Gender is a very strange topic in today's society. Many people don't know what to do with people who are transvestites or transsexuals and they often times hate them because they are different. People always think that there can only be two types of gender: masculine and feminine. People also feel that these genders most always correspond to a person's sex. So if the person is a male, then most people wouldn't accept that person into society if they acted feminine.

"For human beings there is no essential femaleness and maleness, femininity or masculinity, womanhood, or manhood, but once gender is ascribed, the social order constructs and holds individuals to strongly gendered norms and expectations. Individuals may vary on many of the components of gender any may shift genders temporarily or permanently, but they must fit into the limited number of gender statuses their society recognizes." (Lorber, Night To His Day: The Social Construction of Gender, For Individuals, Gender Means Sameness, Page 463)

"...a defining feature of reality construction is to see our world as being the only possible one." (Kessler & McKenna, Gender: An

"Their parents weren't one bit pleased with Peggy's wonderful biology experiments, or with Joe's terrific needlepoint pillows." (Gould, X: A Fabulous Child's Story, Page 455)

"Modern Western societies' transsexuals and transvestites are the nearest equivalent of these crossover genders, but they are not institutionalized as third genders (Bolin 1987)." (Lorber, Night To His Day: The Social Construction of Gender, Page 461)

People always try to guess what gender a person is. If one doesn't know and is unsure of another's gender than they keep on looking at them trying to find clues on about that person's gender. I often times see people, usually children, and I can't decide whether they or male or female, or should I say masculine or feminine.

"Then we are uncomfortable until we have successfully placed the other person in a gender status; otherwise, we feel socially dislocated." (Lorber, Night To His Day: The Social Construction of Gender, Page 460)

"Some societies have three genders-men, women, and berdaches, or hijras, and xaniths. Berdaches, hijras, and xaniths are biological males who behave, dress, work, and are treated in most respects as social women; they are therefore not men, nor are they female women; they are in our language, 'male-women'." (Lorber, Night To His Day: The Social Construction of Gender, Page 461)

Many people don't realize that gender is a socially constructed accomplishment. People make up methods in their heads about ways that people should be and if one doesn't act they way the other person deems that one should, then they do not fit into that person's reality.

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Approximate Word count = 1474
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)