Videos for week four - Gender Identity

 Gender Identity is something that I have always wondered about especially when it's not on the set topic of the typical male and female genders. I've never thought much as to why gender identity is so important up until now when I realized that when being of a certain gender there are certain things and ways people expect you to act. I noticed this perception of gender during the first video linked "Gender Identity: 'How Colonialism killed my culture's gender fluidity'" By BBC World Service in which Geronimo, a native American living in New Mexico, felt more like a woman when doing activities such as weaving, cooking, and cleaning which has always been seen in society as female traits. Due to that information, I realized gender identity defines us very strongly probably more than any other identity trait due to everything else being built off of gender. For example, one can be seen as lazy, but the perspectives of that term shift when applied to either a man or a woman. I would say the typical characteristics of male and female gender when describing opposite poles of a spectrum ranges from being seen as strong and a provider for men and gentle and a receiver for women. In both videos, there was a common theme of there being the combined energy of two souls being feminine and masculine and most of what you hear in the videos are people who can relate to such a combination. I have pondered the possibility of the soul not matching the gender of the body it is in, but then it begs the question of if souls have gender. I don't think we'll ever truly be able to create a true continuum of gender with the removal of either/or thinking as what people automatically perceive is what people process. Of course, once you get to know someone or maybe even simply talk to a person the way you perceive them shifts as you have been exposed to their real identity and not just how they portray themselves. I do think one can be off the spectrum of gender entirely which changes the topic to being androgynous which is having the physical characteristics of both genders. I'm not sure if androgynous people have struggled with their gender identity as I'm sure it can be confusing to look in the mirror and see both a girl and a boy. Due to being a psychology major and always wanting to know more about how the brain works, I have wondered what possible aspects in life or in the mind can bring a person to think and/or feel that they are not in the correct body for their soul and how does one know? With complete zero offense and more curiosity-based, I have thought about if the feeling of wanting or needing a different gender could be applied to the nature vs. nurture aspect of the mind as there could be certain points in one life that change their way of thinking or it could just simply be a natural product of life as again in the BBC video most of the participants mentioned that the combination of two genders has been around for centuries, but the mindset changed once people who began to fully transition in western cultures changed how it was once viewed. I'd love to talk about this for hours on end as I would love to hear other thoughts on the topic of gender identity and discuss more of the historic practice of having feminine and masculine energy.