epublishing store: Intro

Sexual Health eBook Volume1
Chapter 10

Orientations: GLBTQ, Blaise Astra Parker

This chapter covers information about sexual orientation, including gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer orientations. With debates currently raging in the news about such issues as gay marriage and adoption, conversion therapy, and rights of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and queer (GLBTQ) students in schools, it is important to be fully educated on the history and science of sexual orientation. This is the first step to forming a knowledgeable opinion on a contentious subject. Therefore, I have structured this chapter to answer some of the “big questions” about sexual orientation. Similarly, I would like this chapter to serve as a resource for anyone who may be questioning his or her own sexuality. I have included information for these readers as well, because
I understand that this can be a difficult and frightening process. It is my hope that this chapter will serve as a resource for you.

The structure of this chapter is as follows. To begin with, it is important that we define the terms discussed in this chapter. The following section includes an outline of various—often contentious—terms used when discussing sexual orientation and what those terms may mean. The reader may find that pinning down appropriate definitions of terms such as gay and lesbian may be more difficult than he or she expected. Next, I turn to the three most common questions I am asked about sexual orientation in my capacity as a sexual health educator: How many people are gay (or, as I will refer to it, GLBTQ)? What causes people to be GLBTQ? And finally, might I be GLBTQ? After I cover some of the relevant theory and research related to those questions, I turn to some critiques of current thinking about sexual orientation. Scientists tend to think about sexual orientation in a particular way, but there are a number of writers in other disciplines, such as education, anthropology, literary criticism, and feminist theory, who are critical of the current trends in sexual orientation research. I will close by sharing some of these criticisms and examining the ramifications of such criticisms for the scientific study of sexuality.

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