HIS 465 Week 1

Going to class this week has been very interesting and there are many new ideas of gender that I may have really not thought of too much.  Like most southern males I have seen gender in only two ways, male or female.  Yes I have known about homosexuals, hermaphrodites, and transgender people, and no I do not think that is so wrong, but having been raised in the south I have never been told to much about people who are.  So this new idea of gender has been making me think out side the box and try to have an understanding of how and what makes someone male or female.

This past December I had the privilege to visit some of my family members in Southern California.  I have never been to a large city like Los Angeles, and it was a big wake up call for me, to see how different it was from East Tennessee.  My family took me on a tour of Los Angeles and ended up in West Hollywood, where there seem to be just as many homosexuals as San Francisco.  In West Hollywood my cousins introduced me to one of his college friends who was bisexual.  He seemed to be a really cool person and was very open about being bisexual.  He asked me a few questions about Tennessee, having heard that it was a bad place to live for homosexuals, and I told him that from what I have seen, he is right, for the most part.  Talking to him some more I had a better understanding about the homosexual lifestyle.  From what I got it was biological (mental), something that he could not control. 

Which makes me think that being male or female may not just be if someone has a penis or vigina, but it could be the mental state of the persons mind, being more masculine or feminine, and it can also be a mix of the two mindsets.  This thought also is strong in watching my older brother’s children grow up.  My brother has one set of twins and one is a boy and the other a girl.  They have grown up at the same time and same household. Knowing their parents they are very open and don’t make their kids do anything they don’t want.  They seem to be like average children, for example the boy loves playing sports and the girl hates sports and love every thing pink.  From time to time they like the same things but for the most part the boy likes masculine things and the girl likes feminine things.  I know that it may not just be as black or white as having a masculine or feminine mindset but it can explain a large amount of it.