Abstract
This study seeks to understand the multiple meanings of the phrase “gender identity,” as it appears within sociology, psychology, and feminist theory journal articles, in an attempt to address the phenomenon within which scholar-activists concerned with gender utilize critical terms in inconsistent ways. Illustratively, one sociologist uses “gender identity” to mean “one’s state of being a man or a woman,” while a psychologist employs the term to refer to the accumulation of multiple quantifiable aspects of gender, including one’s conformity to and comfort with their gender, without acknowledgement of this difference. Through the application of an original literary analysis methodology to 23 paradigmatic articles, this study aims to provide a minimal platform for these discussions of meaning so absent from current academic conversations. Rather than advancing any particular meaning of gender or the phrase “gender identity,” this thesis-length written project recognizes the variety of meanings already established but unacknowledged by scholars, outlining and analyzing five definition categories which collectively account for all 23 definitions. With consideration for the multidisciplinary nature of gender studies discourses and the real consequences of these discourses for gender minority communities, this project aims to create an accessible platform for outlining the competing ways that “gender identity” is defined and claimed across disciplines and locations, and among the academy, the blogosphere, and activists. Ideally, this platform would serve to uncomplicate future discourses around “gender identity” and lower one communicational barrier to greater gender justice.