Research Paper On Katie Couric

616 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Intersex and transgender essay

Gender Revolution: A Journey with Katie Couric is a 2017 documentary for National Geographic that explores the complications of gender identity. In a series of interviews with surgeons, scientist, students and families across the country, Katie Couric documents the experiences of transgender and intersex people and the challenges that they have faced through their journey. What Katie Couric uncovers is that people are a lot more complicated than we thought. By learning more about transgender biology and social identity, she hopes to answer the question - Should our bodies define us?
Katie met with scientists and surgeons in her quest. The first was Sam Killermann, who did a Ted talk on gender 101 – known as the “Genderbread Person”. His belief is that your external genitalia do not dictate your gender. According to Psychologist John Money, nurture supersedes nature with regards to gender identity. He believed in gender fluidity and tested his theory on a case with identical twin boys in 1969. One boy had a sex-reassignment surgery at birth yet. Money labeled it a success, …show more content…

Born with male and female genitalia, he was operated on as an infant. Although raised as a girl, he always felt like a boy, and did not have a choice in his sex-reassignment. He grew up very confused. Katie also met two small girls, Rosie and Ellie, whose parents both chose not to do infant surgery. They feel it is best to let their children identify with the person they affiliate with and decide later if they want to have an operation. They both appear to be healthy happy children. Then Katie met Ally Hudson. She was assigned male at birth but always felt a girl. When he was seven, he was suicidal, and at that moment, his mom realized she had to address her son‘s anxiety. Ally is part of a unique study involving puberty blockers. She is paving the way for trans to figure it out before a permanent change is

Show More
Related

  • Research Paper On Jessica Mulroney

    485 Words  | 1 Pages

    Jessica Mulroney is a famous Canadian fashion stylist, best known for styling ensembles for Sophie Gregoire-Trudeau, the wife of the prime minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau.

    Read More

  • Tarana Burke Research Paper

    952 Words  | 2 Pages

    Hashtag MeToo. Does that sound familiar? The MeToo movement is one of the most influential movements of our time. According to cbsnews.com a movement that reached over 12 million posts on Facebook in just 24 hours. Most of you know the power of Me Too and some participants in it, such as Ashley Judd, Angelina Jolie, Gwyneth Paltrow, Cara Delevingne, Lupita Nyong’o, Lindsay Lohan, and many more according to CNN. However, you probably do not know who began this powerful movement. Her name is Tarana Burke. Tarana Burke is a sexual assault survivor herself and began the Me Too Movement in 2006 when she was having trouble with comforting a young girl, who had confided in Burke about her sexual assault experience according to brown.edu.

    Read More

  • Sisterhood Is Complicated Summary

    200 Words  | 1 Pages

    The definition of gender has become way more revolutionary and expressive compared to the twentieth century. Gender used to be similar to sex where someone would be identified as a male or female based on their biological genitals however, this day in age it is way more complex. Someone can be born a male but mentally they feel like a male. In “Sisterhood is complicated” Ruth Padawer explains the journey of different transgender males and the obstacles they face while attending Wellesley college. Wellesley is a women’s college that has been around for a very long time and is in the process of the battling the conflict of whether they should admit transgender students. Ariel Levy author of “Female Chauvinist Pigs” tackles the stereotypes and

    Read More

  • She's Not There: A Life in Two Genders by Jennifer Finney Boylan

    1748 Words  | 4 Pages

    The information acquired over the semester, whether through text or visual media, vividly brought the importance of knowing how one’s gender is identified and developed.

