sexual orientation

The direction of one's sexual interest toward members of the same, opposite, or both sexes.

Assumptions about the exceptions

The idea of an innate and idiosyncratic direction to the sexual drive of the individual — like so many ideas around sex — largely originated in the efforts of late-nineteenth-century sexologists to classify the vagaries of human sexual behaviour. Influenced by evolutionary science and developments in psychology, authorities such as Krafft-Ebing or Havelock Ellis wished to remove the stigma of sin or wanton debauchery from those whose sexual conduct diverged from the received model of heterosexual marriage for reproductive purposes. They endeavoured to suggest that those who did not conform, or conformed only with difficulty, to this model, were not necessarily lascivious sinners committing perverse acts for a corrupt thrill, but individuals who could not help themselves — individuals for whom, in fact, behaviour which might seem bizarre to the majority felt ‘normal’.

However, while the late nineteenth century saw the codification and elaboration of the idea of sexual orientation, the idea that there were certain kinds of people with certain kinds of drives which set them apart from their neighbours did have a less formal and scientific existence before that. It has been plausibly argued that, as a result of increasing urbanization facilitating meeting with individuals of like desires and the formation of subcultures, and additionally in response to legal penalization, a sense of homosexual identity was emerging from the early eighteenth century. ‘Sodomites’ began to perceive themselves not as men who might from time to time commit acts defined by the law as sodomy, but as men with a particular sexual identity, forming part of a community of similar men.

Initially, sexual orientation was very much about desires which did not fit into a simple model of a biological drive intended for the reproduction of the species. Being attracted to members of the same sex, aroused by pain or domination, or sexually stimulated by wellington boots, had no apparent biological purpose and could become completely detached from sexual activity with another person. The notion that being heterosexual and becoming a parent were possibly equally problematic was seldom registered: few scholars of sex took Freud's ruthlessly logical line in the Three Lectures on the History of Sexuality (first published in German in 1905), that ‘the sexual instinct and the sexual object are merely soldered together’ and therefore the development of a heterosexual preference also required explanation and was by no means a given.

Those who are aware that their sexual preferences are such as to preclude them from living the kind of life society designates as normal are conscious of those preferences and the difficulties they bring with them, and may also present problems to society at large, if only by complicating categories which are assumed to be clear cut. Those who have never had to question the path set out for them are unlikely to have as clear a sense of their own desires and preferences as being distinct from what society deems appropriate. They may be dissatisfied with their lot in a greater or lesser degree without ever querying whether society's prescriptions meet their needs. As Freud noted in Civilised Sexual Morality and Modern Nervous Illness (1908), ‘what a degree of renunciation, often on both sides, is entailed by marriage, and to what narrow limits married life … is narrowed down.’

Coping with it

Some cultures deal with same-sex-preference, the form of diverse sexual orientation that is perhaps most obvious, by assimilating the anomaly of sexual object-choice into an anomaly of gender. This may place the individual who prefers his or her same gender as an intermediate ‘third sex’, or situate the male homosexual as effeminate and the female homosexual as masculinized. In some cases these are recognized social roles associated with specific sexual practices, but in many societies although the roles exist as categories they are stigmatized and marginalized to various degrees, from being subjected to mild social disapproval and mockery to being penalized by death. Another way of integrating homosexual orientation into society has been through the structuring of male homosexual relationships into older man-younger man (or adolescent boy), in which the senior man is supposed to have a tutelary function in inducting the younger into full adult manhood. Behaviour which does not fit into these categories may be stigmatized, or else invisible. The macho male who took the insertive, ‘masculine’ role with an effeminate male, or the female partner of the crossed-dressed ‘passing’ woman, created problems for theorists. The first was often seen as hypermasculine with an excessive sexual drive, ‘perverted’ in his search for sensation rather than ‘inverted’ in his desires, the second was assumed to have been deceived by her partner or to be a shy, passive creature more scared of men than actively attracted to women.

While these may be the most obvious (and to many, the most disturbing) examples of sexual orientation, few individuals are completely free from some form of preference as to their sexual partner or type of activity. When someone is attracted to persons of the opposite gender, there may be quite a narrow range of actual individuals who are found attractive within that larger category. Again, those preferences which coincide with societal norms may go unremarked: a man who seeks out female partners younger than himself and physically smaller is not going to arouse much comment, whereas a man who manifests desire for women older or larger than himself is more likely to be conscious of a potentially embarrassing personal idiosyncrasy. Awareness of a particular orientation may also arise when an individual finds features attractive which are not currently fashionable: for example, plumpness in women when the trend is for supermodel slenderness. Individuals may also have specific situations in which their desires are most acutely stimulated: this is perhaps most noticeable in the case of people who invariably fall for unattainable others, or for partners who treat them badly in some way. Particular forms of sexual stimulation may also be desired, which may present problems unless the partner's desires are complementary.

Attempts at explanation

The reasons for such preferences are extremely hard to account for. There are many elements within sexual preference which it is exceedingly difficult to interpret as innate and part of the biological make-up. While identical twins are more likely than non-identical both to be homosexual, the likelihood only runs at about 50%: Bancroft, in Human Sexuality and its Problems (1989), hypothesizes a genetically-determined predisposition to react in similar ways to environmental influences. Though there may, debatably, be some innate predilection to become homosexual, the ways in which homosexual identity may be expressed are manifold and subject to a large degree of structuring by particular societies. In differing individuals in different societies such a predisposition might result in bisexual behaviour, in celibacy, or in becoming a drag queen or an activist for gay rights.

There are also individuals who may indulge in a particular type of sexual behaviour without its impinging on their sense of preferred identity. For example, homosexual behaviour is relatively common in single-sex institutions but does not necessarily lead to self-identification as homosexual or to similar activity outside the institution. Conversely, homosexual men and women may marry or have sexual intercourse with members of the opposite sex, without losing the belief that their ‘innate’ sexual leanings are entirely different. Furthermore, individuals have been known to undergo radical changes in their sexual preferences over the course of a lifetime.

Animal studies are not particularly illuminating. In some birds, imprinting takes place at an early age, and exposure to something seen at the critical stage of development is crucial for later object choice. However, such a mechanism does not seem to operate to anything like the same extent in mammals. Various forms of same-sex contact have been observed in different mammalian species, but these often serve the purpose of establishing dominance or submission for social purposes between individual animals or within the group, and to have a dubious relationship to sexual gratification as such. There are also cases in which animals in single-sex groups will mount one another, often at the dictates of a hormonal cycle: cows and heifers mounting one another is taken as a reliable sign that they are ready for breeding. There is little evidence, however, that homosexual relationships in any species are formed when opposite-sex partners are available and receptive.

Childhood influences of various kinds play an important role in the evolution of adult sexual orientation in the individual — for example, certain experiences can become associated with sexual arousal. Emotional experiences, in particular relationships with parents, can form patterns which are reiterated in the sexual sphere in later life. The reasons why similar influences (for example, among different members of the same family, with both heredity and environment in common) may result in different outcomes is, however, still obscure. Complex factors, involving idiosyncrasies of biological make-up, the individual's personal experiences, and the wider social environment, are probably all involved in the evolution of a person's sexual orientation.

— Lesley A. Hall

See also gender.

The biological basis of sexual orientation (heterosexuality, homosexuality, or bisexuality) has long been a topic of controversy in both science and society. A growing body of research supports the view that genetics and the environment work together to determine sexual orientation. Some issues remain unclear. First, how much of sexual orientation is genetic and how much is shaped by environmental influences, including family, society, and culture? Second, is sexual orientation a fixed trait, or is it subject to environmental influence and changeable over time? Two types of genetic studies, classical family/twin/adoption studies and biological/molecular studies, support multiple genetic and environmental determinants in male and female sexual orientation.

Twin and Family Studies

Twin studies are a classic tool for examining the role of genes. Twins brought up together share a similar environment. Monozygotic twins share all their genes, while dizygotic twins share only half their genes. Early twin studies by Franz Kallmann in 1952 and Leonard Heston in 1968 reported that if one monozygotic twin was homosexual, there was a greater chance the other twin would be homosexual. The likelihood of this was greater than for dizygotic twins. These studies were potentially biased. They recruited homosexual subjects and had relatively small sample sizes. Recent twin studies have examined all twins in a community without regard to sexual orientation, providing large, less biased sample sizes. In 2000 Kenneth Kendler and colleagues evaluated genetic and environmental factors in a large U.S. sample of twin and nontwin sibling pairs. Sexual orientation was classified as heterosexual or nonheterosexual (bisexual or homosexual) and was determined by a single item on a self-report questionnaire. There was a greater chance for both monozygotic twins to be nonheterosexual than for dizygotic twins or sibling pairs. Results suggested that sexual orientation was greatly influenced by genetic factors, but family environment might also play a role. One problem with this study is that a single item was used to assess the complexity of sexual orientation.

Katherine Kirk's study in 2000 involved a community sample of almost 5,000 adult Australian twins who answered an anonymous questionnaire on sexual behavior and attitudes. Multiple measures of sexual orientation (behaviors, attitudes, feelings) provided stronger evidence for additive genetic influences on sexual orientation. Heritability estimates of homosexuality in this sample were 50 to 60 percent in females and 30 percent in males. In 1999 J. Michael Bailey found that if a man was homosexual, the percentage of his siblings who were homosexual or bisexual was 7 to 10 percent for brothers and 3 to 4 percent for sisters, higher than would be due to chance.

