Blackbird is a 2014 film that centers around the life of a seventeen-year-old boy as he attempts to navigate through his spiritual, sexual, and emotional hurdles in his life. Seventeen-year-old Randy Rousseau is an African American boy being raise in a small conservative town in rural Mississippi. As with many boys his age, Randy begins to experience wet dreams, but a concern arises when he wakes up and realizes those dreams were about boys. For some, this may not be a problem, but for a devout Christian like Randy, his homosexual dreams are cause for concern. Throughout the film, Randy struggled with accepting his sexuality, and eventually experiencing a sexual awakening during which he decided that his feelings were not a sin, and that he could love who he wanted to love, and also be a Christian.
During the Vision panel, the term intersectionality was brought up. This term refers to how different aspects of a person’s identity intersect to form the person that they are. For example, Randy’s race, religion, and sexuality all played a role in how he felt about himself, how he was expected to behave, and his ultimate beliefs. Randy was heavily involved in a church/religion that taught him that homosexuality was wrong. In addition, in his traditional African American family, sexuality was not something that was discussed, especially a sexuality that differed from what is considered “normal” or “acceptable” in the Black community. For Randy, being an African American male who identified as both homosexual and a Christian meant that he would be faced with a lot of opposition and criticism. Intersectionality and this film relates to class because it is important that we as helping professionals, consider all aspects of an individual’s identity in order to best serve their needs and to provide the most effective resources possible.
Hi, my name is Heather Andrews, and I did my first artifact based on the TV show, I Am Jazz. I Am Jazz airs on Wednesday evenings at 10pm, on TLC. So far, there has only been 1 season, but I look forward to many more.
Jazz Jennings is a transgender teenager. She is 14 years old and has one sister and two twin brothers. At the time of her birth, Jazz was pronounced a male with the name Jared Jennings. However, that is not how she identifies herself today. From a very young age, Jazz always preferred wearing dresses and high heels. She has also been socialized as a girl since she was very little. Jazz was just a toddler when she first identified verbally that she was a girl. At the age of five, she was officially diagnosed with Gender Identity Disorder. Currently, Jazz is now on hormone therapy to halt male puberty. When she turns 18, she plans to undergo the surgeries necessary to transition fully to a female.
My artifact was an interview that I found on YouTube (first 3 minutes). (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4Gm3giHLGM). I had a very hard time narrowing it down to just one clip because Jazz has so many great videos out there. The video featured Jazz and her mother, Jeanette Jennings, on The View. In summary, the interview highlighted how extremely supportive and accepting Jazz’s parents have been for her. Jazz stated that she has had such loving parents and an incredibly welcoming family that helped her live her life exactly how she wanted to.
I tied this back to our class discussion and class reading “Healthy Sexuality Development and Gender Roles in Early Childhood.” Throughout the reading and our class lecture, we discussed how important parental and school reactions are. The article stated that children’s healthy sexual development is based on positive interactions and relationships with adult caregivers, siblings, and peers. In Jazz’s interview and in many different clips, Jazz has stated over and over again how fortunate and blessed she is to have such a supporting family.
Although she is just a teenager, Jazz is already making a huge difference in our world today. She has recently come out with a children’s book titled, “I Am Jazz.” She says that with the book she hopes to encourage not just the LGBTQ community to be happy and comfortable with themselves, but every individual. In addition to this, her and her family have founded the TransKids Purple Rainbow Foundation (TKPRF). This is a way to raise awareness and receive donations for the LGBTQ community. Again, this is a great example of how supportive her family has been throughout this process.
Because there are so many great clips of Jazz Jennings and her story on the internet, I encourage everyone to YouTube them and look more into her story. She is a strong, independent teenage girl who is motivated in helping individuals find their true self and happiness.
