I Know my Gender How about "U"?

Crawford defines sex “as biological differences in genetic composition and reproductive anatomy and functions.” Crawford then defines gender as “those characteristics and traits socioculturally considered appropriate to males and females, or the traits that make up masculinity and femininity” (Crawford, 2011, p.25 ). In an Article recently published by “The Guardian” they spoke about a child who was born in Canada with a sex marked “U” on the child’s health card. The title immediately caught my attention, as recently one of my good friend's siblings has been wrestling with their own gender identity. The beginning of the title is “ A child without a gender..” and I knew this was something I needed to read. The overall topic of the article is gender identity and the evolution of this term or idea in the recent years. Knowing now what sex really means and its difference from gender I was intrigued to learn about putting “u” on a birth certification as the sex.
(For the whole story click here.)

Now that we know that “Gender Identity is how you make sense of yourself in your head” (Killerman, 2013). It's a lot easier to understand the article. I was first confused as to why the sex of the child was u, and not the gender. Did this mean that the child genitalia was a mystery? I had many questions about the whole idea. The difference between sex, gender, and gender identity is more important than I initially realized. The article made a statement that “there is a need to be thoughtful about the language we use, and to differentiate between gender, biological sex, and sexuality” (Carmichael, 2017). It’s going to be hard as a society to transition into being thoughtful about our language when it comes to sex and gender. I’ve realized that right now in the present day there isn’t any education available for people, say, my parent’s age, who wouldn’t know this if it weren’t for me taking this class. There needs to be some light brought to situations like the child in Canada. That’s a great example and conversation starter for those who cannot even being to fathom these ideas of sex, gender, and gender identity.

For me the most important thing for me to take away from this personal story, was the fact the pronouns are very important in society today. Someone with little knowledge about sex and gender would not mean to insult someone by saying what they thought their pronoun might be. This event taught me that I need to be very smart with what I say and any time I am unsure of what to say, I will know to say no pronoun at all.

To enjoy the TedTalk on understanding the complexities of gender please click here Killermann Ted Talk. 

References

Carmichael, P. (2017, July 6). A child without a gender challenges our preconceptions about sex. 
     Retrieved July 16, 2017, from https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jul/06/child- 
     without-gender-sex- canadian-health-card-u

Crawford, M. (2011). Transformations: Women, Gender and Psychology:2nd Revised: edition. 
     London: McGraw Hill Higher Education.

Educational, D. (1970, January 01). Practicing Pronouns with Roy Orbison. Retrieved July 16, 2017, 
     from http://deceptivelyeducational.blogspot.com/2012/04/practicing-pronouns-with-roy-
     orbison.html

Killermann, S. (Writer). (2013). Understanding the Complexities of Gender[Motion picture]. USA: 
     TEDx.

Service Manual. (2016, December 7). Retrieved August 16, 2017, from https://www.gov.uk/service-manual/design/gender-or-sex

T., D., H., & S. (2017, July 07). Gender = A person's sex, yay or nay. Retrieved July 16, 2017, from 
     https://steemit.com/news/@thegoldencookie/gender-a-person-s-sex-yay-or-nay