    Read More

  • Personal Issues In Intersexion: A Documentary About Being Intersex

    781 Words  | 2 Pages

    Sex exists in a binary system of male and female, and people can be forced into this binary. A mother of an intersex child states that the surgery comes from “the message that a child’s body is not acceptable as-is and should conform to what the state thinks it should be” (“Their Baby Was Born”). Sex, just like gender, exists in a binary, and when individuals do not fall into the two categories, society becomes uncomfortable. Sex, like gender, is socially constructed (Fausto-Sterling). This means that sex is a spectrum and not the binary it has been made to be. However, society continues to see the binary as normal and will attempt to force individuals to fit the already established system. Because they are in the middle of the sex spectrum rather than at the ends, most intersex individuals in the documentary experienced and continue to experience the same pressures to conform described by the mother and Fausto-Sterling. One person identified with the female gender, but her mother raised her as male. Despite her gender identification, she was continually told to be more masculine and to conform to her assigned male sex and gender. Others also had their appearance shaped through surgery and other means to fit into the sex-gender binary but now choose to identify as neither male nor female. However, this lack of gender-sex identification can leave them socially isolated since

    Read More

  • Kohlberg's Theory Of Cognitive Development

    155 Words  | 1 Pages

    Any developmental theory is based on the idea that a child has to reach a certain level of cognitive development before they can understand certain ideas or conceptions. What it means to be a girl or a boy and the full implications that follows. Kohlberg’s Cognitive-Developmental Theory of Gender proposed that all children experience three stage during the process of gender development and identity. These three stage occur at different ages such at the age of two which is the “Gender Identity” stage Kohlberg states that children can correctly label themselves as a boy or girl but may still think it is possible to change gender. The second stage occurs at the age of four and is known as the “Gender Stability” stage. In this stage children become

    Read More

  • Don H. Zimmerman's Theory Of Gender

    1822 Words  | 4 Pages

    First; comes, the notion of nature. West and Zimmerman term this as sex, referring to a person’s biological makeup through genitalia, having a penis or vagina, or simply chromosomal pairing of XY or XX (29). Although there is no escape or control an individual has, if their foetal tissues formed into a penis or vagina, biology does play an underlying role in an individual’s identity and personality formation which is socially constructed. What is the correlation between biology and socially constructed gender then? The case study West and Zimmerman present of “Agnes, a transsexual person who was born (31), ” and raised a boy, but went through sex reassignment surgery, and identifies as a female, shows that although biology may result in a certain genitalia, an individual’s response to that may be one that is conforming or opposing to it. By the terms conforming and opposing I mean to say that Agnes could have either continued to

    Read More

  • Feminism Is Not The Fight For Equal Rights

    1951 Words  | 4 Pages

    In another article by Emily Greenhouse “New Era For Intersex Rights” she tells us the story that Jim Ambrose (an interssex born child) lived while undergoing this condition, taking us back to Kitzinger’s definition of intersex. He tells us about his horrific childhood he experienced due to his parents not having been given much of an option by their doctor but merely “they had a problem and they could correct it” showing us “consequently, in the typical circumstance of a child being born with ambiguous genitalia, a ‘psychosocial emergency’ is declared with the intent of ‘fixing’ the child” (Kitzinger, 1999). His whole life growing up he lived as the opposite sex not being able to enjoy his childhood or even his life. Could not go on vacation with his friends because he had to go “get his testicels chopped off” instead. Ambrose tells us how he would have preferred to be allowed the opportunity to explore his own identity and then, him choosing “to later, have surgery” which would have made it easier for him identify formation as an adult. One final thing that i took from this article that really opened my eyes when he said that he has talked to many intersex people and says that not one of them has been happy with the treatment they have received from their physicians”. This is why it is important to educate ourselves on the matter on the specific interesex condition

    Read More

  • Gender Identity And Social Identity

    1175 Words  | 3 Pages

    It meets the guideline with its’ attention to assert a concern on gender identities and our scientific understanding of them. The writer essentially focused on scientific theories by Dr. Kranz and Dr. Cecelia Dhejne that the foundations of sex-reassignments are based upon a mismatch between gender-specific brain developments and how they are “scientifically” formed and the high suicide effects of it subsequently. Using important information such as transgendered people with brain structural differences reports relevant information in relation to the controversial idea of how changeable is gender and how it affects lives to this day.

