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Role of society in gender identity construction
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What exactly is a homosexual? It is a person sexually attracted to a person of their own sex. Why do people become homosexuals? This is a question that has been asked ever since the first homosexual person "came out of the closet." People do not choose to become homosexuals. There has never been a proven theory of why people become homosexuals. There are three theories that try to explain why people become homosexuals, they are: the Biological theory, Psychiatric theory, and the Sociological theory.(Thio, 211) The Biological theory is broken down into three different parts. The first one is the hormone theory which states that homosexual men have a low level of male sex hormones and a homosexual female have a low level of female sex hormones.(IBID, 211) the second one is the genetic theory. The genetic theory states that people are born gay and society only helps their homosexuality advance. Researchers announced that there is even a "gay gene".(Nardo, 66) The last Biological theory is the brain theory. The brain theory states that a person who has a smaller brain is most likely going to be gay.(Thio, 211) The Psychiatric theory has evolved through many different thoughts about what is homosexuality. At first, psychiatrists thought that it was a mental illness. After it was proven not to be an illness many assumed that homosexuals were going through sexual orientation disturbance. Psychiatrists helped gays to accept themselves as being homosexuals. Another psychiatric theory was that homosexuals had a bad parent-son relationship when they were growing up.(IBID) The last theories are the Sociological theories. Sociological theories state that society affects a person's sexual preference. The biological predisp...
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...ause he was not open about his sexuality.(www6) The same thing happened with Ellen DeGeneres. She was famous and she came out of the closet. She was the first gay leading character in a series. Her ratings were high even though having a gay leading character was unusual. As people were overexposed to it her ratings dropped and her show ended.(www4)
My thesis was wrong because teenage boys do not become homosexuals because of the nurturing of society. The nurturing of society helps the teens with a biological predisposition decide whether they want to express themselves freely or hide themselves to avoid humiliation. In the case of Anne Heche since her father died because he kept his sexuality a secret she decided not to keep hers a secret. Also, because the school that Greg went to accepted homosexuality he felt more open to expose his sexuality.(Nardo, 72)
They mention the transition of “the closet,” as being a place in which people could not see you, to becoming a metaphor over the last two decades of the twentieth century used for queers who face a lack of sexual identity. Shneer and Aviv bring together two conflicting ideas of the American view of queerness: the ideas of the past, and the present. They state as queerness became more visible, people finally had the choice of living multiple lives, or integrating one’s lives and spaces (Shneer and Aviv 2006: 245). They highlight another change in the past twenty years as the clash between being queer and studying queerness (Shneer and Aviv 2006: 246-7). They argue that the active and visible contests over power among American queers show that queers now occupy an important place in our culture. They expand on the fact that queerness, real, and performed, is everywhere (Shneer and Aviv 2006: 248). This source shows the transformation in American culture of the acceptance of queerness. It makes an extremely critical resource by providing evidence of the changes in culture throughout the last two decades. Having the information that queerness is becoming more accepted in culture links to a higher percentage of LGBTQ youths becoming comfortable with their sexual identity. However, compared to the other sources, this
Throughout research, there is an understanding of the possibility of there being a relationship connection between past traumatic events of adolescents to changing their life style from heterosexual to homosexual. What is considered an adolescent for this study are adolescents between the ages of 13-17 because once you are the age 18 you are considered a legal adult in the United States. The study will take place looking at the age bracket of adolescents, which live in the United States. In this, the research will be looking at th...
The finding mean usually relies in the shadow of the fathers' absence. This could be changed if a father properly trains his son to be candid on his instilled values becoming a man. Therefore, it is not an uplifting question of why homosexuals occurs in the post-modern era. Genes may be related to the development of sexual orientation, recent studies shows that an increased choice of homosexuality in men whose mothers previously carried to many male children.
Andrew Sullivan, author of, What is a Homosexual, portrays his experience growing up; trapped in his own identity. He paints a detailed portrait of the hardships caused by being homosexual. He explains the struggle of self-concealment, and how doing so is vital for social acceptation. The ability to hide one’s true feelings make it easier to be “invisible” as Sullivan puts it. “The experience of growing up profoundly different in emotional and psychological makeup inevitably alters a person’s self-perception.”(Sullivan)This statement marks one of the many reasons for this concealment. The main idea of this passage is to reflect on those hardships, and too understand true self-conscious difference. Being different can cause identity problems, especially in adolescents.
Many people cannot understand why anyone would want to get involved in homosexual activity. There are many arguments about homosexuality whether is by nature or nurture. Before we make judgments on homosexuality, we need to identify the causes of homosexuality. Homosexuality is caused by genetic, biological and environmental factors.
Sexual orientation is a term used to describe a person’s physical, sexual, and romantic attraction to another person, whether they be Male or Female. The term is relatively new and the idea of having a homosexual identity has only been around for one-hundred years at the most (APA).