Some family studies have reported more homosexuals had homosexual maternal relatives but not paternal relatives. This might support a genetic factor on the X chromosome and/or environmental influences. Other, similar studies did not find this. Thus, evidence exists for both genetic and environmental determinants of sexual orientation which may be different for men and women.

A 2000 study examined whether sexual orientation is fixed or changes with time through environmental influence or the effects of aging. J. Michael Bailey recruited a community sample of twins from the Australian Twin Registry and assessed sexual orientation, childhood gender nonconformity (atypical gender behavior), and continuous gender identity (an individual's self-identification as "male" or "female"). Familial factors were important for all traits, but less successful in distinguishing genetic from shared environmental influences. Only childhood gender nonconformity was significantly heritable for both men and women. Statistical tests suggested that causal factors differed between men and women, and for women provided significant evidence for the importance of genetics factors.

Birth-order studies found homosexual males were not usually first born, having older siblings. Extremely feminine homosexual men had a higher than expected proportion of brothers, not an equal numbers of brothers and sisters.

Biological and Genetic Linkage Studies

Biological studies looking at the hypothalamus have found differences between homosexual and heterosexual men and women. Some researchers found differences in parts of the hypothalamus, while others did not. What these findings mean is not clear because they were inconsistent.

In 1995 William Turner examined the ratio of males to females among relatives of the mothers of male homosexuals. He reported that the sex ratio was not normal in maternal relatives. The normal ratio, for relatives of heterosexual males, was an even split: 50 percent male relatives, 50 percent female relatives. The number of male relatives of homosexual males, on the other hand, was significantly lower than the number of female relatives. Also, 65 percent of the mothers of homosexuals had no live-born brothers, or else they had only one live-born brother. On the paternal side, however, the number of male and female relatives of male homosexuals was same as that found for heterosexuals, and the sex ratio of relatives on both the maternal and paternal side for female homosexuals was the same as for heterosexuals. These findings would support genetic factors on the X chromosome, which males inherit from their mothers, as a factor that may cause fetal or neonatal loss of males.

Molecular studies found a linkage between male homosexuality and the X chromosome. Dean Hamer and colleagues in 1993 and Nan Hu and colleagues in 1995 conducted DNA linkage analyses in U.S. families with two homosexual brothers. There was significant linkage at Xq28 for 64 percent of homosexual male siblings but not for homosexual females (Xq28 is band 28 of the long arm of the X chromosome). George Rice and colleagues in 1999 examined four alleles at Xq28 in fifty-two Canadian male homosexual siblings but did not find any such linkage. This could represent genetic variation, diagnostic differences, and/or different methods of data analysis.

In summary, family, biological, and molecular data support multiple genetic and environmental bases for sexual orientation, and evidence exists for childhood gender nonconformity.

Bibliography

Bailey, J. Michael., M. P. Dunne, and N. G. Martin. "Genetic and Environmental Influences on Sexual Orientation and Its Correlates in an Australian Twin Sample." Journal of Personal and Social Psychology 78 (2000): 524-536.

Friedman, R. C., and J. I. Downey. "Homosexuality." New England Journal of Medicine 331 (1994): 923-930.

Hamer, Dean H., et al. "A Linkage between DNA Markers on the X Chromosome and Male Sexual Orientation." Science 261 (1993): 321-327.

Kendler, Kennneth S., et al. "Sexual Orientation in a U.S. National Sample of Twin and Nontwin Sibling Pairs." American Journal of Psychiatry 157 (2000): 1843-1846.

—Harry Wright and Ruth Abramson

During the late twentieth century, "sexual orientation," rather than "sexual preference," became the preferred term among lesbian/gay civil rights activists in the United States for the classification they hoped to add to existing civil rights law. The terms of the debate grew out of the mix of moral, psychiatric, and legal discourses that had framed debates about sexual practice, sexual identity, and their significance since the 1860s. Those terms emerged from a much larger nexus of deeply embedded assumptions that began to undergo major changes during the second half of the nineteenth century as improving middle-class professionals conducted research and developed conceptual frameworks for organizing the varieties of human sexual functioning.

The prospect of building one's identity to some significant degree around the gender of one's sexual object choice is in all likelihood a mostly modern and urban phenomenon. Evidence clearly indicates that many cultures institutionalize same-sex sexual activity in some form. Much scholarly debate erupted during the 1980s and 1990s over whether other cultures ever developed meanings and practices around the belief that the gender of one's sexual object choice marks one as a particular type of person—a "homosexual" or a "heterosexual"—with identifiable personality characteristics and, in some accounts, some form of psychopathology if one's choices differ from the majority's.

Before the Twentieth Century

Historical evidence indicates that in the United States and western Europe, notions of "sexual orientation" in psychiatry, law, and politics emerged in the last third of the nineteenth century and have continued to develop since. Yet other evidence indicates remarkable continuity in the composition of gay male subcultures in the major cities of the United States and western Europe as far back as the seventeenth century. While many members of those subcultures were married, the subcultures' existence depended on the increased separation of economic production from family life that came about during the early modern period. That gay men were far more readily visible than lesbians reflects the extent to which cultural formations around same-sex desire were creations of individuals with significant access to disposable income and/or public space. Periodic police repression of those subcultures' denizens and institutions did not produce any systematic political organizing around a shared identity until the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in Germany and England.

Researchers first coined the terms we now associate with sexual orientation—"homosexual" and "heterosexual"—in 1869, with much of the important early work taking place in Europe. Richard von Krafft-Ebing and Havelock Ellis wrote systematically about variations in sexual practice; their work paralleled, but remained distinct from, related developments in other areas of psychology. Germans Karl Heinrich Ulrichs and Magnus Hirschfeld and Englishmen John Addington Symonds and Edward Carpenter pioneered advocacy of equal treatment for sexual minorities, borrowing from and modifying the ideas of Krafft-Ebing and Ellis. Krafft-Ebing and Ellis, Ulrichs, Hirschfeld, Symonds, and Carpenter also inspired the Chicago activist Henry Gerber, who in 1924 founded the Society for Human Rights, the first known homophile organization in the United States. In 1925 police raided his apartment, arrested him, and confiscated his membership list, all without a warrant.

Similarly, lesbian couples existed throughout early modern European and American history. The large cohort of never-married women who led the social reform movements of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in the United States produced numerous "Boston marriages" of female couples who shared households. Any sexual activity these women engaged in typically caused little if any suspicion at the time, but has since produced considerable historical debate. More famous were such unapologetically lesbian expatriates as Gertrude Stein, Alice B. Toklas, and Natalie Barney.

Categories of Sexual Identity

The much-publicized 1929 trial to determine if British novelist Radclyffe Hall's The Well of Loneliness violated New York obscenity statutes with its depiction of a lesbian life encapsulated the debates of the previous sixty years and presaged future disputes about the characteristics associated with homosexual identity. The disinclination to attribute a sexual component to the intense romantic friendships between men and between women of the late nineteen century had increasingly given way to a strong suspicion about same-sex relationships as sexologists and psychiatrists began to impute sexual activity to such relationships with or without evidence. Contemporary observers found in The Well of Loneliness an overly positive portrayal of lesbian identity (in contrast to late-twentieth-century critics, who found in the novel the worst sort of negative stereotype), which they understood exclusively in terms of psychopathology. As indicated by the cases of Gerber and Hall, however, the emergence of a medical explanation for homosexuality in terms of mental illness did not automatically settle the question of how the law in the United States should treat such persons. Most sexologists and psychiatrists called for an end to legal persecution of what they called homosexuals in favor of treatment designed to "cure" what they considered a developmental failure. But major legislative and policy changes would have to await the increasingly militant social movement of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender persons that emerged after World War II.

Indeed, the efforts of certain medical experts notwithstanding, the new notion that acts of sodomy indicated a homosexual person served more often to buttress than undermine the sorts of moral condemnation that led to legal restrictions. The framework for efforts to cure lesbians and gay men, and to continue legal sanctions against them, rested heavily on psychoanalytic theory, which posited heterosexual identity and practice as the only "mature" outcome of sexual development. Sigmund Freud, the originator of psychoanalysis, famously wrote to an American woman in response to a letter asking about her gay son. Freud stated that he considered homosexual identity a failure of development, but he also stated that he saw no reason for either treatment or prosecution of homosexuals. American psychiatrists and psychoanalysts mostly disagreed until the 1970s.

From their own perspective, sexologists, psychiatrists, and others who conducted research into the proliferating categories of sexual identity from roughly 1869 to 1970 rigorously separated their scientific work from political considerations. They saw their proliferating taxonomies of sexual perversions as empirical reflections of the cases they observed. To modern historians, though, the conceptual frameworks that researchers brought to questions of sexual practice and identity clearly reveal anxieties and assumptions about proper gender roles and social order, especially in terms of race and class, as well as proper sexual activity. The first late-nineteenth-century studies of women who passed as men and/or engaged in sexual relationships with other women described those women as "inverts" and emphasized their gender nonconformity as much as their sexual practice. In the context of official assumptions about male sexual aggressiveness and female sexual passivity, any sexual initiative by a woman could be read only as her adoption of an inappropriately masculine identity. Such research into sexuality during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries paralleled other attempts to naturalize the existing order by finding the roots not only of sexual identity, but also of racial, gender, and class identity and even of the propensity for criminal activity, in the physiological dictates of a biological body.

