I used to get insecure when reading radical critiques of “born this way” narratives, but I understand it differently now. I’m reading early defenses of homosexuals that concede that their “invert” pathology is worthy of sympathy, and that straight society ought to allow them to have sex (in the right circumstances) so they don’t have to be miserable. They go on to claim that while some people who commit homosexual acts are victims of their circumstances, the real perverts are ontologically straight men who commit them by choice.
If I asked every LGBT person I know, “did you choose to be queer,” virtually everyone would say no. I have never, to my knowledge, met anyone who would say yes. But if I asked them if they would turn straight/cis if they could, I believe that most, including people who have gone through great hardships on account of their identities, would still say no. The phrase “gay lifestyle” is considered politically incorrect, and indeed there is no one gay lifestyle. But we have also developed culturally distinct circles associated with pleasure as a virtue, creativity, individual dignity and collective care. Many of us learned to look at the straight world not with envy but with relief that we’re not part of it.
There are characteristics of our queer identities or behaviors that are a choice. I did not choose to be attracted to men, but I did choose to be promiscuous. I did not choose to be uncomfortable with “male” gender roles, but I did choose to challenge them through gender expression. An emphasis on innateness would imply that the only characteristics of my identity and behavior worth defending are those that are inevitable. It would ask why I still insist on living the way I do when my sexual desires can now just as well be satiated in a legally recognized monogamous marriage.
The subtext of this question, a choice or not a choice, is whether a person is worthy of support. Much like the elusive “gay gene,” some trans advocates are searching for the definitive proof of “male brains” and “female brains” that will validate the existence of trans people once and for all. If gender becomes medically or scientifically “provable,” perhaps science would then validate trans people. Or, perhaps a brain scan would determine who should or should not consider themselves trans, and create new rationalizations to misgender on “scientific” terms. We need only look back to the sexologists of the late 19th and early 20th century, often gay themselves, who developed scientific rationalizations for queer behavior in good faith only to have them reapplied to nefarious ends.
Many will insist they support LGBT people in the abstract but not the specifics of queer culture. These are the tendencies that don’t have a scientific or metaphysical explanation. It is less often we hear claims that one is born to be flamboyant, promiscuous, left wing, kinky or polyamorous, so these tendencies are superfluous. There is a platonic ideal of a lesbian, a gay man, a bisexual or a trans person who follows their natural proclivities and not a step further, and you’re not it. So arguments against born this way narratives are not just in defense of those who see themselves as having chosen their gender or sexuality–for what it’s worth, I have not knowingly met any. It’s that this is a flimsy claim to legitimacy, one that has been used against us, and one that can only be taken so far. I’m not interested in determining who is “faking it.” I understand more and more that everyone’s body belongs to them, and the steps they take to experience joy and mutual pleasure need no explanation.
(via millenniumitem)
