Gender and sexuality

[buzzruth]

This is a slightly rambling, possibly unintentionally insulting post. I apologise for both from the offset - the first is because its stream of consciousness, and the second I assure you is not what I’m trying to do and is simply misguided comments arising from trying to learn and understand

Comments

Born This Way

[nezumiko]

Hey again. I talked to DK and got a sense from him that Ash is mostly being a snotty little brother with his "it" nonsense. So... I'll turn a blind eye, for now. If he does it not in jest, though, black belt or not, I will help with the beatdown.

I'm glad I managed to explain things a little, even if I made some waters murkier for you.

I choose to be straight because thats what feels natural, and I wouldn't choose to be gay because the idea goes through me

That doesn't sound homophobic, that sounds like exactly what all the "born this way" proponents are saying about themselves regardless of their sexual orientation. Actually, I think you're probably coming to the question from a position of already believing in the "born this way" scenario. You were born straight, and so you act straight, because acting straight is what feels most natural to you. And I was born queer so I act queer because acting queer is what feels most natural to me. That doesn't sound homophobic in the least.

I'm pretty solidly in the "born this way" camp myself, as are, I think, most people who are even a little open-minded and scientific.

The "it's a choice" people seem mostly to come from a mindset that can't imagine that something that feels natural to them could possibly feel unnatural to someone else, and vice versa, so to them a man who has sex with men must be acting against his "natural inclination" to be attracted to women. Where as to us it's fairly obvious that he is acting on his natural inclination to be attracted to men.

The question as to whether science ought to be looking for the "gay gene" or the gay part of the brain, or whatever else might be responsible for gayness is also predicated on an assumption that it is something inborn. And honestly, if there were no societal prejudice against gayness, then there would be no controversy.

Actually, maybe it's a bit like a scientific search for the origins of red hair. If there is no societal prejudice against people with red hair, then figuring out that red hair is caused by a recessive gene on one arm of a particular chromosome (or that it's caused by hormonal influences in utero, or by the pregnant mother eating pickles and sardines during the second trimester during a full moon, or whatever the cause may be) is just an interesting scientific fact. Maybe one or two people will try to make sure their child is born ginger, and one or two will try to avoid it, but on the whole it's just another detail that makes a person unique.

It's when there is sufficient societal prejudice against an inborn trait that it leads to attempts to treat the condition or cure it, or abort fetuses carrying that trait, that it becomes problematic. Are we defining gayness as simply an inborn trait like hair color, or are we treating it like a genetic defect, like cystic fibrosis or Down's syndrome?

Anyway, my completely unscientific survey of the people I know is that being queer (gay, bi, trans, asexual, etc) is as natural and inborn as being straight is. I don't know anyone queer who argues that they are going against a natural inclination to be straight.

Re: Born This Way

[buzzruth]

Interesting. It seems that what you see as born with it I do see as a choice, but we both look at it in the exact same way. I still don't think I'm in the born this way catagory, but there's a whole bunch of learned behaviour vs natural instinct stuff that I would be interesting to look into further just to see if I really am and not realising!

I guessed that the prejudice is the reason that people are against finding the gay whatever, and yeah with the still there it's an ethical blackspot to actually do anything. Which is a shame because it would be interesting to know. Although that would take away the straight / gay idenitity a bit. The fun of discovering as it were.