The purpose of this paper was to review research on the role of appearance in children’s developing gender identities. It introduces how there are many groups of people that adopt an identity and show others by the way they style their hair or the type of clothing they wear. When it comes to children, gender is the first thing they socially develop and understand. The paper transitions into cultural differences regarding gender identity. It compares children that come from different cultures such as Europe, Hong Kong, South Korea are more likely to show similarities in appearance rigidity. Although, many parents usually buy their children clothing that have to do with their appearance, male or female. This relates to my topic because there are many children out there that suffer with gender identity. They fear to tell their parents the way they actually feel. With this many children experience depression and pain because their parents do not understand.

Source

Halim, May Ling D., et al. “Gender Is What You Look like: Emerging Gender Identities in Young Children and Preoccupation with Appearance.” Self & Identity, vol. 17, no. 4, July 2018, pp. 455–466. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1080/15298868.2017.1412344.

This article draws attention to sexuality and culture. It is divided into three categories, each category explaining that there has been a significant increase of research on social and cultural sexuality. In the first section of the reading, it focused on the social construction of sexuality and how it has developed over the last three decades. The second section explains the study of sexual life and the way it emerged in sexual culture, sexual identities and sexual communities. Lastly, the third section covers the difference between culture and power. This article relates to my topic because there are many groups of people that experience a hard time revealing their sexuality and face discrimination because of it.

Source

Parker, Richard. “Sexuality, Culture and Society: Shifting Paradigms in Sexuality Research.” Culture, Health & Sexuality, vol. 11, no. 3, Apr. 2009, pp. 251–266. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1080/13691050701606941

This scholarly article clearly explains the way parents react to their children’s identity. It provides statistics to understandably prove that most parents react in a negative way. “In the American context, research indicates that as many as 52% of parents’ may initially react negatively to their child’s disclosure of same sex attractions.” This just shows that more than half of parents do not approve of their child having same sex attractions. These negative reactions have many consequences to their children from, depression, substance abuse and some extreme cases, suicide. On the other hand, the article describes the supportive and positive parent reactions. This leads to a low percentage of depression and suicide, but high percentages of social support and self-esteem. For my analytical research paper I hope to successfully cover this major issue because there are many children that experience this. They may tell their parents, but at the end of the day they do not receive the support and positivity they were looking for.

Source

Baiocco, Roberto, et al. “Negative Parental Responses to Coming Out and Family Functioning in a Sample of Lesbian and Gay Young Adults.” Journal of Child & Family Studies, vol. 24, no. 5, May 2015, pp. 1490–1500. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1007/s10826-014-9954-z.

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