Following is an excerpt from “Be Strong Be Smart — a father talks to his daughter about sex:

Gender –Why is this word in here? I want to say a few things about gender because it means something different than sex and I think the difference is important. A lot of people use the word gender when they’re talking about male or female. I take the word gender to mean masculine or feminine and the word sex to mean male or female.
Here’s why I think it’s important: you were born female and you learn femininity. I was born male and I learned masculinity. So gender behavior is something that I learn from various sources: my extended family, school, siblings, films and television, role models and the culture I was born into. In my case, I soaked this up from my dad.
Time and place is very important too. Being born a female in Los Angeles in 1998 has a different influence on your life than if you were born in Beijing in 1698. You can imagine that your family and the culture would expect radically different things from you. What would it mean to be a girl and a woman in China three hundred years ago? You and I can only imagine.
So if you and I learned our gender beliefs and behaviors it means we can unlearn them, or change them to fit our current values and lifestyles. Could I, for instance, consider developing more of my feminine side? Does your mother want to grow her masculine persona?
You don’t have to be a woman to be feminine and you don’t have to be a man to embrace masculine behaviors. When the culture looks at certain traits such as nurturing or receiving as feminine and subtly discourages that in boys, it is a loss for the boys and the society.
Picture the yin-yang symbol and think of the black and white sides as masculine and feminine/ They fit together, snug with each other. They are not in competition, they don’t struggle with one another. They compliment each other.
What does all this mean to you? I don’t want you to be limited by a picture others may have of you as a woman and therefore only feminine. I want you to embrace all that you are and not limited by some kind of cage that the culture may put around you.
In the sexual arena this means you can be your full powerful self and act on how you feel and what you want, without reference to being someone else’s idea of feminine or masculine. There is no reason I can think of to either embrace or deny either your masculine or feminine side.
This is as good a place as any to address same sex relationships.
I’ve never had strong feelings about homosexuality, one way or another. When I was a youngster there was a lot of prejudice and violence and laws regarding men with men and women with women. All that’s changed remarkably fast and I think we’re a better society for that change. That doesn’t mean that everybody is suddenly in favor of gays and lesbians, but I am happy to see the social change and the legal changes that allow every one of us to feel and act as we want to.
My stance is to learn from as many people and points of view as I can. I have learned a lot from the men and women I know that are in a same sex relationship and I urge you to do the same.
Here’s what I hope for you: If you have strong feelings for any individual—of the same sex or different, of the same race or different, of the same culture or different—that you will honor that feeling and not feel guilty about it. AND, this is big, that you will carefully consider the choices you have before you jump into a relationship. Remember, I am always here to talk with you about choices.