The context of biology is that sex can never escape sexuality because they depend on each other’s coexistence. Biological involvements and social context have an integrative relationship. In society there’s no differentiating heterosexual and homosexuality because society believes homosexuality is essentially an innate aspiration that nature cannot change. In this situation the object of desire that matters is gender according to society. Society believes that homosexual men are attracted to femininity and that homosexual women are attracted to masculinity in their partners. So in the society of same-sex relationships it is believed that gay men and lesbians are fascinated with the opposite gender of the person. This is once again social context having an influence on sexual identity and sexual orientation. Sexual orientation is influential to the western cultures because sexual identity is linked to gender. When it comes to sexual identity in a relationship a strict distinctive rule must be confirm between male and female. For example in a same-sex relationship by society standards there has to be a male or female counter part to play each role. This displays that a sexual partner genders of greater importance to the social interest within society and sexuality. Biology deals with the actual sensation of sexual organs from passionate experience, it becomes receptive
Homosexuality can be described as a romantic or sexual attraction or act between people of the same gender, and it can also be a term used to refer to a person's sense of identity based on the same attractions or behaviors. Homosexuality is among the three main categories of sexual orientation, alongside heterosexuality and bisexuality, and up to the present day, the scientists have not been able to know the factors that determine the sexual orientation of different people. Some of them, however, guess that sexual orientation of different people is caused by a complex interplay of the hormonal, genetic and environmental influences, and it is not a choice for the people concerned.
Simon LeVay, a neuroscientist who studied brain functions and sexual orientation (Wikipedia contributors, 2014), published an article, “A Difference in Hypothalamic Structure Between Heterosexual and Homosexual Men,” in 1991, that suggested a biological reasoning to sexual orientation. The hypothalamus, which is a region of the brain that is involved in sexual behaviors, was assumed, by LeVay, to be a biological substrate for sexual orientation (1991). LeVay suggested that the anterior hypothalamus “participates in the regulation of male-typical sexual behavior” (1991). LeVay’s research indicated that there is a difference in volume of the third interstitial nucleus of the anterior hypothalamus (INAH 3) between women, homosexual men and heterosexual men. INAH 3 was found to be twice as large in volume amongst heterosexual men compared to that of women and homosexual men (LeVay, 1991). LeVay concluded that the INAH 3 is dimorphic with sexual orientation, meaning that INAH 3 is physically different when comparing sexual orientation amongst groups of individuals.
Currently in today’s society, coming out as gay is easier than admitting to a serious mental problem. This effect puts a burden on teens who suffer from problems and don’t know where to go; which led to the increase of teen suicides as seen in the media. In the average classroom size, about three of the twenty-four students have depression; not mentioning other common disorders such as bipolar disorder, panic disorder, ADHD, conduct disorder, and eating disorders. Without better programs in schools to prevent and inform about mental disorders, the current taboo on them, the bullying of students suffering, and the romanticization of diseases will continue to increase the negative effect mental disorders have on teens.
...r than on adults. Moreover, the students can avail the knowledge about homophobia, if the teachers in the schools assign the projects or assignments related to lesbian or gay topics, and then by the help of their presentations in their circle of friends can also let them as well as the others know about the consequences of being a gay or lesbian. In addition, the teachers can also organize writing competition for the students to compose reports on homosexuals and disadvantages of committing insecure sex by ways of homosexualism, and then the winning report is promulgated on the speaker of the school so that everybody in the campus can take the advantage of it. The therapists and doctors treating homosexuals can also be invited to the campus and the students must be motivated to ask questions or to give their views on gays and lesbians issues to clear their opinions.
The debate over homosexuality as nature or nurture dominates most topics about homosexuality. People often confuse the nature/nurture issue with the development of gay identity. In fact, the nature/nurture argument plays a small, insignificant role concerning gay youths (Walling 11). Homosexual identity is the view of the self as homosexual in association with romantic and sexual situations (Troiden 46) Many researchers have either discussed or created several models or theories concerning the development of homosexual identity. However, the most prominent is Troiden’s sociological four-stage model of homosexual identity formation. Dr. Richard R. Troiden desc...
In sociology, the LGBT community is viewed as a subculture to the dominant world culture. The community is generally accepted by the dominant culture and although the group has some of its own beliefs and rituals/traditions, it still adheres to the fundamental beliefs and cultural expectations of the dominant culture. Before being considered a subculture, homosexual relationships and variations of sexual orientation were classified as devian behaviort. Even before that, someone who experienced homosexual thoughts or tendencies was labeled as mentally ill. The idea of homosexuality being a mental illness appeared in the DSM until 1987. There are still remnants of homophobia today but the consensus (at
It wasn’t until the 1990s when an increase of gay representation on national television. Living in a world surrounded by television and all sorts of other media is an important part of our American lives. If a character that was considered to be gay or lesbian within a television show was often used for just one episode. Popular culture has made it difficult for gay characters and politics to be placed in a sitcom because for the longest time it wasn’t apart of the stereotypical culture. When Ellen DeGeneres decided to come out in the 1990s as herself and her character, it allowed a door to open for gay representation within our popular culture and
People learn this in the course of interacting with both the straight and gay worlds. For some apparent reason, hearing things likes homosexual slurs is enough to land you in a homosexual dimension and have you doomed because that’s enough to make homosexuality normative. A scholar known as Johnathan Ned Katz produced two pioneering books Gay American History and the Gay/Lesbian Almanac. In which he documents the different interpretations of homosexuality. He found that between colonial times and the 1970s, the meaning of homosexuality changed from a behavior (sodomy) to a type of gender deviance (invert) to an abnormal personality (the homosexual) and finally to an affirmative social identity (gay/lesbian).