Homosexuality, transgenderism and pedophilia are often confused in the minds of the public, but they are there seperate and distinct things.

Sexual Orientation refers to the attraction an individual has to members of the same sex, the opposite sex, or to both. Gender Identity, on the other hand, refers to one's perception of oneself as male or female. Transgendered people usually have a gender identity that does not correspond to their physical sex. These two issues are sometimes confused because of the stereotypical association of gay men with femininity and lesbian women with masculinity. It is important to keep in mind that while some gay men and lesbians may exhibit mannerisms typically associated with the opposite sex, they usually have a strong sense of being men and women respectively.

Gender identity has has nothing to do with whom you are attracted to sexually, but is about your gender role in society. It has to do with feeling that you have a female's "brain" and a male's "body" or the other way around (or a mish mash of the two in any combination!). In fact, there are many male-to-female transgenders who undewent sex-reassignment surgery and adopted a lesbian identity, and the same can be said of female-to-male transgenders.

Human sexuality is rich and complex, and this diversity in feelings, identities, and emotions is proof of that.

Homosexuality and Pedophilia

Unfortunately, some people still confuse homosexuality with pedophilia. Pedophilia refers to a sexual attraction to children, the act of which is morally reprehensible and rightly a crime. The social urge to equate all what it sees as 'deviance' into one mould has led to the common notion that homosexuality, or one's attraction to members of the same sex, is the same as pedophilia, while in fact they are completely different. Studies have shown 95% of pedophiles are heterosexual while only 5% of them are homosexual. (1)

References

1- Harold I. Kaplan, MD, Benjamin J. Sadock, MD, Jack A. Grebb, MD. 1994. Kaplan and Sadock's Synopsis of Psychiary Behavioral Sciences Clinical Psychiatry . 7 th edition. William and Wilkins. Baltimore, Maryland, USA.