Guest columnist
Recently, the topic of gender identity and diversity has received some negative airtime. There has been some general disagreement in the public due to inaccurate rhetoric about what gender is, how it functions and why it is significant. And many people have not received an adequate gender education to dispute false claims, so these inaccurate claims only grow and mutate.
Something so personal as gender is rightly bound to be political but is then impractical to legislate or regulate. And there lies the issue that many people have with gender diversity — it cannot be regulated. So, gender diversity is often rejected. I urge readers that are still unsure about how they feel about gender identity and diversity, or perhaps want to learn more, to read this piece and do some self-reflection about how they define their own gender.
But what really is gender if it is not sex? Gender is an expression of one’s social, personal and political identity through their relationships with masculinity and femininity. Gender also has been defined by a leading gender theorist, Judith Butler, as a “stylized repetition of acts.” People are defined by patterns in behavior, habits and thoughts. Although personal, gender is strictly regulated by law and through the perpetuation of social norms. Think to yourself for a moment — have you ever noticed how at gender reveal parties, the sex of the baby is often symbolically replaced by a color? That is an accessible example of a gender...
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