The conjunction between sexual and racial identity, on one hand, and national identity on the other became clear with restrictions on immigration, beginning with the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. In 1917, Congress adopted a set of exclusions based on the medical expertise of public health officials. The "constitutional psychopathic inferiority" category included "constitutional psychopaths and inferiors, the moral imbeciles, the pathological liars and swindlers, the defective delinquents, many of the vagrants and cranks, and persons with abnormal sexual instincts," according to a Public Health Service report. Exclusions aimed at lesbian and gay aliens, variously defined, would remain in American immigration law until 1990.

Debates among legal and medical elites had relatively little impact outside the self-improving middle class before World War II. Major cities continued to harbor significant subcultures of men and women for whom same-sex relationships were central to their lives, but the evidence from New York City indicates that it was still possible, especially for working-class men, to enjoy the occasional sexual encounter with a "fairy" or "faggot," a man who accepted a feminized gender identity as part of his decision to reveal his sexual attraction to other men. The man who played the insertive role, whether in oral or anal intercourse, could retain his identity as "normal," not "heterosexual," because that category was as class-specific and as recent as "homosexual."

Anti-Gay and Lesbian Policies and Practices

Henry Gerber's pioneering resistance to persecution based on sexual identity remained unemulated in the United States until after World War II, a conflict that would prove as significant for notions of sexual orientation—and for political organizing around them—as it did for all other areas of American life. During the 1930s, the Nazis systematically destroyed the work of sex researcher and reformer Magnus Hirschfeld, a Jewish physician who led a vigorous civil rights movement in Germany until Hitler assumed power in January 1933. The following May, Nazi youth raided Hirschfeld's Institute of Sexual Research and publicly burned its contents. The Nazis strengthened existing laws against same-sex sexual activity and sent violators to concentration camps.

In the United States, anti-gay policies were less heavy-handed. Before World War II, various state and local laws prohibited not only sodomy, but also such practices as appearing publicly in the dress of the "opposite" gender. Sodomy laws provided justification for arresting lesbians as well as gay men in those jurisdictions where the courts applied the laws to cunnilingus or other lesbian sexual activity. The vagueness of those laws, often relying on terms such as "crimes against nature," left wide latitude for decisions about enforcement. Even in the absence of arrest and trial, however, lesbians and gay men suffered by the existence of such legislation, which served as de facto permission for various forms of harassment, from garden-variety taunting on the street through denial of child custody to lesbian mothers, whom the court presumed to violate sodomy laws.

Despite the legal obstacles, lesbians and gay men managed to create relatively visible identities and enclaves at least in major American cities before World War II. A flourishing, highly visible gay male subculture emerged in New York City during the 1890s and continued through the beginnings of the Great Depression of the 1930s. Economic hardship brought cultural conservatism and a consequent crackdown on the bars, drag balls, and other spaces where gay men had congregated—often entertaining large crowds of "straight" or "normal" people in the process—during the preceding decades. Undoubtedly, New York City was unique in this respect as in many others, but evidence indicates the existence of lesbian and gay networks and subcultures in other cities during this period as well.

World War II and the Emergence of Political Activity

During World War II military leaders for the first time relied heavily on psychiatric classifications as the basis for excluding various "undesirables" from the military and for discharging those who managed to get in anyway. However, wide variation in the attitudes of military psychiatrists and officers combined with a dire need for personnel to produce huge discrepancies in the treatment of men and women whose same-sex activity became known. Official policy called for their dishonorable discharge, but many either conducted themselves such that they never got caught or had the good fortune to serve under a commander who looked the other way.

The war contributed to future political organizing around issues of sexual practice and identity in at least two ways. It created a pool of increasingly politicized veterans who saw their dishonorable discharges for homosexuality as an injustice. It also left large numbers of discharged military personnel and wartime industrial workers in major cities where they could build their identities around their sexual desires. During the 1950s, two major divisions emerged that through the rest of the twentieth century would undermine the social and political solidarity among homosexuals that the diagnostic term implied. These divisions were reflected in the creation of the first two major postwar homophile organizations, the Mattachine Society and the Daughters of Bilitis.

The existence of two separate organizations was the result of distinct sets of priorities for lesbians and gay men, which constituted the first division. The mostly male Mattachine Society focused on the police entrapment and prosecution of men who cruised for sex in public places. The women who formed the Daughters of Bilitis were more concerned about problems such as child custody and the needs for social interaction of their members, who were less likely to have the sorts of public outlets that gay men had created. The two organizations adopted very similar approaches to reform, emphasizing education and efforts at conformity. But tensions between lesbians and gay men in political organizations persisted.

The second division lay in the distinction between radical and reformist agendas. The five men who formed the Mattachine Society in Los Angeles in 1950 were all current or former members of the Communist Party who used organizing techniques and tools of political analysis that they had learned from their Party work. They began to develop an account of homosexual identity as a distinct cultural and political phenomenon around which they could build a movement of resistance to oppression, including open challenges to police entrapment and other forms of discrimination. During the second Red Scare, the period of McCarthyism from roughly 1950 to 1954, the federal government fired more workers for suspicion of homosexuality than for suspicion of communism. But most members of the Mattachine Society proved unwilling to fight both battles at once. In 1953, conservative members took over as the communist founders and their allies left the organization. The conservatives chose to minimize the differences between homosexuals and the heterosexual majority by using activities such as blood drives to establish themselves as solid citizens. Just as gender difference would continue to define lesbian and gay civil rights organizing, so the movement would continue to split between those who saw sexual minorities as one among many that labored under an oppressive system in dire need of fundamental change and those who hoped to assimilate as lesbians and gay men with the surrounding society.

A surprising element entered the debate with the publication of the Kinsey Reports on the sexual behavior of human males in 1948 and of human females in 1953. Alfred Kinsey, an entomologist by training, changed dramatically the study of sex by focusing on individuals' reports of their activities without relying on a predetermined moral or developmental framework. He concluded that 95 percent of the population violated the law with their sexual activity, that one-third of adult males had had some sort of homosexual experience, and that roughly 10 percent of the United States population was lesbian or gay. Kinsey's figures, especially the estimate of the lesbian/gay population, would continue to play a central role in debates over lesbian/gay civil rights, with activists trumpeting the 10 percent figure as part of their demand for political recognition and opponents disputing it with their own estimates, while vilifying Kinsey himself at every opportunity.

Growing Militance and Growing Success

Discrimination in federal employment and security clearances became a major focal point for homophile organizing during the late 1950s and early 1960s. The Washington, D.C., chapter of the Mattachine Society organized pickets at various major public buildings, including the White House, in 1965. Though small, these demonstrations involved public acknowledgment of lesbian and gay identity, which was a huge step at the time, even for activists. That same year, in a general liberalizing of immigration law that removed the racist national origins quota system, Congress reinforced the prohibition on lesbian and gay aliens. Ten years later, however, after losing a federal court decision, the Civil Service Commission announced that it would no longer claim homosexual identity as a basis for discrimination in federal employment. Therefore, President William Jefferson Clinton technically added nothing new in 1998 when he put "sexual orientation" on a list of categories by which federal employers must not discriminate. But the symbolic gesture did precipitate an amendment in the House of Representatives to repeal it, which failed by a vote of 252 to 176. The issue at that point had solidified into a dispute between those who supported extending protections against discrimination based on race and gender to include sexual orientation and those who opposed such extension.

A major prop used to justify discrimination based on sexual orientation was the claim that all homosexuals suffered some psychopathology. During the 1950s, psychologist Evelyn Hooker had established that mental health professionals using standard diagnostic techniques could not reliably distinguish homosexual from heterosexual men. Critics of the psychopathology claim noted that its proponents consistently based all of their findings on populations that were incarcerated or had sought counseling without bothering to determine if those populations were representative of homosexuals as a whole. With the growing militance of the lesbian and gay civil rights movement after the still-celebrated Stonewall Riots of June 1969, the official characterization of homosexuality as mental illness by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) became a target for protest. Activists at first disrupted APA meetings, shouting down psychiatrists who claimed to have cured lesbians and gay men by making heterosexuals of them. Sympathetic psychiatrists arranged for panels at subsequent meetings on which lesbian and gay activists could present evidence and argument for their mental health. In 1973, the APA officially decided to eliminate homosexuality as a diagnosis, but a significant minority dissented. Adherents of the thesis that homosexuality is a psychopathology increasingly allied themselves with political conservatives, emerging again during the late 1990s to support the Christian right's "ex-gay" movement of individuals who claimed to have converted to heterosexuality as part of their conversion to Christianity.

During the early 1970s, lesbian and gay activists enjoyed several successes, getting sodomy laws repealed and rights laws enacted in numerous jurisdictions. In 1977, however, voters in Dade County, Florida, repealed a lesbian and gay rights ordinance by almost 70 percent, setting off a series of similar repeals in Wichita, Kansas, St. Paul, Minnesota, and other locations. Christian conservatives led the charge in repeal efforts, claiming that homosexuality was a moral failing, not a minority identity, and therefore deserved no civil rights protections. Although the National Gay Task Force had existed since 1973, the Dade County ordinance fight was a major event in forging a national sense of political solidarity among lesbians and gay men. Similarly, the election of gay activist Harvey Milk to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1978 cemented that city's status as the center of lesbian and gay culture and politics in the United States.

