**3. How is identity constructed?**

There is no single answer to this question, as identity is a complex and multilayered concept. However, there is considerable agreement that identity is built through our interactions with others, as well as through the stories we tell and, we tell ourselves, about ourselves. Furthermore, our identities are shaped by the groups to which we belong, as well as the cultural and social norms to which we are exposed.

Identities are formed progressively throughout life, although the most critical stages are childhood and adolescence. They are built based on the interpersonal relationships that are established throughout life, and there are many factors that intervene in the formation of an identity: age, sex, religion, culture, family, social environment, etc. The family constitutes, however, a fundamental starting point in this process, since it is where the first values, norms, beliefs, behaviors, roles, and the first notions of how individuals think of themselves are assumed. In fact, the first relationship we have with identity stems from the identification that our closest environment makes of us. As Torregrosa points out:

"Even before we can identify ourselves with our name, or with our body, or with our parents, etc., we are identified by them and through them. Our identity is, prior to our personal identity, an identity for others. Only from the others can we have initial news of who we are" [9].

Therefore, any idea we have of ourselves arises through the capture of the selfimage in the other [9].

Within the more or less wide range of possibilities that we have at our disposal, we can choose, to a certain extent, with what, and with what not to identify. Although, paradoxically, what we choose not to identify with can also be part of our identity in a conscious or unconscious way [5].

Later, as the relational environment expands, identity development will be subject to other influences [10]. Therefore, the construction of identity is a complex process that takes place throughout the life of the individual. As Marcús points out "... identities are built on the basis of previous significant experiences: they are based on historically constructed habits considering social and individual trajectories. So they are not established on a void even once and for all" [2].

#### *Perspective Chapter: Considerations about Sexual and Gender Identities and Their Influence… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.108686*

In this way, identity determines the way in which we see and interpret the world and how we relate to the social context. That is, as we have mentioned before, the conception that an individual has of himself will be a reflection of what his environment. It has led him to believe about himself, although this does not mean that the subject is completely passive in the construction of his identity and simply limits himself to acting as a mirror of what his context transmits to him. Each subject has their own personal ways of interpreting this information and elaborates it based on many other elements. For example, a socially stigmatized person will reflect that stigma in his identity, but that stigma does not come from within, but is produced by the social context. In the case of sexual diversity, we can find internalized homophobia, caused by the stigma attached to non-heterosexual orientations. Internalized homophobia would consist of the personal assumption of social rejection of sexual diversity by people belonging to sexual minorities [10].

Each subject has several nodal identities from which the other elements are organized. These nodes are not definitive, but rather vary depending on various factors and take on relevance depending on the context [11]. The most common are: nationality, sex, religion, age, social class, profession, etc. These are socially defined differentiation criteria, which constitute a collective knowledge and, therefore, are internalized by the individuals of that society, so they are part of their own consciences [12].

Understanding that identity is a social construction does not mean that people's ability to influence its creation is denied, but rather it underlines that this construction is carried out jointly with the environment "but whose rules of composition are derived from that context, and not of the organism that supports it" [9]. This link between the environment and the individual is what allows people to know their place in the world. As García-Martínez points out:

"The relationship with the world and with existence allows the individual to become aware of himself and thus define his identity. The question "who am I?" can only be understood accompanied by two other questions: "what are my relationships with others?" and "how do I position myself in the world?" [11].

### **4. Identity, difference, and power**

Identity is built through difference [13], because it is what allows an individual or a group to distinguish themselves from others. This requires establishing a border between the "identical" and the "different." That is, for there to be an identity, there must necessarily be an otherness or alterity. Only in this way can identities serve as elements of "identification and adhesion" [4]. This construction is not based on all the characteristics, nor on objective criteria, but is usually carried out through a selection of elements that are socially created as criteria of social differentiation, such as: class, sex, age, sexual orientation, etc. In this way, "identity difference is not the direct consequence of cultural difference; The particular culture does not by itself produce a differentiated identity; this can only result from the interactions between groups and from the modes of differentiation that they incorporate into their relationships" [11]. Following Butler, we can say that identities are constituted through exclusion, creating an outside where they would find constituted subjects as "abject and marginal" [14]. Bauman supports this idea arguing that "Identity means to stand out: to be different and unique by virtue of that difference, so that the search for identity can only divide and separate" [12].

The construction of an identity not only requires the constitution of borders that separate what is identical from what is different, but also supposes the creation of a hierarchy in which the "outside" is located at a lower level, while what is that remains inside acquires the quality of substantial, essential. This leads us to affirm that identities are constructed within "the game of power and exclusion" [13]. Expanding on this idea, Marcús affirms that, for the construction of identities, what is excluded acquires more importance than what is included, and that these differences are established through a series of power games [2]. Identity categories usually have a moral component and seek to establish a social hierarchy, with some groups being considered more worthy and valuable than others for possessing certain characteristics.

In these power relations, certain individuals and groups have the ability to impose the criteria through which limits and hierarchies are established and, therefore, to establish the definitions of themselves and others.

"The set of identity definitions works as a classification system that fixes the respective positions of each group. Legitimate authority has the symbolic power of making its categories of representation of social reality and its own principles of division of the social world be recognized as well-founded…" [11].

It is from these games of power that the lens of the gaze is established and through which the everyday becomes "just as it is." This position is determined by the different power relations (economic, political, and cultural) that constitute the different fields [15]. These categories tend to create and "reproduce social reality" based on the interests of those who have the power to control the creation of identity categories [9] and the ability to include or exclude others from these categories and the benefits that come with them.

