The Social Construction of Gender

I have decided to talk about my reaction to a specific section of the text, the section under "Gender Identity in Everyday Life." I found the story about James/Jan Morris. I found this section to be very interesting because I have a friend that is going through James/Jan's process right now. He is a guy, but tells me that he feels like he was put in the wrong body, like he SHOULD be a female, but he's not. He talks to me all the time about how confusing it is for him, and how difficult it is to live in a body that he claims is "not the right one."
I'm sharing this story, because he recently had a makeover (without any form of surgery) and is now what he believes to be a female, who he was always meant to be. It was very difficult for me to be understand this whole process, but I tried my hardest to be there for him. The most interesting thing to me is that just like James/Jan he told me that his life has completely transformed because people look at him and treat him differently. He does say that there are certain things that he misses about being a guy, but also loves taking advantage of the way females are ordinarily treated.
I thought I would share this story because it goes right along with the section of the book and I thought it was interesting that my friend and James/Jan had very similar experiences.