Sexual Identity v.s Gender Identity

“I have felt for a long time that I am different from others. I have two feelings (hearts) I feel both as a woman and as a man does. I do not know why I have these feelings. When I am shown a beautiful girl, I feel my heart pounding. But it never happens with boys". 

From the statement above, simply we can define sexual identity as a way which a person describes themselves as being a man or a woman, socially and biologically. You may often meet somebody, who looks like a girl but she never feels or describes her self as a girl. Ip, is one of them, who biologically has vagina and get menstruation every month, but she never feels that she is a girl. She feels that she is a boy, leading to the way she is walking,  her code dress, color choice, etc. The most important thing, her feeling as a boy was also influencing to the way whom she is attracted of and want to share her love. Her statement "when i am shown a beutiful girl, i feel my hearth pounding", that explain to us very clear that she is interested to girl. This is sexual orientation, which refers to what a person  is attracted to physically and sexually. So, sexual orientation is part of sexual identity. There are three kind of sexual orientations: hereterosexuality, homosexuality and bisexuality. I will discuss this later on. 

Is sexual identity different from gender identity? Absolutely yes. Sexual identity refers to how a person describes her or his self to be called as a woman or man, while gender identity is how our society views a person as male or female. For example Linda was born as a female. She grows up as a girl. As a girl, her mother tells her not to wear jins, because it is identical as a boy. When she got menstruation, her mother asked her to wear hijab to protect her from irresponsible behavior of naughty boys. As a girl, Linda must help her mother to clean up the house, prepare meals of the family, and often not sharing their feeling, otherwise society will tell that she is not a good woman. What Linda's mother is doing to Linda, is a process of how a person is constructed and to be taught what is proper and improper as female or male.

So, if sexual identity refers how YOU want to be called as a man or woman, but gender identity is how SOCIETY expects you to be female and male.  ***

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