Gender and Sexual Studies - Transgendered Children - Essay Example

In addition, a California teen identified as Taylor has started a campaign to boycott Girl Scout cookies as a direct response to the admittance of transgendered members (Girl Scout Launches Cookie, 2012). These occurrences have resulted in considerable difficulties and raised complex questions as to the moral ramifications of identity. The popular understanding of the transgendered child is one that identifies or manifests any of the characteristics of the opposite sex (About our transgendered, 2007).

One recognizes that this is distinguished from the notion of the transsexual in that the transgendered child may not contain physical characteristics of the opposite sex, but mentally manifests transgendered personality tendencies. Of course, such a notion raises a variety of further difficulties regarding identity. For instance, determining when to label an individual male or female is more complex than simple physical characteristics, as such labels carry with them personality elements. For the individual in the video, Taylor, distinguishing between male and female is a matter of physicality; that is, if one has the organs of a male, then they are male.

When further examining Taylor’s contentions and those that seek to restrict transgendered children’s admission to the Girl Scouts it’s clear that their underlining argument is highly problematic. In considering the argumentative position of these individuals, one notes they rely on an antiquated notion of sex and gender identity. Oriel (2000) distinguishes between the Traditional Binary Gender Model and the Revolutionary Gender Model. The Traditional Binary Gender Model considers biological sex, gender expression, and sexual orientation as clearly distinguished between male and female.

Oriel (2000) argues that research into the biological sciences has largely discredited the Traditional Binary Gender Model in favor of the Revolutionary Gender Model. The later model argues that gender distinctions are largely hybrid and dynamic and that individuals will hold separate types of biological sex, gender expression, and sexual orientation. Such findings largely discredit the distinctions made by individuals such as Taylor who seek to clearly distinguish between males and females. In further considering the question of the transgendered child there is a question of whether they should be considered male or female.

Currently, the Girl Scouts consider gender categorization to be one of the brain, contending that individuals should be admitted to the Girl Scouts based on whether they identity with the socially constructed notion of femininity. In determining the nature of gender identity on a broader scale, it’s clear that both the Girl Scouts and their opponents have made a mistake in their categorizations. To a large degree the mistake that has been made is a logical error and constitutes an over reliance on linguistic categorizations.

Perspectives as embodied by Taylor and her video are assuming that necessarily there must be a distinction between male and female. Influenced perhaps by Biblical and social tradition, this argument is based not on biology, but on the assumption that since the word ‘male’ and ‘female’ exists, there must be a corresponding subject in the real world. When one bases categorization on scientific rationality and deconstructs traditional assumptions of ‘