User:Cedra77/sandbox

Lack of Awareness of Public Health
Historically, public health researchers have not recognized LGBT persons as a population with distinct health issues outside a framework of sexual deviance or STD. This focus on diseases that are of relevance to LGBT individuals developed into the recognition that LGBT populations are diverse communities with disparate health concerns. Before the 1980s, most studies that addressed LGBT populations focused on the etiology of homosexuality or on mental disorders because homosexuality was classified as such until 1973. During the Public Health study, there were methods being tried out. The National Library of Medicine contains 3,822,822 citations of articles based on studies with human subjects. The goal for this method was to figure out how many of these articles pertained to LGBT. One of the goals were to focus on the race/ ethnicity of the study population. Much of this information was not coded because data was either missing or poorly delineated.

Children's sexual identity
Freud postulated that awareness of genital difference does not affect children until the Oedipal stage -- around 4 to 5 years old -- when boys become competitive with their fathers for their mothers' attention and girls turn more toward their fathers. They also concluded that children make the discovery of genital difference between the ages of 15 to 19 months, and that this has an impact on their play, their relationship with their own bodies, their relationship with their parents. Dr. Roiphe wrote in his book that as their research proceeded they became increasingly convinced that they had been engaged in tracing the development of the sense of sexual identity from its vague beginnings during the earliest weeks and months to a definite conscious awareness of specific gender and genital erotic feelings and fantasies by the end of the second year.

Sexual Orientation & Gender
Each of us has a gender and gender identity. Our gender identity is our deepest feelings about our gender. We express our gender identity in the way that we act masculine, feminine, neither, or both. Some of us are transgender — which means that our biological sex and our gender identity do not match up. The more you understand biological sex, gender, gender identity, and sexual orientation, the more you may understand yourself and how you relate to other people. Because sex and gender are so complex, you may have many questions. You may wonder about your own sexual orientation or gender identity, or you may wonder about someone you know. You may have questions about how society views sex and gender — including homophobia, sexism, and transphobia.

How many Americans are Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender?
Increasingly researchers and research centers (e.g., UCLA’s Williams Institute) have collected data using samples that are representative of the entire country, looking specifically at sexual orientation and gender identity. Looking across several large, nationally representative surveys, The Williams Institute noted that approximately 3.8% of the US population identifies as lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. That translates into about 9 million Americans, which is approximately the size of population of New Jersey.

== Is Sexual Identity The Same As Sexual Orientation? In general, most people adopt a sexual identity that “matches” their sexual orientation: most heterosexually-oriented people identify as “heterosexual” or “straight”, most homosexually-oriented people identify as “lesbian” or “gay.” However, there is a sizable number of people for whom sexual orientation does not coincide with their sexual identity. We can define sexual identity as the label that people adopt to signify to others who they are as a sexual being, particularly regarding sexual orientation.