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Accepting the sexual orientation of other people often frowned upon by too many people of our male-dominated world. I practice being open to everyone and try to accept everyone for who they are. For me, too, I now try my best to build all my relationships from Christ-consciousness or being in a state of self-actualization. This may seem dangerous to specific groups of people but not to me.

The people easily influence us we are around most, but we also bring our past beliefs and teachings into the picture. We judge people by our limited knowledge, even if we are highly trained and educated in specific fields. Even lawyers and judges can find ancient laws, of corruption, which are valid today regarding sexual orientation. Yet even judges make judgements by beliefs or ancient homophobic laws that are still in place. Morality should not be a subject from only a religious attitude or teaching toward sexual orientation.

Within families, if parents with harsh, older school, religious values have children that are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender(LGBT), but one or both do not accept them, their home environment could become extremely hostile. Alienating your children is much worse, morally, than accepting them for who they are, no matter their beliefs or sexual orientation or other discriminatory labels society puts upon them. Healthwise, for the child, parent and sibling approval is necessary. Family acceptance of LGBT adolescents is associated with positive young adult mental and physical health. Interventions that promote parental and caregiver acceptance of LGBT adolescents are needed to reduce health disparities.[1] I cannot tell people enough to be loving in all ways, no matter their state in life. A family member, so full of hate toward the LBGT&Q(queer) person within a family, will not allow for any gatherings or reunions where all family attends. I understand this on a personal level, but I will not go into depth or have conversation on that.

Within schools and universities, too, student services staff, such as school nurses, social workers, and counselors, need to be aware to issues related to sexual orientation, and they need to work with individuals and groups to support all students.[2] Peers, even if long-time friends can become disparaging toward someone, that has literally come out of the closet about the sexual orientation. I admit growing up and throughout my life that I had both family and friends that had and still have discriminatory prejudice.

The teenage years are challenging times, and I was a geek and shy with girls but still had strong attraction toward them. As I reflect on that time, there was not even discussion or topic of sexual orientation. For me, my family, except some more distant relatives, and friends the acronym LGBT&Q and that community of people was nonexistent. During their adolescent years, youths with a homosexual orientation appear to face significantly different developmental challenges than those faced by heterosexual youths or individuals who recognize their homosexual orientation and come out later in life.[3] Locker room discussion was heterosexual in nature, and crude of course, back when I was a teenager. Most young men discussed their sexual exploits of a different sex.

Unfortunately, even in my youth, prejudicial crime was rampant yet over time has diminished, it still exists within our current civilization. A hate crime is generally defined as a crime which is motivated by the offender’s bias toward the victim’s race, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, or disability.[4] We continue to live in a world of violence where people are trained to kill for their nation and sometimes come back to society psychologically damaged. It does not matter if you were in a war or not, that brainwashing can be detrimental for the rest of that person’s life, and it also depends on what happened while you were going through that experience. I know this first-hand, serving in the military.

It is also good to know that more people are changing their attitude for the better, especially in educational institutions. While more intense negative feelings across diverse situations were expressed by heterosexual male and female students toward gay males than toward lesbian and gay students might appreciate learning that most of their heterosexual peers expressed outrage at incidents of physical violence toward a gay male or lesbian student.[5] Yes, no matter your sexual orientation, we are supportive of each other in every way, now, much more than previously.

My journey is different on all levels and diversity is important in forming better ideas and solutions in our world. We are all family and head mostly for similar goals. I envision a world of peace, someday, but it will not be in my lifetime. Within every destruction comes forth a new creation.

[1] Ryan, Caitlin,PhD., A.C.S.W., et al. “Family Acceptance in Adolescence and the Health of LGBT Young Adults.” Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Nursing, vol. 23, no. 4, 2010, pp. 205-13. ProQuest; eLibrary, https://explore.proquest.com/elibrary/document/816337319?accountid=41449

[2] Alone no More. Developing a School Support System for Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Youth. , 1994. ProQuest, https://www.proquest.com/encyclopedias-reference-works/alone-no-more-developing-school-support-system/docview/62552318/se-2

[3] Rotheram-Borus, Mary, and M. I. Fernandez. “Sexual orientation and developmental challenges experienced by gay and lesbian youths.” Suicide & Life – Threatening Behavior, vol. 25 1995, pp. 26-34; discussion 35-9. ProQuest; eLibrary, https://explore.proquest.com/elibrary/document/224890504?accountid=41449

[4] Responding to Hate Crimes and Bias-Motivated Incidents on College/University Campuses. , 2000. ProQuest, https://www.proquest.com/encyclopedias-reference-works/responding-hate-crimes-bias-motivated-incidents/docview/62315368/se-2

[5] Sedlacek, William. “Attitudes of heterosexual students toward their gay male and lesbian peers.” Journal of College Student Development, vol. 38, no. 6, 1997, pp. 565. ProQuest; eLibrary, https://explore.proquest.com/elibrary/document/195175483?accountid=41449

References acessed 16 February 2025