During the 1980s, the epidemic of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) dramatically increased the sense of political solidarity among lesbians and gay men around the nation. Persons with AIDS, facing indifference to their situation from the administration of President Ronald Reagan, began lobbying Congress successfully for increased spending on research and treatment. In 1986, the U.S. Supreme Court further galvanized the political movement of gays and lesbians by upholding Georgia's sodomy statute against a privacy rights challenge. By 2000, however, nine state supreme courts, including Georgia's, had struck down sodomy laws under state constitutions, while twenty-six state legislatures had repealed their sodomy laws.

The 1990s proved a banner decade. The Hate Crimes Statistics Act included crimes motivated by bias against the victim's sexual orientation; it was the first federal law to use the category. Also, Congress passed both the Ryan White CARES Act to provide major funds for AIDS services and treatment and an immigration reform law that removed the prohibition on lesbian and gay aliens. The 1992 presidential election brought about a resurgence of debate over various lesbian and gay rights issues, but especially the ban on openly lesbian and gay military personnel. Colin Powell, the African American chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, claimed that race was a "benign" characteristic for military service, but that sexual orientation was not. That year, Colorado voters amended their constitution to repeal all existing local lesbian and gay rights ordinances and to forbid their enactment in the future. In Romer v. Evans (1996), the U.S. Supreme Court struck down that amendment on equal protection grounds but without specifying sexual orientation as a "suspect classification," which would have placed sexual orientation on a par with race as a category that automatically triggers the highest level of judicial scrutiny.

By the end of the twentieth century, much lesbian and gay rights organizing focused on same-sex marriage and the Employment Nondiscrimination Act, a bill to prohibit employment discrimination based on sexual orientation. Twenty-six years of organizing and lobbying had produced major changes in public understanding around issues of sexual orientation, but as yet, few of the public policy changes that the lesbian and gay rights movement sought.

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Murdoch, Joyce, and Deb Price. Courting Justice: Gay Men and Lesbians v. the Supreme Court. New York: Basic Books, 2001.

Roscoe, Will. Changing Ones: Third and Fourth Genders in Native North America. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998.

Shilts, Randy. And the Band Played On: People, Politics, and the AIDS Epidemic. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1987.

Turner, William B. A Genealogy of Queer Theory. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2000.

Because adolescence is a time of transition from childhood into adulthood, adolescents are "journey people" - neither adults nor children, but traveling somewhere in between. Their identities on all levels are dynamic and convoluted. They are changing rapidly and often unevenly on physical, emotional, intellectual, moral, and spiritual levels.

The sexual identity of an adolescent is also being formed, and it cuts across all categories of human development. Sexual orientation, or the primary direction of one's romantic, relational, and psychological desires, is in flux for many adolescents. Sexual orientation and the personal, communal, societal, and educational issues surrounding it are instrumental in the lives of all adolescents, especially those who find themselves experiencing attractions to those of the same sex or in the case of transgendered youth, those who are unable or unwilling to adhere to traditional gender roles (behavior that is traditionally understood to be associated with women or men).

While the inclusion of transgendered issues in the lesbian, gay, and bisexual movement is controversial to some, gender and sexual orientation intersect in inseparable ways. For example, many students are harassed in school because they are perceived to be lesbian or gay, not because they actually are lesbian or gay. Some individuals do not or cannot adhere to traditional gender roles in the way they look, dress, behave, or speak - for example, when a boy has many feminine mannerisms, or when a girl appears traditionally masculine in dress or behavior. A fear of being labeled gay or lesbian based on gender assumptions can affect students in many different ways, as when boys are reticent to participate in school choir or when girls become ambivalent about academic achievement. Therefore, this discussion of sexual orientation includes transgender issues. Also included are those who are questioning their sexual orientation or gender identity.

The Problem with Definition

It is important to note that the desire to measure, define, and keep statistics on sexual orientation and gender is a relatively new phenomenon in human history. The terms homosexual, heterosexual, and transgender did not exist until early in the twentieth century with the advent of modern psychology. In ancient times, same sex erotic behaviors and romantic love for those of the same sex existed as part of normal and everyday life. Some researchers and theorists believe that society has created categories for sexual orientation and gender to control sexual behavior and to create a catalogue of sexual deviancies. Society's need to classify sexual orientation and gender and attitudes toward people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, or questioning (i.e. sexual minorities) reflect society's assumptions about what is normal and who is welcomed and excluded. Educators should approach the labeling and classifying of sexual orientation of adolescents with great caution due to its potential for exclusion. James Brundage asserts that people are continuing to live with codes of sexual conduct established in Medieval Europe, and he calls for new reflections on an understanding of people as sexual beings in modern times. Living in a world, however, of what Thomas Popkewitz calls "population reasoning" that seeks to define children as members of groups with certain characteristics requires that people, however hestitantly, must acquiesce.

Sexual Orientation Hesitantly Defined

When a compass is moved, the needle fluctuates for a bit before settling on true north. Similarly, a significant number of adolescents will find themselves confused about their sexual orientation and gender before settling into their sexual identity. Many will engage in sexual behaviors with others of the same sex. For most, these behaviors are experimental as young people make their way to a heterosexual orientation. But, for others, the attractions to those of the same sex remain consistent as they continue to personally develop and become more experienced in relationships. Many psychologists theorize that one's sexual orientation is found on a continuum, that no person is 100 percent heterosexual or homosexual, and that some are right in between. Research is suggesting that gender identity can also be understood along a continuum.

Sexual orientation is also understood to be more than just genital-sexual behaviors and includes emotional preference as well as intensity of spiritual connection with another person. Those who fall on the continuum closer to being attracted to those of the opposite sex, which accounts for the majority, are commonly known as straight or heterosexual. Those in the middle (studies show this to be anywhere from 2% to 5%) are considered bisexual. When a person is physically, emotionally, and spiritually attracted primarily to members of the same sex, they are considered to be lesbian, if female, and gay, if male. Studies show these numbers to be anywhere from 5 percent to 10 percent of the general population.

It is difficult to design studies that accurately reveal the proportion of straight and sexual minorities in the adolescent population. Even if a survey is anonymous, those with minority orientations may be denying their attractions to themselves as well as others because of the societal expectation that the only acceptable and normal orientation is heterosexual (i.e. heteronormativity). Some adolescents may have sexual attractions to either gender but would not categorize themselves in the same way as the survey instrument would. Others may know that they are members of a sexual minority, but because sexual orientation is invisible, many force themselves to live as heterosexuals, thus feeling one way on the inside, but living another way on the outside.

The Impact of Invisibility and the Sense of Self

Although evidence shows that more and more individuals are coming out (divulging one's sexual orientation to others), minority adolescents are especially susceptible to the tendency of keeping their orientation invisible and silent. Instead, they choose to emulate their straight peers. This contradiction between a minority adolescent's developing internal sense of sexual identity and external actions and words exacts a great toll on their emotional and spiritual wellbeing. This disintegration (lack of ability to integrate invisible identity with visible identity) of the adolescent plays itself out through a higher than average rate of drug and alcohol abuse, depression, misbehavior, and suicide rate among sexual minority adolescents. Some reports show that up to one-third of teen suicides are committed by sexual minority youth. Spiritually, many adolescents find themselves alienated from their faith communities (either internally, externally, or both) and their family's spiritual traditions. Where do sexual minority youth develop a sense of needing to keep their identities invisible? How do they come to understand the world as a place that is hostile to their sexual desires?

Sexual Socialization of Adolescents

Heterosexual people often have difficulty understanding the trials of sexual minority individuals. Since the majority of people in the world are heterosexual (including the parents of most minority youth), most persons in the mainstream culture spend little time reflecting on their sexual orientation. However, if one were to imagine what it would be like to be a young person beginning to develop an internal sense of a minority sexual identity, one could quickly notice how modern society is hostile to and nonrepresentative of minority sexual orientations. The comments family members and friends make when sexual orientation issues are discussed, television shows, popular songs, books, movies, billboards, magazines, the content of laws and policies, and people's assumptions and expectations all teach children from a very early age that it is best to be heterosexual.

Debbie Epstein and Richard Johnson's work in elementary schools shows that heteronormative sexual roles are rehearsed and reinforced both in the classroom and on the playground. Children play games that celebrate heterosexual pairings, read stories with exclusively straight characters, absorb assumptions about people based on gender behaviors, and are asked questions by teachers and classmates that assume a future heterosexual orientation. In short, from the first day of kindergarten, sexual minority youth are sexually socialized to think and feel in a straight way. When these youth reach adolescence and discover that they cannot fulfill the prepared sexual script, school becomes a place that both explicitly and subtly makes them feel abnormal and deviant.

High Schools and Sexual Minority Adolescents

Citing a Massachusetts Governor's Task Force report, the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network (GLSEN) reports that about two-thirds of sexual minority students said they have been verbally, physically, or sexually harassed at school. GLSEN seeks to make schools safer through education about orientation issues. It also provides logistical support for teachers, administrators, and students who want to help make their schools more welcoming to and accepting of sexual minority students. In some schools, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning students, as well as their straight peers, meet (often in groups called Gay/Straight Alliances or GSAs) to discuss the problems faced by sexual minority students and share ideas about how to cultivate a tolerant atmosphere. The 1984 Federal Equal Access Act permits the formation of such groups anywhere that student clubs of any kind exist. This law, originally heavily promoted by conservative Christian groups to allow students to organize religious clubs in public secondary schools, applies only to public school settings where the administration has been found to have established a policy of making their facilities available to after-school groups. Sexual minority students in smaller or conservative communities are often more isolated, since the topic rarely, if ever, becomes part of the public discourse of the school. Advocates say the presence of GSAs makes sexual minority students feel safer. Opponents argue that GSAs encourage impressionable teens to experiment with homosexuality and a lifestyle that leads to unhappiness and death. Often, religious language is evoked to explain why homosexuality is unfavorable.

