As a parent or caregiver, it can be difficult to know the right thing to say when kids question what we deem to be adult topics. Broaching topics of sexuality can be awkward for both parties, however, it is a necessary conversation to have.When it comes to talking about homosexuality and transgender individuals, children should be given age-appropriate information so...[ read more ]
Societies like to make the complex simple. They insist on taking gray situations and ideas and making them black or white. In this way, people and situations can be more easily controlled and predicted, and the normal order can reign supreme.Except, that isn’t realistic. We all know that human beings are very complex creatures and that life isn’t black or white. While...[ read more ]
What makes someone feel they have been born into the wrong body? Gender identity is a prominent topic these days thanks to the transgender movement, yet many people are still uncertain about what causes this issue.What is it, exactly, that determines whether an individual thinks of themselves as “male” or “female” or something else or neither of these two options?...[ read more ]
Most of us had a childhood filled with both subtle and overt lessons of how people and things “should” be. Our family, culture, and society expect us to fit into a certain mold and behave a certain way. Because of the type of upbringing that many people experience, it can be very difficult for people in the lesbian, gay, bisexual,...[ read more ]
It’s easy for adults to forget what adolescence was like. The frustrations of figuring out the sometimes-foreign world around us combined with the cocktail of raging hormones that set our emotions off at the drop of a hat. Man, being a kid was hard!What can make an already-hard situation even harder for a young person is being “different” in some...[ read more ]
The study of sexual orientation has been quite a controversial area of psychology, and one that continues to raise numerous questions: What makes a person identify as gay, and what percent of the population currently identify as such? Is sexual orientation determined solely by biology, or what role do early learning and other social experiences play?As complex of an issue...[ read more ]
The phrase "traditional family" no longer means one mom, one dad and two-point-five kids. Today’s families are diverse, with many lesbians and gay men forming a family unit through adoption, foster care, artificial insemination and other means. Research estimates that between six to 14 million children live with at least one gay parents in the United States alone.Though it is, in some...[ read more ]
The LGBTQ movement has made some landmark strides in the past decade. The “Don’t Ask – Don’t Tell” policy was repealed, health insurance discrimination has been prevented, and same-sex marriage has been legalized nationwide. This, in combination with greater awareness and visibility of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in society and the media, has helped LGBTQ teens find...[ read more ]
There was a time parents wondered at what age they should have “the talk,” with their child. You know, the one about the birds and the bees. As society has changed and gender and sexual issues have become prominent topics, many parents now wonder how young is too young to talk about things like gender identity with their child.The first...[ read more ]
As a parent or caregiver, it can be difficult to know the right thing to say when kids question what we deem to be adult topics. Broaching topics of sexuality can be awkward and embarrassing for both parties, however it is a necessary conversation to have.When it comes to talking about homosexuality and transgenderism, children should be given age appropriate...[ read more ]