Gender Identity and Expression

The presentation on Tuesday was very interesting and but kind of confusing.  I did not really realize the difference between gender identity and gender expression.  These are two terms that I thought were similar however, the “ gender-bread” paper sorted out these two terms for me.  Your gender identity does not have to match your gender expression.  How you identify your gender could be different in the way you choose to express your gender.  The way you express your gender could be how you dress or how you do your hair (mostly physical appearance).  When Nikki shared her family’s story about her niece it was very sad.  It shows the struggle that most teens have with their parents about gender identity and acceptance.  I know that it is difficult for parents to accept their child’s choice of being gay but they should also accept it because it makes them happy.  I wish that the group would have spoken more about sex-change surgery because I find it to be a very complex surgery and there are a lot of pieces that goes in to it.  The idea about tax payer’s dollars going towards paying for sex-reassignment surgery is a difficult question for me to answer because I do not know the specifics about the surgery in general.  The presentation overall was very informative and cleared up difficult vocabulary terms that I was confused about.