4.1: Introduction

By now you know that sex and gender are more complex than the binary categories most of us grew up with. Here we will build on that to cover how people come to experience themselves as gendered. How does a child come to think of themselves as a boy, a girl, both, or neither? Why do some children develop a gender identity that differs from their sex assigned at birth?

This chapter covers several major frameworks for answering these questions, ranging from biologically oriented theories to social learning theory to cognitive and developmental approaches. As you read, keep two things in mind. First, most of these theories were developed without considering gender diversity, so we will evaluate how well each theory accounts for the full range of gender experiences. Second, even when a theory does account for gender diversity, no single theory explains everything. Gender development is best understood as the result of biological, social, and cognitive processes working concurrently.

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