Life -- Relates to How Sexual, Cultural

¶ … life -- relates to how sexual, cultural and religious biases can have a horrible impact on people who are different. In this film, the need for understanding is very strong because Noah is a boy who feels more like a girl. In this class we discussed transgender situations that call for tolerance and fairness towards others who may be quite different. The important concepts discussed in class made a very strong impression on me because before I became a member of this class I have to admit I was not keeping an open mind about people who are very different from me. The film and this class connected me to my own experiences. I admit I was prejudiced against cross-dressers, against men changing themselves sexually into women and females making changes that turned them into men. "Transgender" to me meant someone trying to be something that person really wasn't supposed to be. I have now learned to accept those who go through transgender changes.

It was difficult for me to accept people whose sexual lifestyles are so different from what I used to believe were "normal" people; I considered myself "normal" in that I am a female and I have a female body and heterosexual attractions towards those of the opposite gender. But by taking this class, I now hesitate to use the word "normal" because using that word makes others different from me as "abnormal" or weird in some way. Fairness in society means keeping an open mind and this class has helped me have a more open mind.

The film was very helpful in a learning sense because when the mother, father, and step-father of Noah explain their thoughts, it helps the viewer get inside the family and helps understand the emotions and social stigma the family has to deal with when a son is actually experiencing life as a woman. The part of the film that demonstrates how, in the first 3 months of pregnancy, a woman's baby becomes a male or a female is very well done. The narrator explains that female have XX chromosomes and males have XY chromosomes. And when the pattern becomes XXY or XYY and XO, the gender of the fetus can become confused. The narrator says that 1 out of 100 people in a typical city have bodies that are not strictly all male or all female.

This film opened my eyes farther than they had been opened through the class readings and other studies. I have learned a lot and I now challenge my own beliefs and prejudices like I never have challenged them before. I now understand why families with children that are "intersex" people are fearful of what might happen to their offspring. Society unfortunately is not very tolerant or understanding of gender confusion. I was very sad while watching the film because I was made aware of the stress and fear that people go through who have genitals that are different. The man in the video who was brought up as a girl said someone called him "a monster," which made me empathize with his situation.

The class discussions about love and sexual relationships (including relationships online) was very valuable to me, and I felt more like an educated adult than I ever had before when I reviewed what I had learned. The unit on how sex is used in advertising was also an interesting and worthwhile experience; I had known sex was used in advertising, but the work in class made it even clearer to me.