Gender Identity: Biology vs. Social Construction Explained

Introduction: Defining Gender Identity

What is gender? Is it a biological condition or a social construction? In today's modern world, it appears that it can be one or the other, or even a mixture of both. Transgender people like Caitlyn Jenner (formerly Bruce Jenner, an Olympian) have raised awareness about the issue of gender, and so have others, like the Wachowski siblings — famous Hollywood directors — who have brought attention to the issue through their exploration of sexual and gender identity. Researchers have also contributed to the debate by conducting both qualitative and quantitative studies, ranging from discussions of the difference between sex and gender to neurobiological brain scans examining wave patterns in men, women, and transgender individuals. Results and findings remain contested and controversial, suggesting that even today little is known about why gender identity is an issue for some and not for others — whether it is handed down through the ages as a result of patriarchal social conventions, or whether it is a function of biological patterns in the body manifested in psychological and behavioral expressions. This paper will attempt to answer the question of what gender identity is, from the standpoint of biology versus social construction, with a focus on the modern history of gender, including the issue of transgender identity.

Feminist Theory and the Social Construction of Gender

If, as Virginia Woolf wrote, "even in the nineteenth century a woman was not encouraged to be an artist" (Woolf), by the 20th century the role of women was set to change. Women's suffrage was won, and the Feminist Movement re-conceptualized the way in which the gender of women was construed. While television icons like Mary Tyler Moore displayed an image of womanhood as smart, house-tied, always looking one's best (in heels), and nurturing, women like Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem began to challenge this identity. Friedan wrote The Feminine Mystique and is said to have "come to political consciousness out of a disillusionment with her life as a suburban housewife" (Horowitz 2). She took the identity of woman, in other words, and coupled it with a political ideology — the concepts of women's rights, equality, and women in the workforce, meaning women having a role outside the home.

To a large degree, Friedan built upon and expanded the proto-feminist doctrine of Simone de Beauvoir, who believed that "woman" is not what one is born but rather what one "becomes" (Beauvoir 51). In short, the feminists held that female gender identity was not based on biology but rather on action, on thought, and on the manifestation of the will. Gender identity was thus related to gender politics, and suddenly in the 20th century the entire paradigm of social order and patriarchy was being questioned as a result of a re-examination of the nature of gender.

The argument was that if gender was not linked to one's biology, then perhaps it was entirely a social construct. Then again, as researchers would later show, there is a clearly distinct pattern in the brains of transgender individuals that is biologically similar to the patterns found in the genders with which they identify, suggesting that biology does play a part in how one identifies one's gender (Rametti et al. 199). Thus, on the one hand, the 20th century produced the concept that gender identity was a social construct — an idea used to reinforce the argument that women could perform just as well as men in any domain. On the other hand, it also challenged this narrative by asserting that gender identity was rooted in biology — an idea used to reinforce the argument that transgender people were naturally and biologically oriented toward the gender of their identification.

Neurobiology and Transgender Identity

Research into the brain patterns of transgender individuals is recent enough that it requires further testing before conclusive findings can be drawn. So far, however, the research indicates that there are "a priori differences between men and transsexual patients" and that the main cause of these differences lies in "neurobiological processes or task-solving strategies" within the brain (Schoning, Engelien, Bauer et al. 1858). In other words, the way the mind of a transgender individual operates differs from the way the mind of that individual's same-biology gender counterpart operates. The biology of the sex organs may be the same, but the biology of the mind is distinct. In short, there is a neurobiology that informs transgender individuals of their identity. For these individuals, therefore, gender identity is more about "discovering" one's true gender rather than "becoming" or "proving" oneself by expanding or pushing the boundaries of socially prescribed gender roles.

For transgender persons like Jenner, gender identity is thus both a response to social constructivism and a biological necessity. Jenner's transition from identifying as a man to identifying as a woman began in the 1980s, when she first considered hormone therapy (Robinson). She was already cross-dressing in hotel rooms and privately identifying as a woman in terms of clothing. "I felt like a liar," Jenner would later confess, describing how it felt not to be "true" to her neurobiological gender identity — even as her biological sex identity indicated she was male (Robinson). Jenner's need to understand herself as a woman initiated the escalation of the transition process, and her physical identity changed to more accurately match the identity she experienced internally. Jenner's acceptance by the mainstream media in recent years has had a notable impact on the way the American public views transgender identity more broadly.

Conclusion

In conclusion, gender identity is a complex issue that individuals resolve in their own manner — by identifying as transgender, feminist, traditional, or otherwise — and while one's preference may not be accepted or even understood by other members of society, there is a tendency in the modern era to be more inclusive of all genders, regardless of how they are expressed. At the same time, there is pushback from segments of society that resist this inclusivity and that prefer the issue of transgender identity to remain outside the mainstream, as it was before artists like Nan Goldin brought it into public view through her photographic work.

The reason Goldin herself was able to do this, however, is that she had been part of an evolutionary process in the 20th century that saw female artists emerge from the constraints that Virginia Woolf had identified in the 19th century. In other words, the history of gender identity in the modern era is one of ongoing evolution — a continual transformation of the ways in which men, women, and transgender persons interact with society and with each other. The question of what gender identity is remains open, alive, and, for many, deeply personal.

Works Cited

Beauvoir, Simone de. The Second Sex. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004. Print.

Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. NY: Routledge, 1990. Print.

Butler, Judith. "Gender as Performance: An Interview with Judith Butler." Radical Philosophy, vol. 67 (1994): 32.

Hamid, Mohsin. The Reluctant Fundamentalist. NY: Harcourt, 2007. Print.

Horowitz, D. Betty Friedan and the Making of The Feminine Mystique. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1998. Print.

Jones, E. Michael. Libido Dominandi: Sexual Liberation and Political Control. IN: St. Augustine's Press, 2000. Print.

Mulvey, L. "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema." Screen, vol. 16, no. 3 (1975): 6–18.

Rametti, G., Carrillo, B., Gomez-Gil, E., Junque, C., Segovia, S., Gomez, A., Guillamon, A. "White matter microstructure in female to male transsexuals before cross-sex hormonal treatment: A diffusion tensor imaging study." Journal of Psychiatric Research, vol. 45, no. 2 (2011): 199–204.

Robinson, Willis. "From growing breasts, surgery in Denmark and cross dressing in public to marrying Kris and building a reality empire as a man: How Bruce backed out of 1980s sex change plan to transform himself into 'Heather'." Daily Mail, 2016. Web. 6 May 2016.

Schoning, S., Engelien, A., Bauer, C. et al. "Neuroimaging differences in spatial cognition between men and male-to-female transsexuals before and during hormone therapy." Journal of Sexual Medicine, vol. 7, no. 5 (2010): 1858–1867.

Woolf, Virginia. "If Shakespeare Had a Sister." A Room of One's Own (1929). Web. 6 May 2016.

Zaru, D. "Caitlyn Jenner takes Trump up on bathroom offer." CNN Politics, 2016. Web. 6 May 2016.