1. Homosexuality<br />Homosexuality is romantic and/or sexual attraction or behavior among members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to quot;
an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractionsquot;
primarily or exclusively to people of the same sex; quot;
it also refers to an individual’s sense of personal and social identity based on those attractions, behaviors expressing them, and membership in a community of others who share them.quot;
<br />Homosexuality is one of the three main categories of sexual orientation, along with bisexuality and heterosexuality, within the heterosexual-homosexual continuum. The consensus of the behavioral and social sciences and the health and mental health professions is that homosexuality is a normal and positive variation in human sexual orientation, though many religious societies, including Catholicism, Mormonism, and Islam, and some psychological associations, such as NARTH, have traditionally taught that homosexual activity is sinful or dysfunctional.<br />The most common adjectives in use are lesbian for women and gay for men, though gay can refer to either men or women. The number of people who identify as gay or lesbian—and the proportion of people who have same-sex sexual experiences—are difficult for researchers to estimate reliably for a variety of reasons.[7] In the modern West, according to major studies, 2% to 13% of the population are homosexual. A 2006 study suggested that 20% of the population anonymously reported some homosexual feelings, although relatively few participants in the study identified themselves as homosexual.[19]Homosexual behavior is also widely observed in animals. <br />Many gay and lesbian people are in committed same-sex relationships. These relationships are equivalent to heterosexual relationships in essential psychological respects. Homosexual relationships and acts have been admired, as well as condemned, throughout recorded history, depending on the form they took and the culture in which they occurred. Since the end of the 19th century, there has been a movement towards increased visibility, recognition and legal rights for homosexual people, including the rights to marriage and civil unions, adoption and parenting, employment, military service, and equal access to health care.<br />Sexuality and gender identity<br />The American Psychological Association, the American Psychiatric Association, and the National Association of Social Workers identify sexual orientation as quot;
not merely a personal characteristic that can be defined in isolation. Rather, one’s sexual orientation defines the universe of persons with whom one is likely to find the satisfying and fulfilling relationshipsquot;
<br />Sexual orientation is commonly discussed as a characteristic of the individual, like biological sex, gender identity, or age. This perspective is incomplete because sexual orientation is always defined in relational terms and necessarily involves relationships with other individuals. Sexual acts and romantic attractions are categorized as homosexual or heterosexual according to the biological sex of the individuals involved in them, relative to each other. Indeed, it is by acting—or desiring to act—with another person that individuals express their heterosexuality, homosexuality, or bisexuality. This includes actions as simple as holding hands with or kissing another person. Thus, sexual orientation is integrally linked to the intimate personal relationships that human beings form with others to meet their deeply felt needs for love, attachment, and intimacy. In addition to sexual behavior, these bonds encompass nonsexual physical affection between partners, shared goals and values, mutual support, and ongoing commitment. <br />Sexual identity development: quot;
coming-out processquot;
<br />Many people who feel attracted to members of their own sex have a so-called quot;
coming outquot;
at some point in their lives.[ HYPERLINK quot;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_neededquot;
quot;
Wikipedia:Citation neededquot;
citation needed] Generally, coming out is described in three phases. The first phase is the phase of quot;
knowing oneself,quot;
and the realization emerges that one is open to same-sex relations. This is often described as an internal coming out. The second phase involves one's decision to come out to others, e.g. family, friends, and/or colleagues. The third phase more generally involves living openly as an LGBT person. In the United States today, people often come out during high school or college age. At this age, they may not trust or ask for help from others, especially when their orientation is not accepted in society. Sometimes their own families are not even informed.<br />According to Rosario, Schrimshaw, Hunter, Braun (2006), quot;
the development of a lesbian, gay, or bisexual (LGB) sexual identity is a complex and often difficult process. Unlike members of other minority groups (e.g., ethnic and racial minorities), most LGB individuals are not raised in a community of similar others from whom they learn about their identity and who reinforce and support that identity. Rather, LGB individuals are often raised in communities that are either ignorant of or openly hostile toward homosexuality.quot;
<br />Outing is the practice of publicly revealing the sexual orientation of a closeted person. Notable politicians, celebrities, military service people, and clergy members have been outed, with motives ranging from malice to political or moral beliefs. Many commentators oppose the practice altogether, while some encourage outing public figures who use their positions of influence to harm other gay people. <br />Gender identity<br />The earliest writers on a homosexual 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. This understanding was shared by most of the significant theorists of homosexuality from the mid-19th century to early 20th 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 20th century, gender identity came to be increasingly seen as a phenomenon distinct from sexual orientation.<br />Transgender and HYPERLINK quot;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cisgenderquot;
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 quot;
gender-conforming heterosexualquot;
and the quot;
gender-nonconforming homosexualquot;
as negative stereotypes. However, studies by J. Michael Bailey and K.J. Zucker have found that a majority of gay men and lesbians report being gender-nonconforming during their childhood years.[40] Richard C. Friedman, in Male Homosexuality published in 1990,] writing from a HYPERLINK quot;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychoanalyticquot;
quot;
Psychoanalyticquot;
psychoanalyticperspective, argues that sexual desire begins later than the writings of Sigmund Freud indicate, not in infancy but between the ages of 5 and 10 and is not focused on a parent figure but on peers. As a consequence, he reasons, homosexual men are not abnormal, never having been sexually attracted to their mothers anyway. <br />Social construct<br />Because a homosexual 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 18th century; that people instead spoke of quot;
sodomyquot;
, which referred to sexual acts. Sodomy was a crime that was often ignored but sometimes punished severely (see sodomy law).<br />The term homosexual is 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 do not emphasize an entire social identity or indicate community affiliation based on sexual orientation. Some scholars, such as David Green, state that homosexuality is a modern Western social construct, and as such cannot be used in the context of non-Western male-male sexuality, nor in the pre-modern West. <br />