Even if sexual minority students are ready to talk about their sexual orientation (and many are not and just continue pretending to be like their straight peers), the level of support from and comfort level of the adults in the school can vary widely. Even counselors and social workers are often not prepared to discuss issues of sexual orientation with adolescents. Sometimes faculty who want to teach about the contributions of sexual minority individuals throughout history or want to support students individually are prevented from doing so by administrators and school boards. Parental pressure and perceived public opinion often keep school leaders from supporting sexual minority youth. In other places, however, teachers and staff display "safe zone" symbols (a symbol designed as a sign of support to students) and feel comfortable talking about sexual orientation as it comes up in classroom conversation or individual conversations with students.

The Controversy and Conclusion

In terms of attitudes and actions towards sexual minority issues and students, there is little uniformity across American schools. The majority of schools, however, are not dealing with the issues, and minority students continue to suffer in silence and denial of their own sexual orientation.

The sexual orientation issue in education is at the intersection of societal sexual, psychological, and religious norms with the school. While the legal system tends to defend the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning students to be free from harassment and to start GSAs, it has not held schools accountable for proactively creating more welcoming and supportive environments for sexual minority youth.

Ultimately, administrators, school boards, and citizens decide on the curriculum and policies of the school. Though the American Psychological Association (APA) removed homosexuality from their list of mental disorders in the 1970s, many still do not consider a minority sexual orientation to be normal or acceptable. Some religious groups such as Focus on the Family contend that adolescents can be converted to heterosexuality using a process known as reparative therapy. While mainstream psychological (e.g., the APA) and religious groups reject such therapies (e.g., see 2000 Religious Declaration of Sexuality,Morality, Justice, and Healing, written by the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States), their level of support for open discourse and action in schools varies widely. The school is simply the crossroads of a much wider societal debate. Sexual minority adolescents challenge educators to think about the tension between pleasing majority publics and serving all students. The presence of minority adolescents can encourage reflection, conversation, and changes in policy and practices that many educators are not ready for and yet which sexual minority adolescents cannot survive without.

Bibliography

Boswell, John. 1980. Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Brundage, James A. 1987. Law, Sex, and Christian Society in Medieval Europe. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Epstein, Debbie, and Johnson, Richard. 1998. Schooling Sexualities. Bristol, PA: Open University Press.

Foucault, Michel. 1978. The History of Sexuality: An Introduction. Vol. 1. New York: Random House.

Gibson, Paul. 1989. "Gay Male and Lesbian Youth Suicide." Report of the Secretary's Task Force on Youth Suicide. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Jagose, Annamarie. 1996. Queer Theory: An Introduction. New York: New York University Press.

Martino, William. 2000. "Policing Masculinities: Investigating the Role of Homophobia and Heteronormativity in the Lives of Adolescent School Boys." Journal of Men's Studies 8 (2):213 - 236.

Mollenkott, Virginia. 2000. Omnigender: A Transreligious Approach. Cleveland, OH: Pilgrim Press.

Popkewitz, Thomas S. 1998. Struggling for the Soul: The Politics of Schooling and the Construction of the Teacher. New York: Teachers College Press.

Rathus, Spencer A.; Nevid, Jeffrey S.; and Fichner-Rathus, Lois. 1997. Human Sexuality in a World of Diversity. Needham Heights, MA: Allyn and Bacon.

Rubenstein, William. 1997. Cases and Materials on Sexual Orientation and the Law, 2nd edition. St. Paul, MN: West Publishing.

Sears, James. 1992. Sexuality and the Curriculum: The Politics and Practice of Sexuality Education. New York: Teachers College Press.

Storms, Michael D. 1980. "Theories of Sexual Orientation." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 38:783 - 792.

Internet Resources

Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network (GLSEN). 2000. www.glsen.org.

Intersex Society of North America (ISNA). 2000. Frequently Asked Questions.www.isna.org/faq/index.html.

Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States. 2000. www.siecus.org.

— DONALD J. FRAYND, COLLEEN A. CAPPER

Preference for sexual activity with people of the opposite sex, the same sex, or both. (See bisexuality, heterosexuality, and homosexuality.)

Look up sexual orientation in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

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Sexual orientation is a pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions to men, women, both genders, neither gender, or another gender. According to the American Psychological Association sexual orientation also refers to a person’s sense of "personal and social identity based on those attractions, behaviors expressing them, and membership in a community of others who share them."^[1] Sexual orientation is usually classified according to the sex or gender of the people who are found sexually attractive. Though people may use other labels, or none at all^[2], sexual orientation is usually discussed in terms of three categories: heterosexual, homosexual, and bisexual. These orientations exist along a continuum that ranges from exclusive heterosexual to exclusive homosexual, including various forms of bisexuality in-between. The continuum between heterosexual and homosexual does not suit everyone, however, as some people identify as asexual.^[3] Sexologists see this linear scale as an oversimplification of a more nuanced notion of sexual identity.^[4]

Most definitions of sexual orientation include a psychological component, such as the direction of an individual's erotic desire, or a behavioral component, which focuses on the sex of the individual's sexual partner/s. Some definitions include both components. Some people prefer simply to follow an individual's self-definition or identity.

Some scholars of sexology, anthropology and history have argued that social categories such as heterosexual and homosexual are not universal. Different societies may consider other criteria to be more significant than sex, including the respective age of the partners, whether partners assume an active or a passive sexual role, and their social status.

Sexual identity and sexual behavior are closely related to sexual orientation, but they are distinguished, with identity referring to an individual's conception of themselves, behavior referring to actual sexual acts performed by the individual, and orientation referring to "fantasies, attachments and longings."^[5] Individuals may or may not express their sexual orientation in their behaviors.^[6] People who have a homosexual sexual orientation that does not align with their sexual identity are sometimes referred to as closeted.

Sexual identity may also be used to describe a person's perception of his or her own sex, rather than sexual orientation. The term sexual preference has a similar meaning to sexual orientation, but is more commonly used outside of scientific circles by people who believe that sexual orientation is, in whole or part, a matter of choice.^{[citation needed]}

Sexual orientation is a concept that evolved in the industrialized West and there is a controversy as to the universality of its application in other societies/ cultures. ^[7][8][9] As Michel Foucault put it, "'Sexuality' is an invention of the modern state, the industrial revolution, and capitalism."^[10] Non-westernized concepts of male sexuality differ essentially from the way sexuality is seen and classified under the system of Sexual Orientation. ^[11] The validity of the notion of 'sexual orientation' has also been questioned within the industrialized Western society.^[12][13]

Contents 1 Sexual orientation, identity, behaviour 1.1 Fluidity of sexual orientation 2 Measuring sexual orientation 3 Demographics of sexual orientation 4 Influences on sexual orientation 4.1 Environmental factors 4.1.1 Prenatal hormones on developing fetus 4.1.2 Birth order 4.2 Genetic factors 4.3 Innate bisexuality 4.4 Choice 5 Sexual orientation as a social construct 6 Perceived sexual orientation 7 Medical associations with policy related to sexual orientation 7.1 Australia 7.2 China 7.3 United States 8 See also 9 References 10 Further reading 11 External links

Sexual orientation, identity, behaviour

See also: Sexual identity and Sexual behaviour

See also: Situational sexual behavior

The American Psychological Association states that sexual orientation "describes the pattern of sexual attraction, behavior and identity e.g. homosexual (aka gay, lesbian), bisexual and heterosexual (aka straight)." "Sexual attraction, behavior and identity may be incongruent. For example, sexual attraction and/or behavior may not necessarily be consistent with identity. Some individuals may identify themselves as homosexual or bisexual without having had any sexual experience. Others have had homosexual experiences but do not consider themselves to be gay, lesbian, or bisexual. Further, sexual orientation falls along a continuum. In other words, someone does not have to be exclusively homosexual or heterosexual, but can feel varying degrees of both. Sexual orientation develops across a person's lifetime-different people realize at different points in their lives that they are heterosexual, bisexual or homosexual."^[14]

The earliest writers on sexual orientation usually understood it to be intrinsically linked to the subject's own sex. For example, it was thought that a typical female-bodied person who is attracted to female-bodied persons would have masculine attributes, and vice versa.^[15] This understanding was shared by most of the significant theorists of sexual orientation from the mid nineteenth to early twentieth century, such as Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, Richard von Krafft-Ebing, Magnus Hirschfeld, Havelock Ellis, Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud, as well as many gender variant homosexual people themselves. However, this understanding of homosexuality as sexual inversion was disputed at the time, and through the second half of the twentieth century, gender identity came to be increasingly seen as a phenomenon distinct from sexual orientation. Transgender and cisgender people may be attracted to men, women, or both, although the prevalence of different sexual orientations is quite different in these two populations (see sexual orientation of transwomen). An individual homosexual, heterosexual or bisexual person may be masculine, feminine, or androgynous, and in addition, many members and supporters of lesbian and gay communities now see the "gender-conforming heterosexual" and the "gender-nonconforming homosexual" as negative stereotypes. However, studies by J Michael Bailey and KJ Zucker have found that a majority of gay men and lesbians report being gender-nonconforming during their childhood years.^[16]

The majority of transgender people today identify with the sexual orientation that corresponds with their gender; meaning that a transwoman who is solely attracted to women would often identify as a lesbian. Female-attracted transmen often consider themselves straight men, yet some participate in the lesbian community.

