Abstract
Transsexualism suggests questions for sociologists who study gender. Is gender identity always a precursor to role behavior or might it result from the social reactions to deviant behavior? This article considers several theoretical explanations for the (mis)acquisition of gender identity among transsexuals: biological hypotheses, psychoanalytic theories, social learning, and role theory. The author concludes that gender role and gender identity are confounded in past research and that the issue inflexibility of identities needs to be treated more systematically.
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The author wishes to thank Philip Blumstein and Pepper Schwartz and anonymous reviewers atQualitative Sociology for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper.
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Risman, B.J. The (mis)acquisition of gender identity among transsexuals. Qual Sociol 5, 312–325 (1982). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00986756
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00986756