Sexual identity is the perception an individual develop about him or herself with regards to whom he or she is attracted towards romantically or sexually (Lyons et al., 2011). In society, some people choose same-sex relationships, while a majority consider straight sexual relationships. In all these mixes, the sexual decision or the sexual identity has a massive say on the sexual health outcomes as asserted by both by Lyons et al. (2011) and Riskind et al. (2014). From the two articles, it is clear that society tends to view and judge people based on their sexual identity. In this case, the outcome of societal judgment is a determining factor in matters of health and reproductive health. In this article, the focus is on gender identity and the health outcome.
The sexual minorities are the individuals who sexual orientations in the society are different from the majority of the people or are contrary to the social norms. Among them are gay and lesbians. These individuals lack the freedom that heterosexual individuals have to make their sexual decision. From the Riskind et al. (2014), these individuals have undergone a lot of discrimination, but due to inadequate research studies, a good number of discrimination cases do not get attention in the society. Further, the two articles place emphasizes that in today's society, the minority individuals’ sexual choices are limited and restricted by the community in a manner that seems to be limiting their freedom of decision making as granted by the constitution.
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Research studies conducted in both articles reveals that society is unkind to the sexual minority individuals. According to Lyons et al. (2011), “the double standard is a well-recognized cultural phenomenon.” Despite this common phenomenon in society, the research in this article later reveals that gender identity is a factor that defines the reaction from the community regarding a person who descried to have multiple partners. As noted by Lyons et al., (2011), those who have multiple partners in the society, especially adolescents girls, are perceived negatively in the community. From these authors' perception, male individuals seem to have more freedom to make their sexual choices in the society than female counterpart. The male individuals, for instance, are perceived as less harmful in the community when they have multiple sexual partners than female individuals. The authors noted that the ladies, for example, those who are beautiful, tend to have numerous sexual partners. However, their situations are generally different from men because society tends to reject them more than men in similar condition.
A similar observation is made by the Riskind et al. (2014) as their research study also reveal some similarities with those from Lyons et al., (2011) with regards to findings on this topic. The authors start by complaining that though ladies are at risk due to their gender identity, "it is also unclear which sexual minority girls are most at risk." The authors researched gender identity and sexual health among adolescents to reveal that the sexual minority experience exposure to sexual risk than heterosexual individuals. Part of the research, in this case, is about the societal perception of the considered ender minority. Although a more significant part of this research reveals the gender identity and ties it to sexual behavior and health outcome, it also reveals discrimination regarding sexual identity in society.
From the two articles, it is evident that gender identity is a predictor of sexual behaviors, which also translate to the sexual reproductive health among the young generation in the USA and other parts of the world. Research by Riskind et al. (2014) reveals more of this matter. In their research study, authors hypothesized that “although girls with only female partners are not at risk for adolescent pregnancy, they would report riskier sexual behaviors than girls with male partners only.” The result confirmed this hypothesis. Further, the authors also claimed that female partners would report riskier sexual behavior and more negative reproductive health outcomes than would girls who reported male partners only. From this sense, it is evident that the authors are already understanding the discrimination on sexual identity and tying it to the behaviors in the sexual behaviors in society. The authors further assert that there are health risks involved in this matter. The risky behaviors are associated with the different disease that comes to haunt such people in their lives and thus destroy their health. They also have reproductive health issues, mostly those who tend to be attracted to similar partners. These result in stress and depression and further deteriorate their health. Further, Lyons et al., (2011)assert that with wrong sexual identity and reception in the society, the victims are in danger of stress and depression that end up destroying their health stability in life.
In conclusion, sexual identity is a trait that defines the societal perception of a person. Besides, sexual identity also defines sexual behavior in addition to the reproductive health status of an individual. Therefore, sexual identity should form the foundation from where to address sexual behaviors and health in society among young girls and boys.
References
Lyons, H., Giordano, P. C., Manning, W. D., & Longmore, M. A. (2011). Identity, peer relationships, and adolescent girls' sexual behavior: An exploration of the contemporary double standard. Journal of sex research , 48 (5), 437-449.
Riskind, R. G., Tornello, S. L., Younger, B. C., & Patterson, C. J. (2014).Sexual Identity, partner gender, and sexual health among adolescent girls in the United States. American journal of public health , 104 (10), 1957-1963.
Statement of the Revision
Revising my work entailed paraphrasing, deleting, and inserting new ideas that I got after my research and rereading the articles I chose for the assignment. It was less hectic because I had an idea from the first draft and from the prewriting I had done on this topic. It was also made more comfortable with the feedback I received, and thus, I felt it helped me improved on my previous work.
