Then, bang on cue, he see his mother or sister in the buff. He then makes the pretty smart deduction for an infant of this age that she's had her penis cut off for being nasty to daddy and decides his won't meet the same fate. He dumps his mother, takes up with dad and toddles off into the sunset with a copper-bottomed male gender identity. How the fact that, as anyone knows, every Jewish boy loves his mother survives this transition is a mystery that is beyond the understanding of us ungodly non-Freudians. For those of us who have to follow a less than perfect route in our development, it is factors in the four areas of sex, gender, gender identity and gender role which will decide whether we are totally happy in our suits and trousers or will feel the need to reach for the lipstick and frillies occasionally.
Sex is the purely biological element of our sexual identity.
That is, the chromosomes, hormones and genitalia that make you born a man in physical terms and will allow you to mature into taking the male role in the sexual act in later years. This is true in the majority of cases, but once we move on from the purely biological and into the other three non-physical areas, the influencing factors become more numerous and less clearly defined. Gender and sex are usually synonymous for the majority of people and if you emerge from the womb with a penis, you will be of the male gender for the rest of your life. But since gender is to do with feelings, thoughts, behaviour and fantasies related to sex that aren't primarily due to simple biology, the variations, the grey areas and the uncertainties can multiply rapidly. The picture is further complicated by each society's idea of what is appropriate for males and females and by what cues, clues, rewards or punishments you have been given about being 'male' or 'female' since you were born as a blank page on which other people and influences would write.