Kayci Jones

In this week's module I learned about how people identify themselves based on more than just gender and what it means. Rather than looking at individuals based on one aspect of their appearance, we look at multiple and understand why people identify themselves in such a way using continuums. Continuums such as "ness" rather than a scale from F-to-M gives a person the chance to show how they embody multiple aspects of gender without swaying less or more in each way. Our brain explains our gender identity by woman-ness or man-ness and our heart explains who we are sexually and romantically attracted to such as women, men, females, males, femininity, or masculinity. We use our physical appearance, how we dress, our actions, and dour demeanor to express our gender identity, and our biological sex characteristics embody our male-ness or female-ness. I learned about how we use each of these parts of ourselves to define ourselves, and that it is not based on just the one aspect. I also learned that certain biological sex characteristics do not determine our sexual orientation just as the way we express our masculine or feminine nature does not determine our gender identity. I this module's reading really helped me learn about non-binary characteristics such as the way we fix our hair or dress, and has taught me not to assume based on what I see and be open to the many aspects of defining a person's gender.