THE CHALLENGE OF GENDER IDENTITY AS A STUDENT

I do not have a current personal experience except a past experience of a friend that can relate to the challenge of gender identity as a student or a professional. She identifies as female but growing up she rarely associated with ‘feminine acts. She hated the colour pink, hated cooking and house chores etc. She was referred to by peers as a ‘tomboy’ which back then in my country, it had a lot of insulting undertones attached to it. Due to this, she had issues fitting in class with everyone. The school uniform was a skirt, so she always felt uncomfortable wearing it. Almost everyone did not want to be her friend because she was termed as a ‘freak’. As asserted by Toomey et al (2013) eventually, the isolation affected her grades, so she had to leave for another school.

Reference

Toomey, R. B., Ryan, C., Diaz, R. M., Card, N. A., & Russell, S. T. (2013). Gender-nonconforming lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender youth: school victimization and young adult psychosocial adjustment. https://doi.org/10.1037/2329-0382.1.S.71