Do We Construct Gender? Blog Post #2

Gender as we know it is being a male or a female. In Judith Lorber Night To His Day the part  that I found that shows we construct gender is when she was talking about the parents who raised an accidental transsexual and was successful in making the child a female and making her as feminine as possible. Even though that's only one story out of many I have come to think that it is possible that you can teach a child throughout their life what gender to become you can turn your son into your daughter because "the social construction of gender overrides any possibly inborn trait"(23). Lorber also points out transvestites who dress up as woman they learn how  to be feminine and dress as woman from woman's magazines. I think it doesn't matter how you were born the things that are instilled in you makes you who you are whether it be from media, magazines , parents, friends,  to religion it all plays a part in how you are as a person. I'm not sure why the child is considered to be a female rather than a transsexual but  I think an adult is considered a transexual because before they underwent surgery they were either a male or female  and had a decision to become the sex that they identified more with.Children are not born knowing that their female or male which makes it easier for parents to decide a childs gender and doctors to correct it before the child is old enough to realize. For this child in Lorber's reading she has never identified with being a male, been raised as a male or treated as one. She's been treated and  raised all her life as a female she doesn't know anything else but to act as a female would. I guess what I'm trying to say is because a transexual as an adult was a male or a female before they change genders this child only identifies with one gender and thats female.