetic (biologic theory) in that there are a number of pre- and post-natal hormones that are unique to the individual's genetic code (Baron-Cohen). It may also be focused on the social and cultural factors received as messages conveyed by family, peers, the mass media, or other cultural institutions (Nature vs. Nurture: How Much Free Will Do We Really Have?). And, in some cases, an individual's gender identity may be inconsistent with their sex characteristics, resulting in individuals dressing or behaving in a way which is perceived as being outside the appropriate gender role, or, when discovered, expressed as gender variant (Blackless).

An interesting example of the way nature and nurture combine to form an individual identity is in the case of a Canadian boy known as Brenda/David. Chronicled in the book As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl, author John Colapinto, and later a documentary and film, tell the story of a Canadian boy born in 1967. Due to a poorly executed circumcusion and under the advice of Johns Hopkins Gender expert John Money, the parents decided to raise the boy as a girl. Brenda grew up depressed, confused, uncomfortable, and generally angry as a girl -- even though all the signals from family were gender focused on the feminine. It was not until the onset of puberty, in Brenda's case at age 14, and a series of life crises that sent her world into chaos, that her parents revealed her true gender. By this time, in the early 1980s, surgical techniques were more advanced, and Brenda became David. David's life calmed down, but there were years of mixed-messages and confusion that plagued him the rest of his life. He eventually married as a male, but later committed suicide.