A Choice in the Matter
In the LGBTQIA communities, the political question of choice is a loaded one. What makes it so is the hovering shadow of "Well, since you chose this, you brought all the consequences down upon yourself".
The classic example is sexual orientation. In a world where neither tolerant open-minded attitudes nor civil rights were fully extended to gay and lesbian people, some folks would say "well, you chose this lifestyle, and if you didn't want social condemnation, you shouldn't have made that choice".
Many people, when accused in a hostile and derogatory way of anything, are inclined to oppose the accusation, even when a longer contemplation of what they're being accused of might lead them to embrace it and oppose the judgmental attitude instead:
"Oh, here comes big brain genius"
"Goody two shoes, never did anything wrong!"
"Ha ha, you're a girl!"
"You pansy, you want a boyfriend to kiss, don'tcha?"
. . .
"I am not!!! You take that back!!!"
Hence, in response to being told that they don't deserve any social accommodation because they made a choice to pursue gay relationships and opportunities, the community embraced the position that "we were born this way, it's built in, we didn't choose this".
Neither side of that argument makes a lot of sense. I drank a glass of juice this morning. Did I choose to? Did I choose to be a person who enjoys the taste of juice? If I chose, was it a random choice or is there something in my nature that made that choice appealing? Is who I am -- my nature -- something separate from my will, my volition? If my choices aren't driven by who and how I am, then what is the "me" who is making choices?
And if I choose something that brings me pleasure and harms no one, by what logic do people get to lay it on me as my responsibility if society condemns my harmless choice and gets all hostile and violent towards me for embracing that pleasure? Saying that something is a choice I made doesn't excuse how society reacts to that choice, if society is irrationally unfair and intolerant. I'm left-handed, but I am capable of writing with my right hand -- it has muscles and nerves and bones and can hold a pen or pencil, and I can make it do the motions. Yet I choose to write with my left hand because it feels more natural to me. Who cares if it is built in or a choice that I made, if people call me offensive names and throw rotten food at me and lock me up or run me out of town just because they've decided people should not write with their left hand?
Look, hating people for pursuing their sexual and romantic pleasure with people of the same sex, and harassing them and being violent to them or denying them services that other people can get, that's immoral behavior. You don't get to pull this stunt of saying "but they chose to live as gay people". You think we can't figure out that homophobic bigotry is the immoral behavior and not gay dating?
So... homophobic bigots, huh? Did they choose to be hateful malicious antisocial creeps, or is it built in? I mean, not every heterosexual person behaves and thinks that way, so is there something in their nature that makes them more disposed to be like that? Suppose there were. Does that make it okay? "Oh, you can't condemn the homophobic haters, they were born that way". Like hell I can't. I can call them defective if they're born that way, because they're doing things that hurt people. I don't care how much of it is chosen and how much of it is innate, the point is, they cause harm and need to be prevented from doing so!
We've been using sexual orientation as Exhibit A for this discussion so far, but the debate on built-in versus choice has cropped up on the gender front, as you've probably noticed. The world is supposed to accept transgender people because they can't help it, there's a gene or something, it's built in, so transphobes need to adjust their attitude. Uh huh. Look, transphobes need to adjust their attitude because being hostile and judgmental towards transgender people is freaking immoral and wrong, and it doesn't become less so if Nancy over there chose to wear dresses and skirts and to change her pronouns, because it feels more natural to her, and not because a Magic Transgender Chromosome inside her head insisted that she transition.
I don't know how folks expect me to feel about this "built in gene" thing, as a genderqueer person. Does it make transgender people who seek a transition legitimate, and me not, since I am not a transitioner? Or shall I claim that there must be a built in genderqueer gene as well, one that doesn't tell your brain that you were supposed to inhabit a physical form different from the one to which you were born, but still leads you to identify with a different gender? What about genderfluid and agender types of genderqueer and nonbinary folks, do we all need our own separate causal gene, or do we share the one that we're told causes folks to be transgender?
Do you have any idea how many murderous ethnic cleansings have taken place where the people doing the genocides firmly believed that the people they were killing had a built in difference from them? A difference that they considered an innate inferiority? You think hateful bigots can't be hateful and bigoted towards people they perceive to have no choice in the matter of how they're different? You think racist people believe folks of other races chose those racial identities or something?
When I was in second and third grade, other kids (mostly boys) would hover around me and taunt me: "You sissy pansy, your name should be Alice, go play jump rope with the girls, why don't you?"
I know I was expected to stick my fists on my hips and get all angry and belligerent and deny the charges. But my reaction was more "Yeah, so? I like girls, what's wrong with you? Why do you boys have to be like this?"
Choice or nature, it was me asserting myself. Not letting them shame me.
Early lesson learned well. Don't let someone else's tone of voice and attitude shape what you view to be negative or positive. Don't just react. Think.
-------
This DreamWidth blog is echoed on LiveJournal and WordPress. Please friend/link me from any of those environments on which you have an account.
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Do you counsel young people trying to sort out their gender identity? You should read my book! It's going to add a new entry to your map of possibilities when you interact with your clients!
My book, GenderQueer: A Story From a Different Closet, has been published by Sunstone Press. It is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble in paperback and ebook, and as ebook only from Apple, Kobo, and directly from Sunstone Press themselves.
My second book, That Guy in Our Women's Studies Class, is also being published by Sunstone Press. It's a sequel to GenderQueer Stay tuned for further details.
Links to published reviews and comments are listed on my Home Page
-------
This DreamWidth blog is echoed on LiveJournal and WordPress. Please friend/link me from any of those environments on which you have an account.