Hello everyone. This is June LaRiccia. Before I presented my second artifact, I explained two definitions. The first, “awakening,” defined as: “An act or moment of becoming suddenly aware of something.” I then explained “sexual awakening,” defined as: “the phenomenon by which a person reveals himself/herself, both to himself/herself & to others, as a sexual being.” I then showed my artifact, a video clip, in class. This was a video from The Graham Norton Show on BBC One. It was about Eddie Redmayne (an actor) and the host, Graham Norton, discussing how Eddie had his sexual awakening during The Lion King and had an obsession with Nala while he was growing up. The host also brings up how the other actors that are present also had animated character crushes growing up, such as Liam Neeson appreciating Betty Flintstone from the cartoon The Flintstones.
After watching the video, I discussed two other videos, titled Men Who Sparked Your Sexual Awakening and Women Who Sparked Your Sexual Awakening. Although I did not show these videos, I explained how they related to my artifact in that they dealt with people having crushes on actors from movies and characters from cartoons growing up. I described how my brother would watch the show Lizzie McGuire with me and my younger sister when we were young because he had a huge crush on Hilary Duff. Additionally, I explained how I loved Prince Eric from The Little Mermaid and I totally wanted to marry him when I was five. Members of the class gave personal examples as well, such as John Smith from Pocahontas and Princess Leia from Star Wars.
Next, I analyzed how I felt that my childhood crush on Prince Eric affected me later in life. First, as an adolescent I was very attracted to Daniel Radcliffe who plays Harry Potter in the Harry Potter film series. I explained to the class that I felt this was partially due to his similarity in looks compared to Eric. They both have almost black hair, bright blue eyes, and fair skin. Now, as an adult, I still have this same physical attraction and a physical “type” (previously described). After this, I showed pictures of Ian Somerhalder and Rob Lowe (both actors) because I find them both incredibly attractive, particularly Ian. Ian and Rob have similar features to Eric as well. I then showed images of the comparisons that had been made between Ian Somerhalder and Prince Eric. I actually stumbled upon these, and I was surprised to find these pictures at first. However, it is understandable why comparisons have been drawn between the actor Ian and the animated character Eric. They both have great teeth, thick, dark hair, piercing blue eyes, lighter skin, a strong jaw, a sly smile, and a masculine yet sensitive face. It makes sense that Ian and Eric have been compared, because I definitely feel that they look a lot alike. To me, I am not surprised at all that I’m so attracted to Ian, because he is like animated Eric’s human form.
This artifact relates to class in many ways. To begin, it deals with the topic we are currently learning about: childhood sexuality. It is also connected to the article that was assigned for today (Tuesday). Sexual awakenings relate to healthy sexuality development. The authors of the course article Healthy Sexuality Development and Gender Roles in Early Childhood (2011), Donna Couchenour and Kent Chrisman, explain that their view on healthy sexuality development involves an approach that factors in all processes of child development. This includes the physical, cognitive, social, and emotional processes. The authors go on to describe how healthy sexuality development is strongly based on positive human relationships and deals with understanding, respect, and responsibility. Caring for others is a central concept as well. They explain that, “sexuality is as much about caring for others, empathy, and responsibility, as it is about physical behavior” (Couchenour & Chrisman, 2011). I was not aware of this and thought this to be incredibly fascinating.
The next part of my artifact presentation was about healthy sexuality development in early childhood and how parents, teachers, etc. can help children with this. According to Couchenour and Chisman (2011), it is important for those interacting with children to provide them with honest, suitable information. I discussed why although this method has been questioned, telling children stories, such as the one about the stork delivering babies, does not help children understand the world around them. Thus, these stories should not be shared as learning experiences. It is crucial for children to receive truthful and appropriate information regarding seuxality (Couchenour & Chrisman, 2011).
I then explained how my own mother is a volunteer sexual education teacher in different programs in our community. Growing up, she always provided me with truthful and acceptable information regarding sexuality. Although I was shy in a way and rarely asked her questions about this matter, whenever I did she answered me with utter honesty and gave me correct knowledge on the subject. I was fortunate to have her around growing up. I agree with Couchenour and Chrisman. This is because I feel that since my mom offered me the facts about sexuality while I was growing up, this helped me experience healthy sexuality development, despite how awkward our conversations could be (on my end) at times. Finally, I reviewed with the class key points from the article. I also explained once again how my artifact, a video on sexual awakenings, relates to class since it deals with healthy sexual development.
