Can we have an opinion on everything?

FLORENCE, ITALY – About two weeks ago an Italian singer during a concert, through a monologue, targeted a political party for its stance on human rights, in particular for sexual orientation.

Famous and not famous people wanted to support him or express their opposite opinion by supporting the political party.

In 2021, Italy still does not allow same-sex couples to marry and have children. They are protected by law only through a civil partnership.

This era has given us the opportunity to be able to express our views freely and this view can be heard. But what are the limits of freedom of speech?

There are some issues that are not questionable. They do not need our opinion. Our sexual orientation, our skin color, our origin, our disability cannot be questioned. Because no matter how much we disagree, these fundamental characteristics will not change in us or in those around us. For example, some phrases or opinions that do not make sense to a heterosexual person should not make sense to a homosexual. It is tedious to need to support the normality in 2021.

The only thing we can do is focus on ourselves and improve ourselves.

We can have an opinion on millions of things, on music, on anything that has to do with our aesthetics. But views on fundamental characteristics are useless and often dangerous (bullying).

In the book written by the biologist Jacques Balthazart, this issue is explored

Balthazart, J. (2012). Behavioral neuroendocrinology.The biology of homosexuality. Oxford University Press.

It is broadly accepted by many people throughout the world that sexual orientation (both homosexual and heterosexual) is mostly, if not exclusively, determined during childhood by education and social interactions. This book presents an alternative interpretation and reviews evidence indicating that prenatal factors play a critical role in organizing this essential feature of human sexuality. The majority of men (>90-95%) are attracted to women and, vice versa. Sexual orientation can therefore be considered a sexually-differentiated trait. In animals, a large number of sexually differentiated features are organized during the pre- and early post-natal life by sex steroids such as testosterone and estradiol. It is therefore legitimate to wonder whether the same mechanism also influences or even determines human sexual orientation. This idea is supported by two types of evidence. On the one hand, it has been demonstrated that a number of behavioral, physiological, or morphological traits are significantly different in homo-and hetero-sexual populations. Because these traits are sexually differentiated in control human populations and are known to be organized in animals by prenatal steroids including testosterone, these differences suggest that, during development, homosexual subjects were exposed to atypical endocrine conditions. On the other hand, clinical conditions that result in significant changes in the endocrine milieu during embryonic life are known to be associated with an increased incidence of homosexuality. Together these data strongly suggest that the prenatal endocrine environment has a significant impact on human sexual orientation even if a substantial fraction of the variance in this behavioral characteristic remains unexplained at present. Genetic differences affecting behavior either directly or via changes in hormone secretion or action in the embryo are also likely to be implicated. How and whether these biological factors exerting their influence during the prenatal or immediately postnatal life interact with postnatal social factors to determine the adult sexual orientation remain to be determined. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)