sexual orientation

(noun)

It describes an enduring pattern of attraction—emotional, romantic, sexual, or some combination of these—to the opposite sex, the same sex, or both sexes, and the genders that accompany them.

Examples of sexual orientation in the following topics:

  • Privacy Rights and Sexuality

    • Rights to sexuality allow people in the United States to express sexual orientation without discrimination.
    • The right to sexuality incorporates the right to express one's sexuality, and to be free from discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation.
    • The right to sexuality, and to freedom from discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation, is based on the universality of human rights belonging to every person by virtue of being human.
    • Hate crimes based on sexual orientation or gender identity are also punishable by federal law under the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr.
    • Identify the legal cases and national legislation that protects people on the grounds of sexual orientation

  • LGBTQ Civil Rights

    • Like earlier social clubs and bars, these homophile club meetings served as a place to meet romantic and sexual partners.
    • The policy was introduced as a compromise measure in 1993 by President Bill Clinton who campaigned in 1992 on the promise to allow all citizens to serve in the military regardless of sexual orientation.
    • In accordance with the December 21, 1993, Department of Defense Directive, it was legal policy that homosexuality was incompatible with military service and that persons who engaged in homosexual acts or stated that they are homosexual or bisexual were to be discharged. he "Don't Ask" provision mandated that military or appointed officials will not ask about or require members to reveal their sexual orientation.
    • Notably, in the past decade many states have legalized same-sex marriages and civil unions, the federal government overturned a ban on open LGBTQ military service members known as Don't Ask, Don't Tell (DADT), and most states have passed anti-discrimination laws that prevent discrimination in housing, employment, and education on the basis of sexual orientation.
    • By the late 1960s, cities across the country held gay rights demonstrations to oppose discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

  • Minorities, Women, and Children

    • The differentiation can be based on one or more observable human characteristics that include ethnicity, race, gender, wealth, or sexual orientation.

  • Equality

    • For example, sex, gender, race, age, sexual orientation, origin, caste or class, income or property, language, religion, convictions, opinions, health or disability must not result in unequal treatment under the law and should not reduce opportunities unjustifiably.
    • Equality of opportunity - as an ideal - ensures that important jobs will go to those persons who are most qualified, rather than go to people for arbitrary or irrelevant reasons, such as circumstances of birth, upbringing, friendship ties to whoever is in power, religion, gender, ethnicity, race, caste, or "involuntary personal attributes" such as disability, age, or sexual preferences.

  • Continuing Challenges in Race Relations in the U.S.

    • Affirmative action refers to policies that take factors including race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, or national origin into consideration in order to benefit underrepresented groups in areas of employment, education, and business.

  • The Women's Rights Movement

    • Whereas first-wave feminism focused mainly on suffrage and overturning legal obstacles to gender equality (i.e. voting rights, property rights), second-wave feminism broadened the debate to a wide range of issues: sexuality, family, the workplace, reproductive rights, de facto inequalities, and official legal inequalities.
    • The second wave of feminism in North America came as a delayed reaction against the renewed domesticity of women after World War II: the late 1940s post-war boom, which was an era characterized by an unprecedented economic growth, a baby boom, a move to family-oriented suburbs, and the ideal of companionate marriages.

  • The Feminist Movement

    • The feminist movement (also known as the women's movement or women's liberation) refers to a series of campaigns for reforms on issues, such as women's suffrage, reproductive rights, domestic violence, maternity leave, equal pay in the workplace, maternity leave, sexual harassment, and sexual violence.
    • Although passage failed, the women's rights movement has made significant inroads in reproductive rights, sexual harassment law, pay discrimination, and equality of women's sports programs in schools.
    • In 1980, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission defined sexual harassment as unwelcome sexual advances or sexual conduct, verbal or physical, that interferes with a person's performance or creates a hostile working environment.
    • The first wave of women's feminism focused on suffrage, while subsequent feminist efforts have expanded to focus on equal pay, reproductive rights, sexual harassment, and others.

  • Gender Discrimination

    • Wage discrimination, the "glass ceiling" (in which gender is perceived to be a barrier to professional advancement), and sexual harassment in the workplace are all examples of occupational sexism.
    • Violence against women, including sexual assault, domestic violence, and sexual slavery, remains a serious problem around the world.

  • Forming Political Values

    • It is through the performance of this function that individuals are inducted into the political culture and their orientations towards political objects are formed.
    • Family: Glass (1986) recognizes family as a primary influence in the development of a child's political orientation, mainly due to constant relationship between parents and child, detailed in the table Family as a Primary Influence below.

  • Women in the Workplace

    • Challenges that remain for women in the workplace include the gender pay gap, the difference between women's and men's earnings due to lifestyle choices and explicit discrimination; the "glass ceiling", which prevents women from reaching the upper echelons within their companies; sexism and sexual harassment; and network discrimination, wherein recruiters for high-status jobs are generally men who hire other men.