Peer-Written Forward Steven Pedersen is currently a student attending Indiana University of Pennsylvania, and during our mutual time at this university I had the pleasure of meeting him in our English 202 class. Originally we didn’t have much interaction, but through the development of the course I was enlightened into more of the life of Steven. When tasked with writing a Sustained Inquiry Project I really got to peer into who Steven really was through his writings and personal interactions. Steven wanted to understand “How has questioning [his] sexuality throughout [his] life impacted [his] past, present, future and has it affected [him] as a person?” I personally think most people at some point in their lives have questions just like this and often have to seek or ignore finding the answer. When I was a younger I also has to struggle with finding the answer to who I was, and this lead to a lot of feeling lost and confused with no notable place to turn to for answers. When seeking answers it helps when there is someone or …show more content…
I have related to his writings greatly and they have affected me by allowing me to relate to them on a personal level. Reading through the project brought back memories of when I was younger and going through the same journey of self-discovery, this allowed me to be sympathetic and remember the struggle that people face daily with trying to figure out who they are in life and how it’s affecting who they are becoming, I’ve always felt a need to be more open with who I am, but after reading Steven project my drive is even greater to help the younger generation find help in discovering who they are and who that want to be in a safe environment. Hate will always exist but I think we will learn to evolve and grow to be better people thought being exposed to writings such as
There was an old friend that I knew back in middle school, named Daniel, who had learned that one of his best friends, Chris, was gay. Daniel questioned Chris, and seemed to criticised him, eventually getting him kicked out of his openly supportive friend group. The next year, Daniel turned out to be bisexual, and he tried to apologize for what he had said the year prior. I never knew whether he was purposefully ignoring his own sexuality, or if it was truly a new development into his real self. Diving into the concept of the real self, Kenji Yoshino, author of Covering: The Hidden Assault on Our Civil Rights, and the Chief Justice Earl Warren Professor of Constitutional Law at New York University, defines the
Living in a world full of social perceptions, expectations and limitations make it difficult to survive when everything about a person contradicts those social ideals. Humans are composed and influenced by multiple constituents: they are more than just “gay,” “fat,” or “white.” But because of a society filled with magazines, super models and stereotypes, it’s easy to lose sight of that. Secluded, pushed away and punished, Joe Schwartz lived most of his adolescent life alone, like many others, due to his sexual orientation. From reading his life story, a new perspective can be seen.
In 1970’s Laud Humphrey published the book The Tearoom Trade which provided insight on homosexuality in public places. After the book was published he felt comfortable to come out. Humphrey conducted a study to observe men engaging in same sex encounters in restrooms. The third person in the bathroom was considered as the lookout or the “watch queen” as which Humphrey posed as. The second part of his study he wrote down the license plate of the men he observed and then asked them to fill out a questionnaire. The questionnaire he stated was a social health survey. He concluded from his data that most of the men involved in these encounters were married or had acceptable lifestyles. Humphrey also concluded that majority of the men were socially
It was only in late Stage 3 that the topic of sexuality was approached – through intensive
This social assessment report is regarding Ryan Fritas, whom has three different degrees of separation from myself, which are sex, race, and sexual orientation. Ryan was born on September 21, 1998 in Santa Clara California. Ryan’s race is Irish, German, Dutch, and French, although, he sees that as being white. Growing up, his religion was determined by one aspect of his life, which was that he is gay. Ryan at first mentioned that he would claim to be atheist. Although, as I asked more questions he figured out that he believed in science. Ryan is in a stable relationship with his partner, yet he is not married.
Contemporary understandings of sexuality are not the same as back in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Understandings and terminology in the past hold multiple differences and similarities than our current contemporary understandings.
Sexual orientation is something that people hear about daily in the news, media, and daily lives of others, especially when it comes to the field of psychology and the nature versus nurture debate. For being as commonly debated and discussed as it is, there are many questions that come along with it: what is sexual orientation, how do people know their sexual orientation, what causes homosexuality, is it normal, is it possible to change, and can wanting LGBT, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender, youth to change lead to suicide?
