L'educazione tra identità sessuale e identità di genere

Abstract

This essay aims to describe the notions of sexual and gender identity by exploring its educational meanings. It starts by offering definitions to common terms such as sex and gender. In particular, sexual identity is determined by the biological and physical differences between male and female, the biological explanation doesn't allow ample possibility to interpretation or individual choices. On the other hand, gender identity indicates masculinity and femininity as socially devised categories. In some aspect, gender and sex are very different concepts, so that we can suggest that sex is linked to anatomical, biological and physiological characteristics, whereas gender is related to roles and social and cultural representations of one sex rather than the other. However, another question is posed when it is declared that the socio-cultural building of one's own gender identity can be independent of the body becoming a self-determined element. In this case, education is out of play. The reference is to an ideological risk when the other person tells me who I can be, but also to an education that needs the limit and the mutual dependence as the foundation of self-understanding and independence. Educating between sexual identity and gender identity means educating for the acceptance of the limit of belonging to one sex rather than the other. The educational relationship is never neutral and it is involved in the building of a conscious sexual identity and in the assumption of gender roles always marked by reciprocity between male and female. In order for people to develop the awareness and recognition of this fundamental human reciprocity, it is necessary to observe it in significant adults and, firstly, in their parents.