By applying psychological training, the interdisciplinarity of the program becomes evident. Students understand and apply psychological principles to personal, social and organizational issues. Outcomes include identifying psychology’s major applications, articulating how it can be used toward social understanding and public policy, and recognizing the ethical complexities of applying psychology.
Accomplished Courses for Application
•Psy 300 Expermntl/Psy & Human/Assesmnt
•PSY 320 Psychopathology
•PSY 400 Psychology Capstone
As I approach my completion to the five MLOS I have developed at this time a curiosity towards applying my knowledge in an outside environment. I have gained the right tools to be able to attain qualifications for using psychology theories and undergraduate skills for the real world. Granted that, I was able to enroll in three major courses that paved my way to understanding the application of psychological principles to personal, social and organizational issues. The courses I enrolled in throughout my college career that help me developed such tools were Psychology 300 Experiment/ Psychology and Human Assessment, Psychology 320 Psychopathology and Psychology 400 Capstone. These individual courses were uniquely in cohesive to my overall concentration of Gender Identity and counseling. The propose of this essay is to elaborate my knowledge of a specific concentration such as Gender Identity and how developing an understanding of this topic lead me to accomplishing my application in psychological training at the LGBT Youth Counseling Center in Los Angeles; resulting in my interdisciplinary of this specific program becoming evident. I will further elaborate on the general definition of Gender Identity and how understanding this topic benefited me to applying this knowledge at my internship.
Gender confusion is a non clinical term that refers to an individual’s feeling of not identifying with his or her assigned gender. In popular and scientific discourse, this term has been associated with diagnostic categories for transgendered and transsexual individuals, such as gender dysphoria or gender identity disorder. Gender confusion may also be used to describe behavior that is a symptom of these conditions. More generally, gender confusion refers to children, adolescents, or adults who either consciously or unconsciously do not present, behave, or identify as strictly male or female. In addition to being used to describe an individual with trans, androgynous, or indeterminate gender, the term can also refer to the reaction such a person might provoke in a social context. In this latter sense gender confusion describes the uncertainty some people feel when confronted with a gendered reality that disrupts the male-female gender binary.
As with scientific studies on the causes of homosexuality, studies have not produced sufficient evidence for why some people do not identify with the gender that has been assigned to them. The use of the word confusion in relation to this phenomenon is both apropos and misleading. Gender is a confusing and complicated construct, but those who exhibit gender confusion may not actually be confused about what gender they are. The polarized gender binary likely produces widespread confusion because women and men rarely identify with every aspect of feminine and masculine stereotypes and roles.
Never the less, the term names behavior that blurs the line between male and female and carries a connotation that being confused about one’s gender is abnormal. Ironically, those who identify as transgender or transsexual or are categorized as such rarely discuss confusion. In fact, most transgendered individuals feel that they were trapped in the wrong body from a young age and describe their condition as having always existed (Ames 2005). In other words there is little doubt or confusion for them about which gender they actually are. From this perspective gender confusion is instead a social term that polices the borders of gender and relegates non-normative genders as immature, undeveloped, or deviant genders.
Gender Identity disorder has become such a controversial topic due to lack of knowledge on this topic. To better understand I was able to attend guest speakers invited to speak to our class on behalf of this topic. Many stated that Gender Identity obvious symptoms of gender identity disorder are the desire to be of the opposite sex by cross-dressing, having playmates of the opposite sex, enjoying activities that are usually enjoyed by the opposite sex. In addition, avoidance and rejection of same-sex stereotypical games dislike of bodily sexual characteristics and functions and activities and the desire to live as and be treated like a member of the opposite sex. In order to be diagnosed with this disorder four of the above symptoms have to be present.
In adolescents with gender identity disorder the symptoms are the same as adults which are consumption in cross gender-wishes, the inability to develop romantic relationships with the opposite sex and friends and with members of their own sex, and many relationships with their parents are harmed due to this disorder. Which in most cases being that adolescents years are a very hectic time of their life and harmed relationships between them and their parents is very stressful and can cause major trauma and a serious issue with trusting others. The major symptom of gender identity disorder in adults is the desire to live as a member of the opposite sex by adopting its social role, behavior, and physical appearance.
Although some cultures are more tolerant about gender expression and variation (a typical example is the American Indian two-spirit who embodies a fusion of masculinity and femininity), cross-culturally, those who do not fit into normative gender categories are tormented and discriminated against. Ignorance plays a big factor in learning to accept the unknown and in this case the unknown are individuals who have issues with their gender identity. As a result, gender confusion can result in assault, rape, and discrimination for the person who does not conform to gendered expectations. Gender confusion, and the homophobic and transphobic violence sometimes directed at it, can be tied to what feminist and queer theorist Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick (1985) has called homosexual panic the pervasive anxieties in modern European and North American culture that surround non-normative sexuality and gender. Cultural manifestations of gender confusion can be found in childhood exploration and play, eroticization in fashion advertisements and styles, and backlash against people whose genders do not conform to social standards.
Cross-gender identification in children has been well documented, however the frequency of this behavior and the ultimate social implications of it are uncertain (Zucker 1985, Bradley 1985). Controversial claims regarding a direct correlation between childhood gender confusion or cross-gender identification in children and homosexuality or transsexuality have never been confirmed. Classic examples of gender confusion are the young boy who plays dress-up and the young girl who plays with cars and footballs. These behaviors are viewed as reparable and increasingly, as ordinary.