The artifact I decided to share with the class today is a picture I found on face book during the summer. the image was surfaced on the internet around the time of the same sex marriage law being passed in the united states. On the left side there was the famous image of the battle of Iwo Jima, with the American male soldiers pushing the up the American flag. On the right side there is a picture of shirt less males pushing up the gay flag. The picture of the shirtless males is in the exact same as the famous image of the American soldiers. There was a lot of discussion of this image being posted on the internet. Many people thought the gay pride image was disrespectful to the American soldiers that lost their life during that battle. The battle on Iwo Jima took nearly 6,000 American lives, while wounding nearly 17,500. This world war two battle was a big turning point in the war for the United States. People also claim that the picture only contains males, people wonder if this a gay pride movement, why isn’t their any females, transgender, etc. that the gay flag represents.
The gay community believes that the picture is not meant to be disrespectful to the men that fought in that battle or in the war. The supporters of the picture believe that the image represents the uphill battle that the community had to fight to get equal marriage rights. When discussing the image with Dr. Rainey, we brought up a very good point on the image that I did not notice when looking at the image. The military has a don’t ask, don’t tell policy where you keep quite on your sexuality. So, some of those men who served our country during this time period could of been gay, without anyone knowing. The men fighting for our country and for our freedom, could be gay and they do not have the same freedoms as the other couples in the United States.
I decided to share this image to class, because our class discussion was on sex, gender, and sexuality. I believe it was a good image to bring to the class’s attention because many students were not aware that the image existed. During class we talked about the different sexualities that many people associate themselves with. I also did some research on different countries and the military policies on the LGBT community. I found that Canada and Australia allow all LGBT members to join the military and to serve their country. While in the United States, gay and bisexual individuals were allowed to join the military.
In class, I first discussed how gender is often a topic most people think they understand completely, when in fact a lot of people do not. Before I took a class on diversity, I did not fully understand gender either. In fact, I am still learning more about it. Gender is not binary, it is not either/or. In most cases, it is both/and. There are infinite combinations in regards to sexual orientation, gender, etc.
After talking about gender, I then explained several definitions. First off, gender identity can be thought of as being in the brain. It is defined as how you, in your head, define your gender, based on how much you align (or do not align) with what you understand to be the options for gender.
Gender expression is the ways in which you present gender through your actions, dress, and demeanor. It is also how those presentations are interpreted based on gender norms. This is thought of as body expression.
Biological sex is the physical sex characteristics you are born with/develop. This includes genitalia, body shape, voice pitch, body hair, hormones, and chromosomes. I discussed the male, female, and non-binary transgender signs as well, since these relate to biological sex.
Sexual attraction is what it sounds like: who you are attracted to sexually. This can be no one, woman/female/femininity, men/males/masculinity.
Romantic attraction can include these same aspects. However, this deals with who you are romantically attracted to. This aspect of sexual orientation can be thought of as the heart.
There are infinite combinations to these definitions. One example is a person may have been born female, think of themselves as being feminine/female as far as gender, express themselves in a masculine way, be sexually attracted to females and males equally, but be more romantically attracted to males than females. This is just one example, there are thousands.
This artifact really relates to class, especially because we have been discussing sexual orientation. Many of the definitions brought up in my artifact have been described and examined during class. In addition, we have been talking about a range of sexual orientation and identities, as well as the concept of self-identity (which relates to my artifact).
Also, the articles we have recently read dealt with whether or not being gay is a choice or something you are born with, as well as the advantages and disadvantages that transgender people may experience. Thus, my artifact of the Genderbread Person relates to class on many levels.
