Thursday, August 18, 2011

Gender and Sexuality

I know that a lot of people will disagree with my opinion and I am fine with that. Everyone is welcome to their opinion. I will be upfront, and if you’ve read any of my other posts you will know this already, I do not believe in God as such. I am spiritual but not religious. I have not seen, heard, felt proof of God’s existence and am sceptical of the existence of an external omnipotent being judging me for what I believe or how I act.

I believe that sexuality and gender both have a spectrum and each individual falls somewhere along the spectrum. I think at this point it’s important to define the difference between sexuality and gender. Gender is your physical sex: male, female, androgynous, hermaphrodite. Sexuality is what you feel attracted to: heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual. It is where there two cross over or are in opposition to each other that we come up with the rainbow of diversity: transgender or transsexual are the predominant examples of this.

I wonder about what it is gender and sexuality that makes people so uptight. I’ve never understood why someone else’s sexual preference or how they choose to identify themselves is anyone’s business but their own. I know people hide behind religion, use it as proof of their beliefs, but I also know plenty of religious people who believe that God loves all his children equally regardless of gender identity or sexual persuasion.

The statement that really winds me up about this whole topic is that the people who are against anything that is not heterosexual and anyone who is not easily identifiable as male or female based on anatomical structure often say that it is a choice. There is only the choice of whether to reveal your gender dimorphism/sexual orientation or not. I don’t know whether it’s genetic. If it is genetic, I don’t think there is one specific gene that controls it. I think it is probably a combination of genes and identifying that combination could take scientists a lifetime, if not more.

So, my advice to anyone who believes that anything other than heterosexual activity is a sin and that there is no such thing as gender confusion is this: if you keep the peace so will I. I may not agree with what you think but it’s your right to think it. If you tell me I’m going to hell for my opinion, well, then we’re going to have problems.

If after reading this (assuming you don’t know me and haven’t read any of my other posts) you may well hazard a guess that I am perhaps a lesbian. It wouldn’t be the first time. I am happily heterosexual with no desire to change that at any point in the future. The point is, just because I am happy that way doesn’t mean everyone is going to be the same.

Whatever gender you identify with, whatever your sexual preference, I hope you find happiness within yourself and with a life-partner (or several, if that’s your thing).

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