In a revealing double standard gender disorders are typically diagnosed when girls make claims of being anatomically male but when boys make any insinuation that they prefer feminine behavior and activities or would rather not have a penis (Sedgwick 1991). Many scholars with radical positions cite the psychological obsession with gender confusion especially in its manifestation as gender identity disorder in childhood, which is in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders IV (DSM-IV) as merely a shift in the continued medicalization process by homosexuality coming to be defined and treated as medical condition.
An example how the media portray these individuals is Pat, a character in the popular television show Saturday Night Live (SNL), is a humorous, if simplified, manifestation of gender confusion both as an ambiguous gender status and as a reaction felt by people when confronted by androgynous or gender-bending individuals. In these skits SNL performer Julia Sweeney dresses as an unattractive, androgynous person who consistently reflects the efforts of celebrity guests to discover Pat’s gender in indirect ways. In preparing for the character Sweeney attempts to drop all gender-coded behavior, movement, and affect, and the skits mocks gender’s difficulty achieving power and society’s extremely regulated gender codes.
A particularly social site where a plethora of gender confusion occurs is the gender-segregated bathroom. For transgendered individuals as well as women who have short hair or men who have long hair, confusion in the bathroom can be comical, frustrating, or dangerous at times. The segregation of bathrooms, a convention implemented globally to a range of degrees, is representative of the polarizing difference of gender and the social expectation that individuals must fit themselves in this case, literally into one of these two distinct boxes. For individuals who do not identify as male or female, who may be transitioning from one gender to another, or who simply do not exhibit the stereotypical characteristics of one gender, navigating this seemingly simple space entails much anxiety, safeguarding, and fortitude.
According to the scholar Zillah Eisenstein a final cultural manifestation of gender confusion is presented in the context of global militarism and reveals how racialized encodings of gender can produce a different kind of gender confusion. The scholar Zillah Eisenstein (2004) than cites that the use of gender confusion as a tactic of torture that was used at Abu Ghraib, a five-compound prison just outside Baghdad run by American soldiers after the former Iraqi government was ousted from power. The rape and torture of Muslim men in the prison at the hands of white American female soldiers represents an ultimate humiliation because the men were treated as women the men’s genders were essentially confused by these acts. In Eisenstein’s take on the scandal, the fact that the abusers were white women further confuses because the women inflict the type of abuse and cruelty that is usually directed at them. Swapping genders with the men, the women, as decoys of this masculinity in this case is one of the many scenarios that cause one serious damage to their psyche.
There are a plethora of positive solutions to help cope with Gender Identity Issues. For example, psychotherapy and behavioral therapy are forms of treatment to help people deal with gender identity disorder, but are not a cure in any way. Hormonal treatment is also used to try to help these patients into wanting to live their lives as their given sex. It is difficult, if not impossible, in most cases of Gender Identity Disorder to make the person happy with his or her biological identity via either psychotherapy or hormonal treatments. Some programs have also been set up to help individuals with this disorder. Psychotherapy can be very effective with the side effects that come along with GID, such as depression. Parental or family counseling is another factor in helping with this disorder in order to understand the family problems. Family set up interventions treatments can be of great help in the way that it can focus on mother-child and father-child working together as a family to solve these behavioral problems and build their relationship. In many such programs’ cases they try to make the child more aware of their gender and try to get them to feel comfortable with themselves and act like the gender they most often identify with themselves. There are even online counseling sessions available for individuals who have gender identity disorder.
In conclusion, to developing detailed information on Gender Identity Disorder I was able to be aware and have a sense of knowledge of this topic to decrease ignorance and hate towards people who are unique. Having the opportunity of interning at the LGBT Youth Counseling Center, which is a center where adolescent teenagers who perceive themselves in either categories of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Questioning, Transgender or Gender confused; been neglected by their families and friends to build a new one through counseling and supportive team leaders. Granted that, I was able to apply my knowledge of this topic through counseling and feeling of empathy towards the individuals who attend this center. Being that I perceive myself as a homosexual male and knowledgeable of the topic due to a plethora of courses that elaborated on Gender Identity; I was able to be relatable and articulate to others on the importance counseling and self education on Gender Identity can be of use towards this social understanding and public policy in which leads to ethical complexities of application of psychology to these clients at the LGBT Youth Center. The true key factor here is acceptance in both parts. For the individuals who identify themselves as gender confused and as well as the ones who are ignorant on this topic that they may be able to learn acceptance. The biggest solution for society is teaching tolerance, kindness and most importantly the act of acceptance; to be one step closer in making a huge difference in the way the unknown (Gender Identity Disorder individuals,) can change the way they are viewed by others and have a positive view of themselves . Administrating this concept of gender Identity and applying my psychological training by interning at the LGBT Youth Center I was able to have positive outcomes that include identifying psychological major applications, articulating how this application can be used for social understanding and public policy and the ability to recognize the ethical complexities of applying psychology; therefore accomplishing MLO 4 application.
Brian Estrada 2013 Undergraduate Psychology Capstone 