Social and Historical Construction of Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation (Essay Sample)

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Q1.Social and Historical Construction
Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation
In this section of the paper, we describe how behavior differs from identity among gay people and how they are shaped by the legal, cultural, and socio-economic processes. Gays are homosexual men. Gay people are usually born male but their behaviors lean more to the female gender and would in most cases want to be identified as female or may have more sexual feelings for the same male gender. Some gays, though physically exhibit female characters. For instance, you might find one apply make-up like a woman, dress in women’s clothes, and want to be treated like a woman.
The gay community has grown over the years to the point that they are accepted in certain political, social, legal, and religious spaces. And this growing phenomenon has been shaped by certain cultural, legal, and socio-economic processes. One of the social aspects of life that have supported gay culture is the fact that in the recent past; there have been cropping up of social joints that are strictly meant for gay people. In the article Gayola: Police Professionalization and the Politics of Francisco’s Bars, 1950-1968, the writer A case in point is the writer Christopher Agee presents a scenario where gay people for the first time in the 1960s when gay people got space to interact away from the stigma and discrimination that they faced from straight people in traditional social joints. Through, gay bars were a social outfit for straight people. Today; there are many gay bars all over the world (Agee, pp 462-489).
Culturally, pop culture has contributed so much to the growth of the gay and lesbian culture over the years. From the newspapers, music videos, films, TV, magazines, and the internet, the media and pop culture have been instrumental in supporting the gay community. According to the article Constructing the “Good Transsexual,” Christine Jorgensen, Whiteness, and Heteronormativity in the Mid-Twentieth-Century Press, by Christine Jorgensen we note that through Jorgensen’s talk shows he promoted the gay culture. Having undergone sex reassignment surgery he became a role model to most gays in Denmark and around the world. He also attracted the attention of the media, through that he introduced many Americans to the world of transsexuals, appeared in clubs, and starred in the film Christine Jorgen Story that was produced in 1967. Also, after the gay affair being driven in motion pictures, it moved to the magazines like News Week, Time, daily newspapers like Daily News, and tabloids like Whisper (Skidmore, pp 270-300).
Also, though the LGBT community today has seen some rights improvements, gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender of color have seen more racial and gender discrimination than their white counterparts. The Hispanic and black LGBT community have been killed or discriminated against based on their sexual and gender inclinations. A case in point is the scenario in Orlando’s Pulse Club that saw lesbians of color killed by straight allies and accused of being a terrorist. This cultural homophobic perception made the LGBT community live in fear and also fought for their rights in equal measure (Garber, pp 318-31.
In addition, the religious world has also accepted the LGBT community to a certain extent. The supportive remarks of Pope Francis Jorge Mario Bergoglio on the LGBT (Who am I to judge?” elevated the hopes of the LGBT Catholics globally. Today there are LGBT churches and evidently, the community has grown although some countries like Yemen, Uganda, Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar among others, the community is still outlawed (Somerville, np).
In the legal space, some countries provide gay and lesbian persons the right to associate, marry and even have families. Though some countries do not subscribe to same-sex marriages, today gay relationships and marriages are accepted in certain jurisdictions. Through the Vermont law of that validated same-sex civil unions, Massachusetts in 2004 became the first state to perform same-sex marriages. The Larence v. Texas case of 2003 also marked the end of state sodomy laws and lesbianism and Gayism was not treated as criminal offense moving forward.
Historical Understanding of Cisgender and Transgender
Historically, there are various forms of gender identities. First, cisgender refers to a person whose gender and identity correspond with their birth sex. Transgender are persons whose gender identities are different from the gender they were assigned at birth.
Historical Understanding of Transgender
Historically, transvestite dates back to 1910 when Magnus Hirchfeld, a German sexologist had his first sex change. The term transsexual was used until 1949 when the term transgender was coined in 1971. However, in America, it is in 1952, that the country witnessed its first Trans woman after she did a sex reassignment surgery and went public. Due to her public appearance, the Trans rights movements started to come out publicly and started to fight for their rights, especially against the police that constantly harassed them. The rights movement was aided by the Cooper Donuts Rights of 1959, the Compton’s Cafeteria Riot of 1966, and the Stonewall Riots of 1969. In 1970, the FTM International was started by Lou Sullivan, whilst some women feuded over including or excluding Tran’s women. In the 1990s and 2000s, we witnessed the Transgender Day of Remembrance being started and the Trans person marches around the time of Pride intensified. Transgender politicians were also elected in their countries in the same year and they were represented by India’s Shabnam Mausi, New Zealand’s Georgina Beyer, Japan’s Tomoya Hosoda, and US’ Danica Roem. Due to the political representation of transgender people in different countries, the courts, public and legislative offices started to recognize the rights of Tran’s people in some countries, especially in southern Africa, India, and Western countries. However, other countries in East, Central, and North Africa, Arabia, and Central Asia are still hostile and abuse the rights of Tran’s people (Cleves, pp 32-62).