Who am I? What is my place in the world? What do I want to do with my life? These are some of the most fundamental if not somewhat cliche questions that we as humans ask ourselves. From the moment of birth, we begin on our long journey toward not only discovering the world around us but also discovering ourselves. Although the journey of self-discovery is lifelong, most developmentalists agree that it is during the adolescent years that we seriously begin to consider the question of who am I? One of the most famous people to describe
In Is It a Choice? Marcus addresses probably the most regularly made inquiries about homosexuality and LGBT individuals. His answers are brimming with knowledge, mind and incidentally twinges with an insight of mockery. The book is sorted out topically, so readers will have the capacity to effectively discover responses to inquiries regarding religion or dating or whatever else may be of enthusiasm to them. Moreover, Marcus gives a phenomenal book reference to readers keen on diving more profound into the subject.
On the topic of the transgender community they understand the difference in sexuallity, gender, and a educated idea of what a trans-person go through in their day to day life. They know and understand that there is a lot of struggles that comes with being a trans-person such as what Derek Johnson stated here, “...think about the kind of struggle they may have gone through or may continue to go through, other than that they’re just normal people...” (Johnson). Open minded people are starting to come out more and not care as much as to what people think about them. They’re more focused on themselves and making others feel more wanted in the world and making sure they know they don’t have to hide and can be themselves. When proposed with the question ‘Does a transgender person have a choice on if they’re transgender or not?’ he replied with the following, “No, Because you can’t affect the conditions you're born in you can’t affect the way that your surroundings have influenced you if you see yourself as a certain gender then that's who you're and gender isn't more than what you think you are and that’s all that’s important.” (Johnson). The open mindedness of people hope a key factor on whether or not a person that isn’t in the “normal” is accepted into any group of today’s society. The knowledge of gender and sexuallity is commenly confused with each other but Derek seems to have a good idea of the difference between gender and sexuality, gender is how one views them self and wanted to be referred to and is comfortable as but sexuality is how one looks for a lover (Johnson). So far it is very clear that the mid ages of people have a very much so larger and more open mindset that can and is being passed onto the younger generations of the
How do you find out who you are when you have no idea what you are all about?
Throughout history there has been speculation about what influences sexuality in men and woman. Is sexual orientation biological or cultural in nature? There is a common misconception that sexual identity operate in parallel with gender roles( Sell, 2005 as cited in Wilkinson & Roys, 2005, p.65). Scholars have not came to an agreement regarding what actually comprise a person’s sexual orientation, however a sexual orientation has been deemed a cumulative experience and interaction of emotional and sexual feelings towards one or both genders (Wilkinson & Roys, 2005, p.65). The paper provides provides some clues as to what factors influence sexual orientation in men and woman.
Upon entering this course, my understanding of human sexuality was decent; I was aware of certain aspects of sexuality such as being straight, gay, lesbian, queer, transgender, etc. Nevertheless, I did not realize how expansive sexuality is; it never occurred to me that sexual health, prostitution, marriage, rape, sex trafficking, divorce, families, etc., all fell under the umbrella of human sexuality. Books and essays such as Renee Hill’s Walk Together and David Shneer’s “Out of School” showcased the multiple facets of human sexuality and how terms like queer are not directly related to homosexuality. While sexuality and homosexuality are linked, frequently, people mistake them as being synonymous; before entering this class, I was searching for a definition of sexuality, and often in the thesaurus section of dictionary websites homosexuality and or sexual orientation was considered a synonym of sexuality. Formerly, I too would have agreed they were the same, however, after taking this course, I concluded that homosexuality is just one topic in the broad discussion of sexuality. My understanding of sexuality now is that it
I believe one’s upbringings and childhood environment defines a person. In addition, I believe one’s life experience forms one’s sexual orientation as well as biological factors. I have been very sheltered in life and was not expose to a lot of things. For example, I don’t remember seeing gay people as a child. However, I do remember my parents talking about gay people, but whenever I asked what gay meant, my parents refused to answer. Therefore, I didn’t really know there was an option other than heterosexual. I question how exactly not knowing about homosexuality has played a role in my own sexual orientation; On one hand, I believe by not being exposed that led me to be heterosexual, and on the other hand, I believe I just don’t have the biological factors of a homosexual person. I do not know what makes me heterosexual and other homosexual. Furthermore, I don’t truly remember having an aha-moment about my sexual orientation, mainly because I haven’t truly had any relationships with people in general. However, it was very clear I liked guys beginning in high school—I fan-girled at every friend my brother brought home. I do find it strange that it took me until high school to actually want a relationship. I don’t know if this is due to being sheltered and told not to have a relationship until after twenty-five or if I developed later. I distinctly remember friends asking me why I didn’t fangirl at guys in gym class in middle school. Instinctively, the very next moment, I