For my artifact I used the television show Sirens which depicts an asexual character. I used the scene where they tell the audience that Voodoo identifies as asexual and her interaction with a man who has a crush on her. I decided to use this as my artifact because we were talking about identities in class and because asexuality is an identity that has often never been heard of or is ignored. This show did a pretty good job of explaining what asexuality is and it shows the difference between sexual attraction and romantic attraction. By having one of the characters do research on asexuality they described the orientation pretty well and addressed some of the common misconceptions.
Asexuality is defined as a lack of sexual attraction. That is the only requirement to belong to the Ace community. This means that someone who identifies as Ace will not look at a person and think “I want to have sex with them”. In one of our readings an “ex-gay” man was talking about having to suppress his attraction to men. An asexual would never feel this kind of attraction in the first place. Many people think that ace individuals do not ever want to have sex (as is the case with the character in the show) but that is not necessarily true. Many ace spectrum people will be in relationships with people who are allosexual (a person who feels sexual attraction) and will have sex while in this relationship. While many ace people will go without having sex not all do.
In Sirens the ace character, Voodoo, and another character, Brian, form a relationship. This brings up the concept we talked about in class where there is a separation between sexual and romantic attraction. Although Voodoo was asexual she was not aromantic and still felt romantic attraction toward Brian. They entered a relationship that was the same as many other couples on the show. They would go out together, they would cuddle on the couch and watch movies, they would do other romantic things, but they would not engage in sexual activities. At one point in the show Brian says “I like you. I think you’re funny, and different, and I never know what you’re gonna say, and obviously I think you’re beautiful, but if we never have sex that’s okay because I’m just happy being around you”. The television show show that the relationship is based on more than just sex and is still a valid relationship to be in.
This artifact fit in well with the class because we were talking about different orientations and identities. This showed an identity that is not often talked about and is not always recognized.
My artifact was a shirt that stated “Pansexual Pirate Likes All Kinds of Booty”. I chose this shirt because it related to the topic of sexual orientation, but also brought in the question of gender identity. I identify as pansexual, so to me it means to be attracted to all genders. I also see it as interchangeable with queer, since pansexual is an older term. Where this gets a little complicated is the concept of gender as a spectrum instead of a binary. As was explained in class, gender identity, expression, and sexual orientation are all different aspects of a person. So someone who is pansexual would be attracted to people of any gender, not just the social construct of a binary (man and woman). This includes all sorts of folks. I have found the easiest way to explain to others the idea of gender as a spectrum is to label the spectrum as agender/no gender to pangender/all gender. A pansexual person, like myself would find any person in that spectrum attractive.
Pansexuality is also considered a “middle sexuality”. This means that it would be in the area of a 3 on a Kinsey scale. One of the things that middle sexualities face would be erasure. There are people both in and out of the queer community that continue to think or say that bi-, pan-, and even ace/aro- identifying folks don’t exist. This comes from the idea that there is only homosexual or heterosexual; a person can’t like multiple genders because there are only those two options. An example would be if I were to be attracted to and with a straight, cisgendered man. Someone might say that because of that relationship, I am actually straight. Or if I were to be with a cisgendered woman, I would actually be gay. This binary way of thinking contributes to the erasure and invalidity of middle sexualities. Luckily, more folks are speaking out about it and having their voices heard.
I had mentioned in my presentation that I also identified as panromantic. For me, this means I am also romantically attracted to any gender. The separation between sexual and romantic attraction is important because not only does it make understanding one’s own identity, it also includes those who are aromantic as well. These would be folks who aren’t romantically attracted to anyone. I find this distinction in my identity to be important in explaining that we all have different parts of our identities.
A question that was raised during my presentation was if I think my sexuality is a choice, in relation to the articles read. I personally believe that it is a combination of nature and nurture. I might’ve been “born this way”, but my environment shaped who I am and who I like.
I cannot speak for all pansexual or middle sexuality folks, this is just my opinion based on my experiences and what I’ve learned from others.
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