Response #5

What I plan on my first paper being about.

When I was in High School, during my Senior Year, my English teacher introduced to the play “Angels in America”, by Tony Kushner. He told the class that he loves to teach this book every year because of his brother, who died of Aids. This story takes place in the late 1980s, where people believed that the cause of AIDS was homosexuality and God punishing those individuals. Of course we would later find out that this wasn’t true. The point is, homosexuality was highly looked down upon in society to the point where people would go through great lengths to hide this from their neighborhood or even just anyone. Roy Cohn is a character inspired from the actual Roy Cohn as they are political figures in both the story and in real life. The twist however, in the story Roy Cohn is a homosexual who is unwilling to accept that he is homosexual. One of the most moving scenes for me personally in Angels in America is the interaction between Cohn and his nurse. In the scene, the nurse informs to Cohn that he has AIDS, and because of societies understanding of the cause of AIDS, the readers and the Nurse believe that Roy Cohn is homosexual. Roy Cohn admits that he fucks other men but refuses to label himself as a homosexual. He is not just refusing to accept his sexual identity, but this scene establishes that Cohn made the decision to solidify his fake status towards the public so that he could be treated in the best way that he could. He chose his status over his identity, and the real question is, is this moral or right?

Many people thought that we couldn’t have an African American President, how likely are we able to have a President who is homosexual, or even transgender? A large group of people believe as though people who are transgender are delusional or have mental illness. If you don’t believe me, listen to what Ben Shapiro has said regarding people who are transgender.

I wanted the topic of my essay to fall in either categories of Gender of Homeland and Identity. I think that these topics are both beautiful because we as a society right now are trying to define them for what they are. We live in a society of Hierarchies when it comes to race, gender, culture, or just anything else with differences. My brother is currently trying to figure out his sexuality and after having a great conversation with him, we came to an agreement where we should treat sexuality as a spectrum where there is a ton of variety, but remains equal and leveled at the same time. I would be lying to you if I said I was 100% straight because I don’t think anyone is. Sure putting the label, Heterosexual Male is simple, but we are all different from one to another, how can say certain people are in this group and other people are in another group. I don’t think it serves justice to the people, personally.

Anyway, I’m still tying to find an essay that could help find a topic of interested. I’m sorry this is taking me a while to do, but I’m sure I’ll figure it out as some point as my grade does depend on it. I have an idea of what I want to argue about, and I have an idea of the audience I want to speak to. I want to argue that gender and sexual orientation isn’t as simple as a 2 options. I want to talk about how being gay lesbian affects the way people treat you in society. I want to talk about limited opportunities the LGBTQ community have because they are just being themselves. I want my audience to be people who are religious, who think anyone who is not straight has a mental illness. Those who are willing to listen to the other perspective at least. I want my audience to be the older generation because not even my Grandparents see a world where sexuality other than straight is not okay. I also want to raise the question, to these people, why should it matter to you?

People shouldn’t feel bad for people who have different sexual orientations because they are marginalized, they should just accept them with open arms. People shouldn’t feel bad for others just because they are different. It’s not a disease. Anyway, I’m going to talk to you tomorrow about what essay I should use in my paper. See you in Class!