At what age is gender identity developed?
Recently, I've been seeing videos and news that say that gender identity is formed much earlier than commonly believed, with respect to gender identity disorders or being transgender. Such information has also been included in certain answers on this site.
However, it doesn't appear to have been explicitly asked here.
At what age or stage of development does a child's gender identity form?
To clarify the term, here's the first paragraph from the Wikipedia article linked to above.
Gender identity is a person's private sense and subjective experience of their own gender. This is generally described as one's private sense of being a man or a woman, consisting primarily of the acceptance of membership into a category of people: male or female. All societies have a set of gender categories that can serve as the basis of the formation of a social identity in relation to other members of society. In most societies, there is a basic division between gender attributes assigned to males and females. In all societies, however, some individuals do not identify with some (or all) of the aspects of gender that are assigned to their biological sex.
I'm not asking about:
Gender roles
Sexual identity
I am looking for research-backed answers only. Since what I perceive to be commonly-held beliefs (or concepts that aren't often thought about) don't match up with some of the medical opinions I've read, I would like evidence to help turn my loose ideas into strong understanding.
(1)1 Comments
Sorted by latest first Latest Oldest Best
The short and incomplete answer: between as young as two or possibly younger, and as late as late teenage years/early adulthood.
From perusing "transgender identity formation" and other queries on google scholar, it's clear that there is no one conclusive answer, partly because we are still defining the terms of "identity" and "gender", and also because
"The field of lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender (LGBT) studies is
characterized by competing paradigms expressed in various ways: nature
versus nurture, biology versus environment, and essentialism versus
social constructionism"
from Shifting Sands or Solid Foundation? Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Identity Formation, by Michele J. Eliason ad Robert Schope.
link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-0-387-31334-4_1
A lot of research uses the concept of "milestone events" or "milestone experiences" at different stages of development as a way to map the construction of sexual identity - for example: the recollection of a moment of awareness of sexuality, the articulation of that awareness, the conscious thoughts relating to sexual desire, actual physical events of various nature, etc.
Wether you define such and such event as of importance and which label you attach to it will impact on what you consider was part of the "construction" of "identity".
Terms of Use Privacy policy Contact About Cancellation policy © freshhoot.com2025 All Rights reserved.