Nick Nakashian Weekly Participation
During my interview, my interviewee and I discussed whether or not gender itself and later homosexuality was a trait that is biologically innate within us, or a socially learned behavior. We quickly agreed that gender was a socially learned trait, seeing that there are qualities of either gender that a member of the opposite can agree with, leading them to identify with their biological opposite. However when we discussed homosexuality, my interviewee and myself felt that it was a biological trait, or rather something that a gay individual is born with rather than assuming the trait later in life because of societal influence. The chapter also spends a significant time on explaining where homosexuality comes from. There was a large study done on monozygotic twins, or twins from the same egg. This study suggested that there is a large possibility that if one twin is homosexual, the other is as well, showing that it is an innate feature, rather than a characteristic learned from the forces of society. However, is gender the same way, a force of nature that cannot be changed? Sociologists disagree with this idea, and so does the now famous teenage Chase Culpepper, who is a man but wears makeup and was shamefully forced to remove it at the DMV for his driver's license photo. Unlike what the readings in the chapter and biology tells Chase about masculinity, he feels comfortable and natural outside the norms of society and has suffered embarrassing backlash because of it.
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