For these reasons, the terms gynephilia and androphilia are occasionally (but increasingly) used when referring to the sexual orientation of transgender and intersex people (and occasionally, cisgender people), because rather than focusing on the sex of the subject, they only describe that of the object of their attraction. The third common term that describes sexual orientation, bisexuality, makes no claim about the subject's sex or gender identity. (See also Pansexuality)

Sexual orientation sees greater intricacy when non-binary understandings of both sex (male, female, or intersex) and gender (man, woman, transgender, third gender, or gender variant) are considered. Sociologist Paula Rodriguez Rust (2000) argues for a more multifaceted definition of sexual orientation:

...Most alternative models of sexuality...define sexual orientation in terms of dichotomous biological sex or gender.... Most theorists would not eliminate the reference to sex or gender, but instead advocate incorporating more complex nonbinary concepts of sex or gender, more complex relationships between sex, gender, and sexuality, and/or additional nongendered dimensions into models of sexuality.

– ^[17]

Fluidity of sexual orientation

The American Psychiatric Association (APA) has stated "some people believe that sexual orientation is innate and fixed; however, sexual orientation develops across a person’s lifetime".^[18] In a joint statement with other major American medical organizations, the APA says that "different people realize at different points in their lives that they are heterosexual, gay, lesbian, or bisexual".^[19] A report from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health states: "For some people, sexual orientation is continuous and fixed throughout their lives. For others, sexual orientation may be fluid and change over time".^[20] One study has suggested "considerable fluidity in bisexual, unlabeled, and lesbian women's attractions, behaviors, and identities".^[21][22] However, the APA also says that "most people experience little or no sense of choice about their sexual orientation".^[23] American medical organizations have further stated therapy cannot change sexual orientation, and have expressed concerns over potential harms.^[19] The director of the APA's LGBT Concerns Office explained: "I don't think that anyone disagrees with the idea that people can change because we know that straight people become gays and lesbians.... the issue is whether therapy changes sexual orientation, which is what many of these people claim".^[24] The American Psychiatric Association (APA) states, in a 2000 position statement, that they oppose "any psychiatric treatment, such as "reparative" or conversion therapy, which is based upon the assumption that homosexuality per se is a mental disorder or based upon the a priori assumption that a patient should change their sexual orientation.^[25] Similarly, in 2001 United States Surgeon General David Satcher issued a report stating that "there is no valid scientific evidence that sexual orientation can be changed".^[26]

In his 1985 book The Bisexual Option, Fritz Klein developed a scale to test his theory that sexual orientation is a "dynamic, multi-variable process" — dynamic in that it may change over time, and multi-variable in that it is composed of various elements, both sexual and non-sexual. Klein took into account sexual attraction, sexual behavior, sexual fantasies, emotional and social partners, lifestyle, and self-identification. Each of these variables was measured for the person's past, present, and ideal.^[27] By contrast, the American Psychological Association has stated that homosexuality "is not changeable."^[28]

Measuring sexual orientation

Varying definitions and strong social norms about sexuality can make sexual orientation difficult to quantify. Researchers may use different markers of sexual orientation, including self-labeling, sexual behaviour, sexual fantasy or a pattern of erotic arousal. A clinical measurement may use penile or vaginal photoplethysmography, where genital engorgement with blood is measured in response to exposure to different erotic material.^[29] In 1995, two researchers argued that due to a lack of research on change over time, there is a limitation on current conceptualizations of sexual orientation. They did not abandon the concept of sexual orientation, but concluded that "given such significant measurement problems, one could conclude there is serious doubt whether sexual orientation is a valid concept at all," and warned against increasing politicization of this area.^[30]

From at least the late nineteenth century in Europe, there was speculation that the range of human sexual response looked more like a continuum than two or three discrete categories. 28-year-old Berlin sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld published a scheme in 1896 that measured the strength of an individual's sexual desire on two independent 10-point scales, A (homosexual) and B (heterosexual).^[31] A heterosexual individual may be A0, B5; a homosexual individual may be A5, B0; An asexual would be A0, B0; and someone with an intense attraction to both sexes would be A9, B9.

Fifty years later, American sexologist Alfred Kinsey wrote in Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948):

Males do not represent two discrete populations, heterosexual and homosexual. The world is not to be divided into sheep and goats. It is a fundamental of taxonomy that nature rarely deals with discrete categories... The living world is a continuum in each and every one of its aspects. While emphasizing the continuity of the gradations between exclusively heterosexual and exclusively homosexual histories, it has seemed desirable to develop some sort of classification which could be based on the relative amounts of heterosexual and homosexual experience or response in each history... An individual may be assigned a position on this scale, for each period in his life.... A seven-point scale comes nearer to showing the many gradations that actually exist.

– ^[32]

The Kinsey scale measures sexual orientation from 0 (exclusively heterosexual) to 6 (exclusively homosexual), with an additional category, X, for those with no sexual attraction to either women or men. Unlike Hirschfeld's scale, the Kinsey scale is one-dimensional. Simon LeVay wrote, "it suggests (although Kinsey did not actually believe this) that every person has the same fixed endowment of sexual energy, which he or she then divides up between same-sex and opposite-sex attraction in a ratio indicative of his or her own sexual orientation."^[33]

Demographics of sexual orientation

Main article: Demographics of sexual orientation

The multiple aspects of sexual orientation and the boundary-drawing problems already described create methodological challenges for the study of the demographics of sexual orientation. Determining the frequency of various sexual orientations in real-world populations is difficult and controversial.

In the oft-cited and oft-criticized Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948) and Sexual Behavior in the Human Female (1953), by Alfred C. Kinsey et al., people were asked to rate themselves on a scale from completely heterosexual to completely homosexual. Kinsey reported that when the individuals' behavior as well as their identity are analyzed, most people appeared to be at least somewhat bisexual – i.e., most people have some attraction to either sex, although usually one sex is preferred. According to Kinsey, only a minority (5-10%) can be considered fully heterosexual or homosexual. Conversely, only an even smaller minority can be considered fully bisexual (with an equal attraction to both sexes).

Kinsey's methods have been criticized as flawed, particularly with regard to the randomness of his sample population, which included a large number of prison inmates. Nevertheless, Paul Gebhard, subsequent director of the Kinsey Institute for Sex Research, reexamined the data in the Kinsey Reports and concluded that accounting for major statistical objections barely affected the results. Most modern scientific surveys find that the majority of people report a mostly heterosexual orientation. However, the relative percentage of the population that reports a homosexual orientation varies with differing methodologies and selection criteria. Most of these statistical findings are in the range of 2.8 to 9% of males, and 1 to 5% of females for the United States^[34] — this figure can be as high as 12% for some large cities and as low as 1% percent for rural areas). In gay villages such as The Castro in San Francisco, California, the concentration of self-identified homosexual people can exceed 40%.^{[citation needed]}

Estimates for the percentage of the population that are bisexual vary widely, at least in part due to differing definitions of bisexuality. Some studies only consider a person bisexual if they are nearly equally attracted to both sexes, and others consider a person bisexual if they are at all attracted to the same sex (for otherwise mostly heterosexual persons) or to the opposite sex (for otherwise mostly homosexual persons). A small percentage of people are not sexually attracted to anyone (asexuality).

Influences on sexual orientation

Further information: Theories on homosexuality

The American Academy of Pediatrics has stated "Sexual orientation probably is not determined by any one factor but by a combination of genetic, hormonal, and environmental influences."^[35] Debate continues over what biological and/or psychological variables influence sexual orientation in humans, such as genes and the exposure of certain levels of hormones to fetuses. Freud and other psychoanalysts maintain that sexual orientation is influenced by numerous factors including formative childhood experiences in some cases.

Environmental factors

Main article: Environment and sexual orientation

Prenatal hormones on developing fetus

Main article: Prenatal hormones and sexual orientation

The hormonal theory of sexuality holds that, just as exposure to certain hormones plays a role in fetal sex differentiation, such exposure also influences the sexual orientation that emerges later in the adult. Fetal hormones may be seen as either the primary influence upon adult sexual orientation, or as co-factor interacting with genes and/or environmental and social conditions^[36].

Birth order

Main article: Fraternal birth order and sexual orientation

Recent studies found an increased chance of homosexuality in men whose mothers previously carried to term many male children. This effect is nullified if the man is left-handed.^[37] No similar effect was found in women.^{[citation needed]}

Genetic factors

Main article: Biology and sexual orientation

Research has identified several biological factors which may be related to the development of sexual orientation, including genes, prenatal hormones, and brain structure. No single controlling cause has been identified, and research is continuing in this area. At one time, twin studies appeared to point to a major genetic component, but problems in experimental design of the available studies have made their interpretation difficult, and one recent study appears to exclude genes as a major factor.^[38]

Innate bisexuality

Main article: Innate bisexuality

Innate bisexuality, or predisposition to bisexuality, is an idea introduced by Sigmund Freud, based on work by his associate Wilhelm Fliess. According to this theory, all humans are born bisexual but through psychological development, which includes both external and internal factors, become monosexual while the bisexuality remains in a latent state.

Choice

There is disagreement among scientists about whether choice could play any role in the development of sexual orientation.

