Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

Related Literature

                                        Gender differences exist in nearly every social phenomenon. From the moment of birth, gender expectations influence how boys and girls are treated. In fact, gender expectations may begin before birth as parents and grandparents pick out pink or blue clothes and toys and decorate the baby’s room with stereotyped gender colours. Also, since the first day of a baby’s life, research shows that girls are handled more gently than boys. Girls are expected to be sweet and want to cuddle whereas boys are handled more roughly and are given greater independence. Sociologists make a clear distinction between the terms sex and gender. Sex refers to one’s biological identity of being male or female while gender refers to the socially learned expectations and behaviours associated with being male or female. Sex is biologically assigned while gender is culturally learned.         (Crossman, 1991)

                               Most of us fail to understand why anyone would want to engage in homosexual activity. To the average person, the very idea is either puzzling or repugnant. Indeed, a recent survey indicated that only 14% of men and 10% of women imagined that such behaviour could hold any "possibility of enjoyment." The peculiar nature of homosexual desire has led some people to conclude that this urge must be innate: that a certain number of people are "born that way," that sexual preferences cannot be changed or even ended. What does the best research really indicate? Are homosexual proclivities natural or irresistible? At least three answers seem possible. The first, the answer of tradition, is as follows: homosexual behavior is a bad habit that people fall into because they are sexually permissive and experimental. This view holds rat homosexuals choose their lifestyle as the result of self-indulgence and an unwillingness to play by society rules. The second position is held by a number of psychoanalysts (e.g., Bieber, Socarides). According to them, homosexual behavior is a mental illness, symptomatic of arrested development. They believe that homosexuals have unnatural or perverse desires as a consequence of poor familial relations in childhood or some other trauma. The third view is "biological" and holds that such desires are genetic or hormonal in origin, and that there is no choice involved and no "childhood trauma" necessary. (Cameron, 1997)

                     

                                Some people say the common reason why a person becomes a third sex is because of the environment but in recent research it is said to be maybe genetic; this behaviour is called Childhood Gender Nonconformity or CGN. An interview with a family with twins made this theory clearer. The children’s names are Patrick and Thomas (not their real names) they are identical twins but Patrick exhibits childhood gender nonconformity or CGN. This doesn’t describe a boy who has a doll somewhere in his toy collection or tried on his sister’s snow white outfit once, but rather one who consistently exhibits a host of strongly feminine traits and interests while avoiding boy-typical behaviour like rough-and-tumble play. There’s been considerable research into this phenomenon, particularly in males, including a study that followed boys from an early age into adulthood. The data suggest there is a very good chance Patrick will grow up to be homosexual. Not all homosexual men show this extremely feminine behaviour as young boys, but the research indicates that, of the boys who do exhibit CGN, about 75 percent of them – perhaps more – turn out to be gay, lesbian or bisexual (Swidey 2005).