ABSTRACT
In the communicative systems of other animals, the signals are instinctive responses to various types of external stimuli. Signals that are based on features that are biologically hardwired, such as genetic traits, racial properties, gender features, age, eye and hair color, and height, can be called inherited features. Typical entrenched features are native language skills, various religious, cultural and professional practices, and lifestyles. As these behaviors are also very characteristic of specific collective identities, they are effectively used as signals of these collective identities. Subcultural and lifestyle identities, particularly more distinctive ones, require considerable investments of time and money to be signaled authentically. The importance of signaling collective identity was first explicitly mentioned by Fredrik Barth in his seminal essay 'Ethnic groups and boundaries'. Gender identity signals a whole array of inherited, entrenched and elected features. The extent a boundary can be crossed by individuals is called boundary permeability in the framework of Social Identity Theory.
