Including biological sex, can all manipulate what a person should identify with or as. Although many believe gender is and must be based on your biological sex it is more than that for those who choose to identify outside of their biological sex. For many its how they see themselves and what they believe they should present themselves. The way someone chooses to identify themselves can be different than their birth given sex. Freud had the opinion that both girls and boys, starting at birth, associated themselves with little boys and were only altered based on environmental influences. In Freud’s Psychosexual theory of personality development, the third stage is known as the Phallic stage. Between ages three and five years old A child is aware of the sex differences… which leads to the process of identification and the adolescents adapting to the same sex characteristics Young adults and children in small towns can experience many different types of challenges. Some can be by the conservative and less diverse communities and can also include limited access to community-based supports which can lead to greater feelings of social isolation.
For those who choose to identify differently than their biological sex isn’t given one definition to their sexuality. Say you were born a male, its on your birth certificate and you choose to identify by that. But later on you decide to identify as the opposite sex, thus being transgender. The gender spectrum is not limited to the specific identities that have been addressed. In today’s society thirty-seven states and district of Columbia have legalized gay marriage. As the society continues to grow we see small amounts of adaptation to those who identify outside of their biological gender and those who have same-sex attraction.
The LGBQT community (Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) does still feel discrimination even if the society changes their norms. In the LGBQT youth community there is more violence because some believe that they are too young to understand their own sexuality. Words such as “faggot” or “gay’ are used as a negative since to express things that are dull. There are not many resources for those of the LGBQT community while in school, they are what seems to be fighting to stay afloat at a place they are meant to feel safe at. According to the, Sexual orientation is being emotional, romantic and or sexual attraction to men, women or both sexes. Sexual oration can be different for every person.
Sexual orientation has gone through many changes over time. At least the concept of it has. During the ancient Greeks, the people were more fluid with their sexual orientation. There wasn’t a rule set in stone saying you had to be attracted to one gender or the other. Though the Romans around 529 issued the Justinian’s code, which said that if you were caught in the act of homosexual sex you were to be executed. The crunch of England declared that homosexual actions were against the Roman Catholic Church from 1225-1274. In 1620 the Frist sodomy law was passed in colonial America to make it so there could not be homosexual sex. The banning of same genders having sex keeps going well into the mid 19 hundreds for America. There were many hypothesis people had why homosexuals are the way they are.
The Zeitgeist in America about homosexuality 1800: Medico-Legal Study of Offenses Against Public Decency (1857) Ambroise Auguste Tardieu believed that being sodomites meant you had a form of Insanity. Though Darwin introduced the natural selection theory. Darwin’s theory is that homosexuality is the mistake in natural selection. (1859) A man named Karl Ulrichs brought up the concept that homosexuals are women souls stuck in men bodies. He called this the Third-Sex Theory of Homosexuality Developed (1864-1879).
Sexual orientation and gender identity are tightly linked together, and both are also closely linked to society and culture. For example, it is observed that both biological sex and societal gender roles play a large part in how both men and women express their sexualit. It can also be seen that sexual orientation may be linked to gender expression. For example, generally, an individual who falls into a sexual orientation minority is also likely to take part in behavior that is not expected, or nonconforming, for the individual’s gender. Though gender identity, biological sex, and sexual orientation may be interconnected, they are also all separate from each other, and one is not necessarily caused by another.
A person’s experience with gender, sex, and sexual orientation are also linked together by the individual’s experience within his or her cultural environment. For example, society sees homosexual men as more feminine than heterosexual men. This is because a sexual preference for males is treated as an inherently feminine sexual experience. In reality, homosexual males tend to wish to distance themselves from a connection to femininity (Hunt, Fasoli, Carnaghi, & Cadinu, 2016). Society, in general, can also pressure the population into gendered roles, regardless of conscious intention. Sex is a common theme in advertising, and anyone may see or hear words related to sexual behaviors during an average day. Being exposed to these sexual words inside of advertisements is shown to incline individuals to more promptly and easily classify themselves inside of the male or female gender, and adhere more strongly to that gender than they would in normal circumstance.
It is shown that society and culture may even use everyday, non-sexual behaviors to make a judgment about a person’s sexual attitude, and by extension, whether he or she is behaving in a masculine or feminine way, and furthermore, if his or her behavior is gender conforming or nonconforming. For example, in the United States, an individual who eats meat at a meal is observed as behaving in a masculine way, and one who eats other foods is considered to be taking part in more feminine behaviors. This is especially the case when the individual eats objectively healthier foods and in lighter portions. This observation is due to the widespread cultural linkage between masculinity and the ideas of confidence and willfulness. Meat is also associated with these ideas over lighter foods, or conscientious lifestyle choices.