Reflection 2 on Sexual Orientation

I wish that I had read this article before I did my first reflection.  The article by Peplau and Garnets specifically talks about sexual orientation on women.  They stated that female sexual orientation is influence by their environment.   Lancaster’s article talks about sexual orientation of men.  In Lancaster’s article he sites three different studies that were done to try to determine what influenced male sexual orientation. 

Some people believe that men were born that way and were looking for genetic marker that caused this.  I found all three studies really have no solid information to make any real determination what causes male sexual orientation.  I see no real purpose for these studies.    I personally think that whether there are specific “biological causes” or environmental factors makes no difference, people should be able to choose whatever sexual orientation they want.   Why are we spending so much time, money, and energy to find a solution to a nonproblem?  How about using that time, money, and energy to cure cancer, or another of other real problems we face in the world. 

I think that society is changing the way its view LGBT, but I think we still have a long way to go, especially in schools.  During my student teaching experience there was a girl (7^th grader) who told her teacher she was a Lesbian and did the school still have a LGBT group that met.  The student had heard there was one, but did not know how to contact them.  The teacher checked, but there was no LGBT group in the school and they did not know of one “appropriate” outside the school to suggest to her.  I am not sure how far this went as I left the school shortly after.  Thinking about our Critical Practitioner class I feel that this is the type of external (or internal) resources that schools need to have available for students like this girl who wanted to meet other students that were Lesbian.

My daughter also had a friend who told her parents and friends at 15 that she was bisexual.  All her 15 year old friends did not care what her sexual orientation was, she was their friend.  Her parents were not so happy and tried to “fix” her.  The parents were probably raised to believe there was something wrong if a person was not heterosexual.  It was how a majority of society felt when they were growing up.   The family had a falling out and I think just now ( 7 years later) have come to understand she is who she is.

My thoughts on this is that a good many people in the generation coming up are not bias about someone sexual orientation and I think as we moved into the future more will follow this view.  I believe that it is a slow evolution in changing society but we are moving toward erasing the prejudice around sexual orientation.    

Reading 15: - Lancaster, Roger N.  - The Biology of the Homosexual