Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity
Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Initiative
What Is Sexual Orientation?
Sexual orientation is an enduring emotional, romantic, sexual, or affectional attraction toward others. It can be distinguished from other aspects of sexuality including biological sex, gender identity (the psychological sense of being male or female) and the social gender role (adherence to cultural norms for feminine and masculine behavior).
Sexual orientation exists along a continuum that ranges from exclusive heterosexuality to exclusive homosexuality and includes various forms of bisexuality. Bisexual persons can experience sexual, emotional, and affectional attraction to both their own sex and the opposite sex. Persons with a homosexual orientation are sometimes referred to as gay (both men and women) or as lesbian (women only).
Sexual orientation is different from sexual behavior because it refers to feelings and self-concept. Individuals may or may not express their sexual orientation in their behaviors.
Prejudices, negative stereotypes and discrimination toward individuals that identify as Lesbian, Gay, or Bisexual are called homophobia.
Source: American Psychological Association, APA (www.apahelpcenter.org)
What DAP is doing to address Sexual Orientation related concerns in our community?
The Diversity Awareness Partnership, whose theme is Make a Difference By Accepting Everyone Else’s, is dedicated to promoting the value of diversity in the St. Louis region through collaborative community and school-based education and awareness efforts. In pursuit of our mission, we have joined with many other organizations to compose the Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (SO-GI) Committee. In association with the following organizations and community members, we will present Community Forums in partnership with Out & Urban of Metropolis St. Louis, Metropolitan Community Church of Greater St. Louis, Parents, Families, & Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) and Growing American Youth (GAY) we presented a series of community forums to promote awareness around the issues of sexual orientation and gender identity. This initiative is committed to promoting awareness and action surrounding issues and events relating to the St. Louis Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) community and its allies. In addition to providing resources and support for the LGBT community, this initiative aims to foster dialogue pertaining to LGBT-related topics amongst ALL members of the St. Louis community. The Initiative will be launching a media campaign in 2009 to build awareness for the greater St. Louis community and nationally. .
Organizations represented on this committee include:
Metropolis St. Louis
Metropolitan Community Church of Great St. Louis
Pride St. Louis
PFLAG
Growing American Youth
Anti-Violence Advocacy Project of the St. Louis Region
The Gender Foundation
To become involved in our initiative please email Emily Task, etask@dapstl.org.
Please click on one of the following for more information on sexual orientation and