Prompt #2 - Garrett Cutting

The two institutions for me that really defined gender and sexuality in my life are my family and school. Growing up, I never really had anything feminine. I have an older brother, so there was really nothing feminine in the house except for my mom's stuff. My parents taught me to be very competitive, in sports and in the classroom, and also to be aggressive if you wanted something but smart about how you went about it. Now, I see that it's masculine to be competitve in life and aggressive, so even at a young age, my family was teaching me how to be a man. Also, my parents taught me to always be in control of your life, so even still, I like to be in control of whatever situation I am in. I recognize now that in many movies and society it's usually a man that holds powerful positions. Overall, my parents and family played a big role in defining gender and sexuality in my life.

Maybe an institution that played a bigger role than my family in defining gender and sexuality was school. Just seeing and visualizing how other boys and girls my age acted really gave me a sense of how girls and boys differed. All my real close friends growing up were guys who liked sports and were pretty smart; although, we had one girl that was our close friend but she was very tom-boyish. Even in early elementary school, everyone was talking about who they liked, and which girl or boy they wanted to pass a note to, so that dealt with the sexuality part. Also, in fifth grade, I can remember the school showing us "The Movie." I already knew about all that anyways, but it was a big step for the school to show the students it, and think little kids could handle watching something like that. School definitely played a big role in my life defining gender and sexuality.