Dr. Angela Pattatucci, a clinical biologist, said "'Lifestyle' is idiotic when applied to sexual orientation – would you refer to lefthandedness as an 'alternative lifestyle'? – but the problem is that through misuse by the media and in political rhetoric it's become ubiquitous.... When reporters use it, it is simply intellectual laziness. But some people adore that word, and the reason is probably in many cases, I'm very sorry to say, that it is such an inaccurate description of homosexuality, implying that sexual orientation is something one chooses, something frivolous or faddish, determined by what you do, as opposed to an internal orientation that is a component of what you are." ^[39]

Simon LeVay, a neuroscientist, has argued against scientists, including Dean Hamer, who claim that genetic research has proven that sexual orientation is not a choice. Referring to Hamer's testimony at a 1993 trial challenging Colorado's Amendment 2, which would have rescinded anti-discrimination laws prohibiting discrimination against homosexuals, LeVay wrote, "...the pressures of the trial drove the expert witnesses to take somewhat more extreme or simplified positions than they might otherwise have done. Hamer, for example, said at one point: "Since people don't choose their genes, they couldn't possibly choose their sexual orientation. The same goes for the question about changing. People can't change their genes. So that part of sexuality that is genetically influenced, of course, cannot be easily changed." This goes beyond the data in two respects. First, it seems to deny any possibility of choice even if the genetic influence is only partial. Yet it is possible to construct a hypothesis whereby both "gay genes" and a desire to be homosexual are necessary for a person actually to become homosexual. Second, it equates genetic loading with immutability, a connection that is open to challenge." ^[40]

Sexual orientation as a social construct

See also: Queer theory and Non-westernized concepts of male sexuality

Because sexual orientation is complex and multi-dimensional, some academics and researchers, especially in Queer studies, have argued that it is a historical and social construction. In 1976 the historian Michel Foucault argued that homosexuality as an identity did not exist in the eighteenth century; that people instead spoke of "sodomy", which referred to sexual acts. Sodomy was a crime that was often ignored but sometimes punished severely (see sodomy law).

Foucault further argued that it was in the nineteenth century that homosexuality came into existence as practitioners of emerging sciences and arts sought to classify and analyze different forms of sexuality. Finally, Foucault argues that it was this emerging discourse that allowed some to claim homosexuality as a human identity.^{[citation needed]}

Heterosexuality and homosexuality are terms often used in European and American cultures to encompass a person’s entire social identity, which includes self and personality. In Western cultures some people speak meaningfully of gay, lesbian, and bisexual identities and communities. In other cultures, homosexuality and heterosexual labels don’t emphasize an entire social identity or indicate community affiliation based on sexual orientation.^[41]

Some historians and researchers argue that the emotional and affectionate activities associated with sexual-orientation terms such as gay and straight change significantly over time and across cultural boundaries. For example, in many English-speaking nations it is assumed that same-sex kissing, particularly between men, is a sign of homosexuality, whereas various types of same-sex kissing are common expressions of friendship in other nations. Also, many modern and historic cultures have formal ceremonies expressing long-term commitment between same-sex friends, even though homosexuality itself is taboo within the culture.^[42]

Perceived sexual orientation

One person may assume knowledge of another person's sexual orientation based upon perceived characteristics such as appearance, clothing, and tone of voice. Perceived sexual orientation may affect how a person is treated. For instance, in the United States, the FBI reported that 15.6% of hate crimes reported to police in 2004 were "because of a sexual-orientation bias."^[43]

Under the UK Employment Equality Regulations, "workers or job applicants must not be treated less favourably because of their sexual orientation, their perceived sexual orientation or because they associate with someone of a particular sexual orientation."^[44]

Medical associations with policy related to sexual orientation

Australia

• Australian Medical Association[3]

China

• Chinese Society of Psychiatry

United States

• American Academy of Pediatrics [4]
• American Medical Association[5]
• American Medical Student Association [6]
• American Psychological Association (for public)[7] (for educators)[8]
• Catholic Medical Association^[45]
• Christian Medical and Dental Association [9]

See also

Sexuality portal

LGBT portal

• Affectional orientation
• Ascribed characteristics
• Hate crime
• LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender)
• List of anti-discrimination acts
• LGBT rights by country or territory
• Human male sexuality, including non-western perspectives on sexual orientation
• Same-sex marriage
• Sexual orientation and military service
• Terminology of homosexuality

