Gender Identity

I would like to bring up a very interesting story that some people have shared with me which is very relevant to our gender studies class. We have been discussing in our sections about how certain races are supposedly better at certain things that are attributed to their biological and genetic differences, and I feel that the role gender plays in determining our personality and sexual orientation should be explored further.  Bobby Montoya  is a young boy who has been attracted to wearing dresses, playing with Barbie dolls and doing up his hair ever since a young age. His parents believed that he was just going through a phase of adolescence. However, Bobby's interest in supposedly "feminine" stuff has continued and he is straightforward about his gender identity. It came to the point where eve his parents have tried signing him up for the Girl Scouts. 

Bobby was however rejected from joining the Girl Scouts with the organization with the reasons being that he had "boy parts". Bobby was obviously left feeling dejected and does not understand the reasoning behind it.  Bobby's parents have also revealed that he has been constantly bullied and teased in school just because of the way he dresses. This brings up the very important question of how our society has been dealing with gender non conforming children and labeling them as "queer" or "weird". The definitions of sex and gender cannot be interchangeably used. We have to understand and accept the fact that there are people in this world who are born into a certain sex and have since moved on into the opposite gender. Sex is the biological and physiological difference while gender is nothing more than a socially constructed role that society deem is appropriate. The main problem of our society is not the people who act different, but the culture of not accepting people who do not fit into society's ridiculous conforming beliefs.