--------
Index of all Blog Posts
comments at Dreamwidth -- https://ahunter3.dreamwidth.org/77893.html#comments
The classic example is sexual orientation. In a world where neither tolerant open-minded attitudes nor civil rights were fully extended to gay and lesbian people, some folks would say "well, you chose this lifestyle, and if you didn't want social condemnation, you shouldn't have made that choice".
Many people, when accused in a hostile and derogatory way of anything, are inclined to oppose the accusation, even when a longer contemplation of what they're being accused of might lead them to embrace it and oppose the judgmental attitude instead:
"Oh, here comes big brain genius"
"Goody two shoes, never did anything wrong!"
"Ha ha, you're a girl!"
"You pansy, you want a boyfriend to kiss, don'tcha?"
. . .
"I am not!!! You take that back!!!"
Hence, in response to being told that they don't deserve any social accommodation because they made a choice to pursue gay relationships and opportunities, the community embraced the position that "we were born this way, it's built in, we didn't choose this".
Neither side of that argument makes a lot of sense. I drank a glass of juice this morning. Did I choose to? Did I choose to be a person who enjoys the taste of juice? If I chose, was it a random choice or is there something in my nature that made that choice appealing? Is who I am -- my nature -- something separate from my will, my volition? If my choices aren't driven by who and how I am, then what is the "me" who is making choices?
And if I choose something that brings me pleasure and harms no one, by what logic do people get to lay it on me as my responsibility if society condemns my harmless choice and gets all hostile and violent towards me for embracing that pleasure? Saying that something is a choice I made doesn't excuse how society reacts to that choice, if society is irrationally unfair and intolerant. I'm left-handed, but I am capable of writing with my right hand -- it has muscles and nerves and bones and can hold a pen or pencil, and I can make it do the motions. Yet I choose to write with my left hand because it feels more natural to me. Who cares if it is built in or a choice that I made, if people call me offensive names and throw rotten food at me and lock me up or run me out of town just because they've decided people should not write with their left hand?
Look, hating people for pursuing their sexual and romantic pleasure with people of the same sex, and harassing them and being violent to them or denying them services that other people can get, that's immoral behavior. You don't get to pull this stunt of saying "but they chose to live as gay people". You think we can't figure out that homophobic bigotry is the immoral behavior and not gay dating?
So... homophobic bigots, huh? Did they choose to be hateful malicious antisocial creeps, or is it built in? I mean, not every heterosexual person behaves and thinks that way, so is there something in their nature that makes them more disposed to be like that? Suppose there were. Does that make it okay? "Oh, you can't condemn the homophobic haters, they were born that way". Like hell I can't. I can call them defective if they're born that way, because they're doing things that hurt people. I don't care how much of it is chosen and how much of it is innate, the point is, they cause harm and need to be prevented from doing so!
We've been using sexual orientation as Exhibit A for this discussion so far, but the debate on built-in versus choice has cropped up on the gender front, as you've probably noticed. The world is supposed to accept transgender people because they can't help it, there's a gene or something, it's built in, so transphobes need to adjust their attitude. Uh huh. Look, transphobes need to adjust their attitude because being hostile and judgmental towards transgender people is freaking immoral and wrong, and it doesn't become less so if Nancy over there chose to wear dresses and skirts and to change her pronouns, because it feels more natural to her, and not because a Magic Transgender Chromosome inside her head insisted that she transition.
I don't know how folks expect me to feel about this "built in gene" thing, as a genderqueer person. Does it make transgender people who seek a transition legitimate, and me not, since I am not a transitioner? Or shall I claim that there must be a built in genderqueer gene as well, one that doesn't tell your brain that you were supposed to inhabit a physical form different from the one to which you were born, but still leads you to identify with a different gender? What about genderfluid and agender types of genderqueer and nonbinary folks, do we all need our own separate causal gene, or do we share the one that we're told causes folks to be transgender?
Do you have any idea how many murderous ethnic cleansings have taken place where the people doing the genocides firmly believed that the people they were killing had a built in difference from them? A difference that they considered an innate inferiority? You think hateful bigots can't be hateful and bigoted towards people they perceive to have no choice in the matter of how they're different? You think racist people believe folks of other races chose those racial identities or something?
When I was in second and third grade, other kids (mostly boys) would hover around me and taunt me: "You sissy pansy, your name should be Alice, go play jump rope with the girls, why don't you?"
I know I was expected to stick my fists on my hips and get all angry and belligerent and deny the charges. But my reaction was more "Yeah, so? I like girls, what's wrong with you? Why do you boys have to be like this?"
Choice or nature, it was me asserting myself. Not letting them shame me.
Early lesson learned well. Don't let someone else's tone of voice and attitude shape what you view to be negative or positive. Don't just react. Think.
-------
This DreamWidth blog is echoed on LiveJournal and WordPress. Please friend/link me from any of those environments on which you have an account.
--------
Index of all Blog Posts
-------
Do you counsel young people trying to sort out their gender identity? You should read my book! It's going to add a new entry to your map of possibilities when you interact with your clients!
My book, GenderQueer: A Story From a Different Closet, has been published by Sunstone Press. It is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble in paperback and ebook, and as ebook only from Apple, Kobo, and directly from Sunstone Press themselves.
My second book, That Guy in Our Women's Studies Class, is also being published by Sunstone Press. It's a sequel to GenderQueer Stay tuned for further details.
Links to published reviews and comments are listed on my Home Page
-------
This DreamWidth blog is echoed on LiveJournal and WordPress. Please friend/link me from any of those environments on which you have an account.
--------
Index of all Blog Posts
comments at Dreamwidth -- https://ahunter3.dreamwidth.org/77893.html#comments