This situation creates inequalities of opportunity and power because some people are included in certain identity categories and are therefore considered full members of society and its institutions, while others are excluded and considered outsiders. In this way, one of the main functions of these categories is to reproduce a social hierarchy and the inclusion or exclusion of certain groups based on the evaluation of their value and social importance [9].

In conclusion, identity categories are created and used by people to establish social relationships and communicate their social position. These categories are created and used to constitute and reproduce a social hierarchy and establish a social order. As Butler indicates: "Identity is a culturally limited principle of order and hierarchy, a regulatory fiction" [14].

A person can be made up of a number of different identities [16]. For Bourdieu, one does not have an identity, but a series of identities that imply a certain number of oppositional relations, that is, one is really an inhabitant of a specific field, of a determined class, of a series of positions within the fields, and finally, of a system of power relations that define and determine the identity of the individual. In this way, the content of an identity is determined by a set of positions within a social structure [15].

In this way, at the end of the 19th century, the concept of homosexuality appears within medical and legal discourses, considering it as a "global identity that is imposed on the subject" [17]. That is, what until then were considered only as simple sexual practices that did not define the individual who carried them out,end up becoming "identities and political conditions that must be studied, reported, persecuted, punished, cured" [18]. Thus, the totality of an individual's being is defined from a partial category such as sexuality, "taking the part for the whole" [16]. From that moment on, a progressive essentialization of sexuality, gender, and sexual

*Perspective Chapter: Considerations about Sexual and Gender Identities and Their Influence… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.108686*

difference takes place, until it ends up being elevated to the category of natural and placing them beyond any historical or cultural context [19].

Therefore, homosexuality is an invented category, a category that exists only in the cultural and social struggle of a society, it is neither natural nor universal. Thus, the invented category of homosexuality is a reflection of the generalized discrimination against sexual and gender minorities, inherent to the heteropatriarchal structure of our societies. Likewise, Foucault defines the heteronorm as a "dominant system of representation and forms of practice that privileges and normalizes heterosexuality as universal and natural" [17].

Homosexual identity is constructed from a medical definition, and the exclusion that it causes, results in power relations. The individual can only be thought of within the sociocultural parameters in which he inserts himself. Building an identity around sexual orientation is something that only non-heterosexual people do. Therefore, sexuality forms an important part of the identity only of those who have non-heterosexual sexualities.

Identity can only be built based on social schemes that allow it. For example, homosexual identity is constructed from a context of know-how that creates homosexuality as a determining characteristic of individuals, not only as behaviors. That means that "excessive" homosexuality can only be done within the context and in the parameters that marks the "medication". Consequently, the "homosexual identity" is created from outside individuals and assumed and claimed by the subjects who fall within that definition and, therefore, are excluded by it. In this way, we can affirm that, creating identities based on categories established by the same system that builds discrimination strategies, ends up being a way to submit to that system.

### **5. Redistribution recognition**

In this context, Fraser argues that, since the end of the twentieth century, social and political struggles have gone from seeking economic redistribution to claiming cultural recognition, that is, group identities [18].

This author suggests that there are two types of injustice: economic and cultural or symbolic. The first is located in the economic structure of society, and its solution consists of the redistribution of wealth [18]. The second is located in the social patterns of "representation, interpretation and communication" [18], in it would be found, among others, sexuality. The solution to this type of injustice would have to do with the recognition of diversity [18].

Therefore, redistribution would deal with material issues such as income, property, and access to basic goods among which would be for example: housing, education and health. For its part, recognition demands the achievement of symbolic aspects such as the elimination of stereotypes, the representation of minorities and their social participation.

The possible solutions that Fraser poses to this type of claims vary according to their degree of depth or capacity for transformation. The "affirmative" solutions are limited to making superficial changes without going into the final cause of the inequalities, while what he calls "transformative solutions" seek to modify the situation by acting on the root of the problems. Transformative solutions are more effective, but require much more time and effort. The affirmative ones are quicker and easier to apply, but it is necessary to apply them repeatedly, which leads to the stigmatization of the groups they try to benefit [18].

The groups or groups that seek recognition seek the affirmation of their specificity; While those that raise redistributive demands, are aimed at disappearing as a group. For example, the proletariat, would not aspire to recognition, but to its disappearance as a class, as well as feminist claims about gender, its goal is that it disappears, not to multiply. On the other hand, the claims of the LGBT groups will aspire to affirm their specificity as a group, as well as those of the queer theory that intend to multiply the genres and that these are recognized. Affirmative recognition solutions increase the valuation of disadvantaged groups, but do not affect the basis of these differences; While the transforming solutions of recognition, transform the assessment structures, so the differences are destabilized and, consequently, the identities [18].

If the objective is to reach a more just society for all people, it is necessary They are also transformative. The type of demands that claim only recognition create division in the LGBT collective, and of these with the rest of society. In this fight for the recognition of identities, some groups will benefit to the detriment of others. Bauman It expresses it as follows: "The proclaimed redistribution demands in the name of equality are integration vehicles, while the recognition claims reduced to pure cultural distinction promote division, separation and, finally, the bankruptcy of the dialogue" [12]. Because identity policies end up obtaining exclusion, since others are seen as the different and, therefore, as the enemies. While, if a community is based on universal values, it means that all human beings have the same rights and the same duties, regardless of their differences.
