What Is The Essence Of Being A Homosexual?

Being homosexual means having feelings, love, desire to be with sexually or romantically someone of the same gender.
This is often called being 'gay' (an old fashioned word that also means happy so don't be confused if an elderly person asks you if you've had a gay day!?) which refers to both men and women, although lesbian is also the word that is particularly used for women, along with the old fashioned word sapphic.

Some people are bi-sexual which means that they have desires for people of both genders.

People who have an irrational hatred of gay people (homosexuals, not happy people) are called homophobic or homophobes.  They discriminate against gay people for no good reason.

Most religions do not willingly tolerate homosexuality, some however believe there are more important things than bigotry.

Of course, if we ever meet an alien race, it will seem silly that anyone was every racist or homophobic.