References

1. ^ APA California Amicus Brief
2. ^ "Sexuality, What is sexual orientation?", American Psychological Association: Sexual orientation refers to an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions.... Sexual orientation is usually discussed in terms of three categories: heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual...However, some people may use different labels or none at all.', http://www.apa.org/topics/sorientation.html#whatis, retrieved on 2008-08-12 
3. ^ http://www.asexuality.org/home/
4. ^ Planned Parent Hood: Sexual Orientation & Gender, LGBTQ ... The Labels and Their Meaning
5. ^ Reiter L (1989). "Sexual orientation, sexual identity, and the question of choice". Clinical Social Work Journal 17: 138–50. 
6. ^ "Sexual Orientation and Homosexuality", APAHelpCenter.org, http://www.apahelpcenter.org/articles/article.php?id=31, retrieved on 2007-09-07 
7. ^ The Psychology of Sexual Orientation, Behaviour, and identity By Louis Diamant, Richard D. McAnulty;Published by Greenwood Publishing Group, 1995; ISBN 0313285012, 9780313285011; 522 pages; Quote from page 81: Although sexual orientation is a loaded Western concept, the term is still a useful one, if we avoid imposing Western thoughts and meanings associated with our language on non-Western, noncontemporary cultures.
8. ^ The Handbook of Social Work Direct Practice By Paula Allen-Meares, Charles D. Garvin; Contributor Paula Allen-Meares, Charles D. Garvin; Published by SAGE, 2001, ISBN 0761914994, 9780761914990 733 pages; Quote from page 478: The concept of sexual orientation is a product of contemporary Western thought.
9. ^ Sexual behavior and the non-construction of sexual identity: Implications for the analysis of men who have sex with men and women who have sex with women. Michael W. Ross & Ann K. Brooks; Quote from Page 9: Chou (2000) notes in his analysis of the lack of applicability of western concepts of sexual identity in China, just because a person has a particular taste for a specific food doesn’t mean that we label them in terms of the food that they prefer. A similar approach to sexual appetite as not conferring identity may be operating in this sample. McIntosh (1968) has previously noted that people who do not identify with the classic western, white gay/lesbian role may not necessarily identify their behavior as homosexual.
10. ^ Chinese Femininities, Chinese Masculinities: A Reader; By Susan Brownell, Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom; Published by University of California Press, 2002; ISBN 0520221168, 9780520221161; Quote: "The problem with Sexuality Some scholars have argued that maleness and femaleness were not closely linked to sexuality in China. Foucault's "The History of Sexuality" (which dealt primarily with Western civilization and western Europe) began to influence some China scholars in the 1980s. Foucault's insight was to demonstrate that sexuality has a history; it is not fixed psychobiological drive that is the same for all humans according to their sex, but rather it is a cultural construct inseparable from gender constructs. After unmooring sexuality from biology, he anchored it in history, arguing that this thing we now call sexuality came into existencee in the eighteenth-century West and did not exist previously in this form. "Sexuality" is an invention of the modern state, the industrial revolution, and capitalism. Taking this insight as a starting point, scholars have slowly been compiling the history of sexuality in china. The works by Tani Barlow, discussed above, were also foundational in this trend. Barlow observes that, in the West, heterosexuality is the primary site for the production of gender: a woman truly becomes a woman only in relation to a man's heterosexual desire. By contrast, in China before the 1920s the "jia" (linage unit, family) was the priamary site for the production of gender: marriage and sexuality were to serve the lineage by producing the next generation of lineage members; personal love and pleasure were secondary to this goal. Barlow argues that this has two theoretical implications: (1) it is not possible to write a chinese history of heterosexuality, sexuality as an institution, and sexual identities in the European metaphysical sense, and (2) it is not appropriate to ground discussions of Chinese gender processes in the sexed body so central in "Western" gender processes. Here she echoes Furth's argument that, before the earlyu twentiethh century, sex-identity grounded on anatomical difference did not hold a central place in Chinese constructions of gender. And she ehoes the point illustrated in detail in Sommer's chapter on male homosexuality in the Qing legal code: a man could engage in homosexual behaviour without calling into question his manhood so long as his behaviour did not threaten the patriarchal Confucian family structure."
11. ^ Transnational Transgender: Reading Sexual Diversity in Cross-Cultural Contexts Through Film and Video; Ryan, Joelle Ruby; American Studies Association; Quote: Many of the projects which have historically investigated sex/gender variance in non-Western contexts have been ethnographies and anthropological studies. Due to strong and lingering problems with ethnocentrism, many of these research studies have attempted to transpose a Western understanding of sex, gender and sexuality onto cultures in Asia, Latin America and Africa. Terms such as “homosexual,” “transvestite,” and “transsexual” all arose out of Western concepts of identity based on science, sexology and medicine and often bear little resemblance to sex/gender/sexuality paradigms in the varied cultures of the developing world.
12. ^ Sexual Orientation, Human Rights and Global Politics Matthew Waits, Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Applied Social Sciences, University of Glasgow, United Kingdom; email: m.waites@lbss.gla.ac.uk; web: http://www.gla.ac.uk/departments/sociology/staff/waites.html ; Quote from the Abstract: The paper problematises utilisation of the concept of 'sexual orientation' in moves to revise human rights conventions and discourses in the light of social constructionist and queer theory addressing sexuality, which has convincingly suggested that 'sexual orientation' is a culturally specific concept, misrepresenting many diverse forms of sexuality apparent in comparative sociological and anthropological research conducted worldwide. I will argue in particular that 'orientation' is a concept incompatible with bisexuality when interpreted within the context of dominant dualistic assumptions about sex, gender and desire in western culture (suggested by Judith Butler's concept of the 'heterosexual matrix'). I will discuss the implications of the this for interpreting contemporary struggles among competing social movements, NGO and governmental actors involved in contesting the relationship of sexuality to human rights as defined by the United Nations.
13. ^ [1] McIntosh argues that the labelling process should be the focus of inquiry and that homosexuality should be seen as a social role rather than a condition. Role is more useful than condition, she argues, because roles (of heterosexual and homosexual) can be dichotomised in a way that behaviour cannot. She draws upon cross-cultural data to demonstrate that in many societies 'there may be much homosexual behaviour, but there are no "homosexuals"' (p71).
14. ^ [2]
15. ^ Minton HL (1986). "Femininity in men and masculinity in women: American psychiatry and psychology portray homosexuality in the 1930s". Journal of Homosexuality 13 (1): 1–21. 
    Terry, J. (1999). An American obsession: Science, medicine, and homosexuality in modern society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press
16. ^ Bailey JM, Zucker KJ (1995). "Childhood sex-typed behavior and sexual orientation: a conceptual analysis and quantitative review". Developmental Psychology 31 (1): 43. doi:10.1037/0012-1649.31.1.43. 
17. ^ Rodriguez Rust, Paula C. Bisexuality: A contemporary paradox for women, Journal of Social Issues, Vol 56(2), Summer 2000. Special Issue: Women's sexualities: New perspectives on sexual orientation and gender. pp. 205-221. article online
    Also published in: Rodriguez Rust, Paula C. Bisexuality in the United States: A Social Science Reader. Columbia University Press, 2000. ISBN 0-231-10227-5
18. ^ American Psychiatric Association (May 2000). "Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Issues". Association of Gay and Lesbian Psychiatrics. http://www.aglp.org/pages/cfactsheets.html#Anchor-Gay-14210. 
19. ^ ^{a b} "Just the Facts About Sexual Orientation & Youth: A Primer for Principals, Educators and School Personnel". American Academy of Pediatrics, American Counseling Association, American Association of School Administrators, American Federation of Teachers, American Psychological Association, American School Health Association, The Interfaith Alliance, National Association of School Psychologists, National Association of Social Workers, National Education Association. 1999. http://www.apa.org/pi/lgbc/publications/justthefacts.html. Retrieved on 2007-08-28. 
20. ^ "ARQ2: Question A2 - Sexual Orientation". Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. http://www.camh.net/Publications/Resources_for_Professionals/ARQ2/arq2_question_a2.html. Retrieved on 2007-08-28. 
21. ^ Diamond, Lisa M. (January 2008) (PDF). Female bisexuality from adolescence to adulthood: Results from a 10-year longitudinal study.. 44. Developmental Psychology. pp. 5–14. http://www.apa.org/journals/releases/dev4415.pdf. 
22. ^ "Bisexual women - new research findings". Women's Health News. 17 January 2008. http://www.news-medical.net/?id=34415. 
23. ^ "Answers to Your Questions About Sexual Orientation and Homosexuality". American Psychological Association. http://www.apa.org/topics/orientation.html. Retrieved on 2008-05-26. 
24. ^ Bansal, Monisha. "Psychologists Disagree Over Therapy for Homosexuals". Cybercast News Service. http://www.cnsnews.com/Culture/Archive/200608/CUL20060815a.html. Retrieved on 2007-08-28. 
25. ^ "Position Statement on Therapies Focused on Attempts to Change Sexual Orientation (Reparative or Conversion Therapies)". American Psychiatric Association. May 2000. http://www.psych.org/psych_pract/copptherapyaddendum83100.cfm. Retrieved on 2007-08-28. 
26. ^ The Surgeon General's call to Action to Promote Sexual Health and Responsible Sexual Behavior", A Letter from the Surgeon General U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2001-07-09. Retrieved 2007-03-29.
27. ^ Klein, F., Barry Sepekoff, Timothy J. Wolf. Sexual Orientation: a Multi-Variable Dynamic Process, in Klein, Fritz and Timothy J. Wolf, ed., 'Two Lives to Lead; Bisexuality in Men and Women', New York: Harrington Park Press, Inc., 1985, p. 38. (Also published as Bisexualities: Theory and Research, by Haworth Press, 1985.) Klein Sexual Orientation Grid online
28. ^ Sexual Orientation and Homosexuality, American Psychological Association. Retrieved on 2009-06-22.
29. ^ Wilson, G. and Rahman, Q., (2005). Born Gay. London: Peter Owen Publishers, p21
30. ^ Gonsoriek, John. C.; Weinrich, J. D. (1995). Definition and measurement of sexual orientation. 25. Suicide and Life Threatening Behavior. pp. 40–51. http://doi.apa.org/getuid.cfm?uid=1996-16078-001. 
31. ^ Hirschfeld, Magnus, 1896. Sappho und Socrates, Wie erklärt sich die Liebe der Männer & und Frauen zu Personen des eigenen Geschlechts? (Sappho and Socrates, How Can One Explain the Love of Men and Women for Individuals of Their Own Sex?)
32. ^ A.C. Kinsey, W.B. Pomeroy, C.E. Martin, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, (pp. 639, 656). Philadelphia, PA: W.B. Saunders, 1948). ISBN 0-253-33412-8.
33. ^ LeVay, Simon, 1996. Queer Science: The Use and Abuse of Research into Homosexuality. Cambridge: MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-62119-3 .
34. ^ James Alm, M. V. Lee Badgett, Leslie A. Whittington, Wedding Bell Blues: The Income Tax Consequences of Legalizing Same-Sex Marriage, page 24. (1998) PDF link
35. ^ Sexual Orientation and Adolescents, American Academy of Pediatrics Clinical Report. Retrieved 2007-02-23.
36. ^ G.Wilson & Q.Rahman Born Gay: The Psychobiology of Human Sex Orientation, London: Peter Owen 2005
37. ^ Blanchard, R., Cantor, J. M., Bogaert, A. F., Breedlove, S. M., & Ellis, L. (2006). "Interaction of fraternal birth order and handedness in the development of male homosexuality." Hormones and Behavior, 49, 405–414.
38. ^ This work was published in the American Journal of Sociology (Bearman, P. S. & Bruckner, H. (2002) Opposite-sex twins and adolescent same-sex attraction. American Journal of Sociology 107, 1179–1205.) and is available only to subscribers. However, a final draft of the paper is available here - there are no significant differences on the points cited between the final draft and the published version.
39. ^ Burr, Chandler. A Separate Creation: The Search for the Biological Origins of Sexual Orientation. Hyperion 1997.
40. ^ LeVay, Simon (1996). Queer Science: The Use and Abuse of Research into Homosexuality. Cambridge: The MIT Press ISBN 0-262-12199-9
41. ^ Zachary Green and Michael J. Stiers. Multiculturalism and Group Therapy in the United States: A Social Constructionist Perspective. Springer Netherlands 2002. Pages 233-246.
42. ^ Robert Brain. Friends and Lovers. Granada Publishing Ltd. 1976. Chapters 3, 4.
43. ^ "Crime in the United States 2004: Hate Crime", FBI, http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius_04/offenses_reported/hate_crime/index.html, retrieved on 2007-05-04 
44. ^ Sexual orientation and the workplace: Putting the Employment Equality (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2003 into practice
45. ^ Catholic Medical Association

Further reading

• Anders Agmo Functional and dysfunctional sexual behavior Elsevier 2007
• Dynes, Wayne (ed.) "Encyclopedia of Homosexuality." New York and London, Garland Publishing, 1990.
• Gil Brum, Larry McKane, and Gerry Karp. Biology – Exploring Life, 2nd edition. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 1994. p. 663. (About INAH-3.)
• Sell, Randall L. (December 1997). Defining and measuring sexual orientation: a review. Archives of Sexual Behavior 26(6) 643-658. (excerpt)
• Serge Wunsch PhD thesis about sexual behavior Paris Sorbonne 2007

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Sexual orientation

• "The H-Word" by Paul Niquette
• A law lecture (mp3) on sexual orientation and U.S. constitutional law
• American Psychological Association: Answers to Your Questions About Sexual Orientation and Homosexuality
• Aspirin changes sexual behaviour of rats
• Brain gender: prostaglandins have their say
• Loraine JA, Ismail AA, Adamopoulos DA, Dove GA (November 1970). "Endocrine function in male and female homosexuals". Br Med J 4 (5732): 406–9. PMID 5481520. 
• Etiology on glbtq.com
• Magnus Hirschfeld Archive of Sexology at the Humboldt University in Berlin
• Is sexual orientation determined at birth?
• Sanders BK (2007). "Sex, drugs and sports: prostaglandins, epitestosterone and sexual development". Med. Hypotheses 69 (4): 829–35. doi:10.1016/j.mehy.2006.12.058. PMID 17382481. 
• Survivor bashing - bias motivated hate crimes
• The Science Of Sexual Orientation
• The SexEdLibrary

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