Social Problem Research

SOCIAL PROBLEMS AND SOCIAL POLICY 7

Analyzing Social Problems and Social Policy

Tamika La’ Shan Starks

Walden University

Analyzing Social Problems and Social Policy

There are a lot of problems affecting the overall welfare of our society, hence a need to securitize them and come up with viable solutions that will help us not only cope with common issues, but also manage them appropriately (Popple & Leighninger, 2015). Gender identity has become one of the most common problems in society. It highlights how an individual’s own gender affects their personal life experiences by either correlating with the gender assigned at birth or completely going astray from it. The gender helps a person form some kind of social identity while they interact with other members in society. There have been instances where people do not completely identify with either male or female genders which are prescribed based on masculinity and femininity, their gender identity and expression is seen to be transgender or gender queer (Heylens,, Verroken, De Cock, T'Sjoen, & De Cuypere, 2014).

The focus of this essay is to describe gender identity as a social problem and giving reasons to why it has become prevalent in the modern society, find out who is most affected and finally highlight theories that have attempted to offer explanations to this social issue.

Gender Identity

Evidence has indicated that the central part of a person’s gender identity is formed by the age of three. Both the biological and social influences are very important to its formation and any attempts to reassign gender after the age of three may result to a condition known as gender dysphoria. Individuals with this kind of problem usually feel inappropriate and uncomfortable concerning their anatomic sexes. Since the affected parties feel rejected and out of place in society, they may contemplate suicide or even turn to drug abuse to try and deal with the issue. As it becomes more visible and characteristics start to manifest fully in adolescence, it leads to affected individuals trying to pass or live as members of the opposite sex.

The two main causes of this problem are biological and social factors. Biologically, when the genes that are needs in determining a certain gender are insufficient or more that required the problem occurs. This means, the gender of a male child may be affected if the chromosomes responsible for formation of masculinity are overwhelmed by those responsible for formation of female features and behavior. The reverse is true, when a female development is dominated by more masculinity features instead of the normal female development, the gender is ultimately affected too. Hormonal imbalance and unexpected surges have played a very big role in this gender identity crisis.

Socially, gender identity is influenced by the environment in which a child grows up in. the socialization process and the entire learning process from the parents, family and friends, act as a reinforcement to the child forcing them to exhibit what they witness and observe growing up. The child’s sense of gender is determined and it can either be in line with the demands of society or inappropriate.

Gender identity disorder is prevalent not only in children, but also in adolescents and adults. Young girls insist they want to be men and even fight with their parents over the issue. They manifest male features such as hairstyles and clothing to further make their point. In boys, it is basically the same, they make it clear their desire to be women and even sometimes pretend not to have the penis. They highlight feminist features such as dressing and interests, additionally emphasizing their wish to be women. In adults, gender identity disorders are characterized by their discomfort with their originally assigned gender and have strong will to get rid of the assigned gender. For all these characteristics to qualify as a problem, they must have caused damage or impairment to the individual. There is therefore no concrete evidence showing which gender or people most affected by this problem as there have been cases from all from different ages and backgrounds (American Psychiatric Association, 2013).

Theories of Gender Identity Disorders

There have been several attempts to try and explain the whole concept on gender identity. The social learning theory rely on a lot of comparisons between the control of nature and nurture have taken place with information on the surroundings of a person and the way they are told to relate with such surrounding having an influence in identity formation. Biologically, pre-and post-natal hormone levels can also offer significant information on gender identity; finally, the gender roles manifested by some of the key figures in the development process such as parents, family, friends and even the media make the child want to correspond to those roles (Pateman, 2014).

The behaviorist theory indicates that the mind of an infant is blank and it is due to the social upbringing and overall environmental factors that form the identity of a person. This means that any features demonstrated by a person will depend on what they experienced while growing up and how it affected their general mental well-being. If a male child grew up in an environment full of feminine characteristics, they will be more inclined towards it since that the first thing that occupied their mind. The opposite is true and masculine features are imprinted on girls who find themselves sounded by masculinity at a tender age. They will identify with what they are exposed to which will be contrary to their assigned genders creating a problem.

Biologist theories have based this problem on the genes and hormonal surges. They believe during the development of an embryo, any kind of imbalance of hormones meant for a certain gender will result to a crisis since the complete development of masculine or feminine features is interrupted. Psychoanalytic theorists believe in the influence of external factors on the mind hence manipulating the gender identity of an individual.

Treatment

The way to manage gender identity has been through therapy and surgery. A lot of counseling is offered to both the individual and the affected parties around them. Surgery is manly for sexual reassignment and it encompasses hormonal therapy too (Colizzi, Costa, Pace, & Todarello, 2013). Psychotherapy will only work effectively if it is done at the earliest age possible. It will minimize transsexual behavior and help the individual function in their assigned sexual roles to the best of their abilities. Sex change is mainly done in adults with this problem and it is preceded by hormone therapy to suppress the unwanted orientation and highlight the dominant characteristics (Butcher, Hooley, & Mineka, 2015).

References

American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (DSM-5®). American Psychiatric Pub.

Butcher, J. N., Hooley, J. M., & Mineka, S. M. (2015). Abnormal psychology. Pearson Higher Ed.

Colizzi, M., Costa, R., Pace, V., & Todarello, O. (2013). Hormonal treatment reduces psychobiological distress in gender identity disorder, independently of the attachment style. The journal of sexual medicine, 10(12), 3049-3058.

Heylens, G., Verroken, C., De Cock, S., T'Sjoen, G., & De Cuypere, G. (2014). Effects of different steps in gender reassignment therapy on psychopathology: a prospective study of persons with a gender identity disorder. The journal of sexual medicine, 11(1), 119-126.

Pateman, C. (2014). Sexual contract. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Popple, P. R., & Leighninger, L. (2015). The policy-based profession: An introduction to social welfare policy analysis for social workers. (6th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.