The Issues of Gender and Sexuality in Society Today

Some of my biggest questions as regards psychology are about gender and sexuality. We know that sex is determined by whether the sperm contains an x or a y chromosome, but gender and sexuality are completely different. Sexuality is not determined by genetics, otherwise, all these straight parents wouldn’t have gay children. But it’s also not environmental.

People of all sexual orientations come from all sorts of different backgrounds and upbringings. But it’s also not behavioral, as many in the LGBT community have stories of their parents or other adult figures trying to abuse or teach them into being straight.

It can’t be cognitive either, since those same people likmish-mostly also have stories of trying to force themselves into being straight through thought. All the same, go for gender identity. Where-as sex is a biological A or B or sometimes C question, gender falls on a spectrum. Why do I feel comfortable with the sex I was born with, while others feel that they were forced into the wrong gender? And what about gender fluidity and people without gender? These aren’t explained by any of the above perspectives either for mostly the same reasons.

Also, why is society as a whole so against people who don’t fit the gender or sexuality box they’ve been given? Homosexuality has never posed a threat. Nor has bisexuality, asexuality, transgenderism, or any other mish-mosh of sexuality and gender. Yet members of the LGBT community are constantly attacked, harassed, told they are “unnatural”, and made to believe that they are just the wrong sort of people.

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The most convincing explanation of why sexuality is what it is is from the biological perspective. Homosexual men tend to have more active cells in the hypothalamus than straight men. So, in men at least, sexuality could be determined by the hypothalamus. But what determines how active the cells in the hypothalamus are? Is it genetics? Environment? Random selection? Who knows? This also doesn’t explain how sexuality works in women. There are a lot of lesbians out there and I seriously doubt they’re faking it. As far as people being against homosexuality and transgender and all that, that could be explained by a social-cultural perspective. Western social norms dictate that love and sex are to make children. They also dictate that if something is pleasurable without doing something for the wider world is selfish. Therefore, any love or sex that doesn’t involve making children is selfish. Over the years, this has become less extreme as infertile couples are no longer shunned and birth control, while still controversial, is widely accepted. Since many people see homosexuality as just sex with no love involved, they believe it’s selfish and therefore wrong.

Also, the belief that if something is different, it must be wrong and stomped out is prevalent in all cultures all around the world. Which is stupid.

An explanation for gender identity could also be biological. Though the differences in the female and male brain aren’t as enormous as psychologists have thought in the past, it’s possible that even though the body of one sex grew in the womb, the development of the mind might not have matched, meaning that a child might have the body of a boy but the brain of a girl and constantly experience gender dysphoria her whole life. It’s difficult to even imagine how much of a struggle that would be, much less figure out why it happens to some people but not others.

That’s what I want to learn about in psychology because as the gay rights movement grows in strength, it’s important to know what sexuality and gender are all about.