Homosexuality Learned or Genetic
Tanya Lee
Com/220
April 11, 2010
Mike Jensen
My brother and I are both homosexuals and from experience homosexuality is not a choice. We grew up in a small town where there were no other known homosexuals in the area so how could it have been taught. Homosexuals just want to be accepted by society and not feel that something is wrong with them. So if experts want to say being a homosexual is learned, how can that be? According to Diversity Central Statistics, it shows that at least 72% of people have had some kind of homosexual experience, (GilDean Group, 2006). Many of these experiences are more than once. Society wants everyone to believe that homosexuality is a choice, but that is just not true because by adolescences the sexual preference has already been decided. By this time, homosexuals have no choice and can not change their sexual preference or lifestyle.
Homosexuality from the past
Homosexuality has been documented in history and mental health books for hundreds of years. Between the 16th and 17th century, same sex relationships were considered a sin or even a crime and those who committed the sin were not defined as a separate category (Burr, 1993). How homosexuals were viewed changed in the 19th century, and these individuals then began to be categorized in a different category (Burr, 1993). With the advancement of modern medicine and psychiatry in the 20th century, homosexuality was believed to be a form of mental illness (Burr, 1993). In fact, in the 1940’s, homosexuality was included in with paranoid, psychopathic, and schizoid personality disorder (Burr, 1993).
Because of its categorization as a mental illness, many doctors and psychiatrists tried treating homosexuals with various treatment options. James Harrison, a psychologist who produced a documentary in 1992 called Changing Our Minds, notes that the medical profession viewed homosexuality with...