    Read More

  • The World of Transgender, Homosexual, and Intersex Individuals

    1750 Words  | 4 Pages

    It has long been debated whether there is a difference between sex and gender, and if so, what that difference is. In recent years it has been suggested that sex is a purely biological term, and gender is socially constructed, or defined and enforced by society. Sex is assigned at birth based on the genitalia, and usually, gender is determined by the sex. If parents are told their baby is a girl, they will reinforce traditional female stereotypes for her whole life. Society and peers will also help to reinforce her gender as she begins to spend more time outside of her immediate family. In this way, gender is a process, whereas sex is simply a static characteristic based on one’s physical appearance. The more dynamic process of gendering, however, defines “man” and “woman,” teaches one to see and internalize what is expected from one’s gender, and to act according to those expectations (Lorber 2006).

    Read More

  • Pediatric Ethics and the Surgical Assignment of Sex

    1942 Words  | 4 Pages

    One in every 2,000 babies born every year are neither male nor female, they are what is known as hermaphrodites. These children and their families are forced into a life of hardship and encounter many conflicts, which need to be addressed. Should the parents choose the assignment of the sex to a newborn child and subject them to a life of surgery and doctor visits? There are 100 to 200 pediatric surgical reassignments every year. Many of these children are subjected to doctor visits for the rest of their childhood. Worst of all, many of these children find themselves resembling or identifying with the gender opposite of that which their parents chose for them.

    Read More

  • Gender Identity Disorder

    1608 Words  | 4 Pages

    [3] With so many different terms, it is hard to keep up with the language and understanding of the complex idea of gender identity disorder. If “sex” is a biological term, and “gender” is a sociological term, and “gender identity” is an individual’s self-conception of whether or not one’s gender matches up with one’s biological sex, where do we draw the line? How can we determine whether or not a person’s gender identity matches their gender? The answer is not an easy one. Gender identity is personal; it is not something that anyone else can determine for you.

    Read More

  • Gender Neutrality in Children

    1001 Words  | 3 Pages

    Society today suggest that revealing the “gender” or “sex” of a child from the moment of conception forward is a necessity. But, in all actuality to some this is an invasion of their privacy and beliefs. Many believe that raising a child gender specific is not important to their upbringing or to their growth and development. Gender is defined with several different meanings such as the behavioral, cultural or psychological traits typically associated with the one sex. The sex of an individual, male or female, based on reproductive anatomy (the category to which an individual is assigned on the basis of sex) and the personal traits or personality that we attach to being male or female. Sex is defined as the biological distinctions determined by our genitalia.

    Read More

  • Gender Identity: A Child's Identity

    1898 Words  | 4 Pages

    As a child grows and conforms to the world around them they go through various stages, one of the most important and detrimental stages in childhood development is gender identity. The development of the meaning of a child’s sex and gender can form the whole future of that child’s identity as a person. This decision whether accidental or genetic can effect that child’s life style views and social interactions for the rest of their lives. Ranging from making friends in school all the way to intimate relationships later on in life, gender identity can become an important aspect to ones future endeavors.

    Read More

  • Sex Differences In Fixing Sex By Kartina Karkazis

    816 Words  | 2 Pages

    Part Two of Kartina Karkazis’ novel Fixing Sex focuses on the reality parents face when their child receives an intersex diagnosis. Karkazis illustrates what a couple experiences when they discovered their baby girl was not in fact a girl, in accordance to the socially constructed understanding of a female. She also covers the importance of choosing a sex with an intersexual baby when society is involved. A great example from the text is, “Bodies with atypical or conflicting biological markers of gender are troublesome because they disturb the social body; they also disrupt the process if determining an infant’s place in the world” (96). It ties in perfectly to the purpose of paragraphs four, five and six: The Ramifications of Corrective Surgery (Good and Bad). The quote highlights one of the “bad” ramifications of intersexual corrective surgery. It has progressed to the point where society has such a large impact on what is classified as a “proper girl” or “proper boy” that if a baby does not classify into one of those categories, then the child is no longer accepted.

    Read More

More about Research Paper On Katie Couric

Open Document