Beg Gay Not a Choice: Science Contradicts Ben Carson | Live Science

Contents:

• WHY ARE PEOPLE GAY? GAY BY CHOICE OR IS BEG GAY GEIC?
• WHY WOULD PEOPLE 'CHOOSE' TO BE GAY?
• ‘I AM GAY – BUT I WASN’T BORN THIS WAY’
• WHY I 'CHOSE' TO BE GAY
• BEG GAY NOT A CHOICE: SCIENCE CONTRADICTS BEN CARSON
• WHY DO LOTS OF PEOPLE THK THAT PEOPLE CHOOSE TO BE GAY?
• CAN A PERSON BE BORN GAY?
• 10 ANTI-GAY MYTHS DEBUNKED

WHY ARE PEOPLE GAY? GAY BY CHOICE OR IS BEG GAY GEIC?

Homosexual members of society n unfortunately expect to regularly be challenged, sctised and nmned by belligerent type who are seemgly nvced that homosexualy is a “liftyle choice” issue has e up aga (for what is possibly the 12, 456, 987, 332nd time) for several reasons. The mastream media has always been somewhat blunt or ham-fisted s portrayal of even heterosexual relatnships (for evince of this, see pretty much any married uple an advert), so was a long shot that they’d show homosexuals accurately.

WHY WOULD PEOPLE 'CHOOSE' TO BE GAY?

Normally heterosexual characters sudnly displayg homosexual leangs when a boost viewg figur are need is a mon trope the days, so you n sort of see how this might make some people thk ’s a “choice”, if they lack more realistic sayg that sexualy is set stone om birth is also not que right, the ma emphasis of those g the choice argument is that homosexuals have weighed up their optns and nscly cid “I am gog to be gay om now on”. Comedian Todd Glass mak a brilliant pot his book (which is great, I got for Christmas), which is that if you genuely believe sexualy is a choice, then you’re not actually straight, you jt haven’t met anyone persuasive enough those who argue that homosexualy is a choice variably assert that is a wrong choice. If we fe beg gay as engagg homosexual behavr (the ncept of “gay” as an inty is a Wtern cultural ncept – people who have sex wh both men and women may ll themselv gay, straight or bisexual, pendg on the l of their culture or subculture), then people stop beg gay as soon as they stop engagg this behavr.

‘I AM GAY – BUT I WASN’T BORN THIS WAY’

If sexual preference n be altered, then people who support gay rights n’t rely on the argument that gay people should be protected om discrimatn bee gay people have no choice but to be gay – an argument that seems like an apology for homosexualy, as if homosexualy is a disease for which there is no cure.

Jt as gay people who are happy as they are should not be forced to change their sexual orientatn, gay people who want to be straight should have the right to change if they n – and the rrect word is “change” – not “cure”.

Part of the explanatn is geic, but bee most intil tws of gay people are straight, heredy don’t expla “why” qutn is important bee “there is a strong rrelatn between beliefs about the origs of sexual orientatn and tolerance of non-heterosexualy, ” acrdg to the report thors, who are om seven universi spanng the globe.

WHY I 'CHOSE' TO BE GAY

(When Atlantic ntributor Chandler Burr proposed his 1996 book, A Separate Creatn, that people are born gay, Southern Baptists lled to boytt Disney films and parks prott agast the publisher, Disney subsidiary Hypern. But gaps will rema, such as why some firstborn sons are gay, why some intil tws of gay sons are straight, and why women are gay, to name jt a review-paper thors do le out one explanatn for homosexualy, however: That tolerance for gay people enurag more people to bee gay.

“Homosexual orientatn do not crease equency wh social tolerance, although s exprsn ( behavr and open intifitn) may do so, ” they reasong—that a tolerant society somehow enurag homosexualy to flourish—has been ed to support anti-gay legislatn Uganda, Rsia, and elsewhere.

BEG GAY NOT A CHOICE: SCIENCE CONTRADICTS BEN CARSON

You so obvly nnot be gay, was her implitn, bee this is good was 2006, a full five years before Lady Gaga would set the Born This Way argument atop s unassailable cultural perch, but even then the popular unrstandg of orientatn was that was somethg you were born wh, somethg you uldn’t change. But what feels most accurate to say is that I’m gay – but I wasn’t born this people may fd their sir changg directn - and n't jt be explaed as experimentatn (Cred: Ignac Lehmann)In 1977, jt over 10% of Amerins thought gayns was somethg you were born wh, acrdg to Gallup. Throughout the same perd, the number of Amerins who believe homosexualy is “due to someone’s upbrgg/environment” fell om jt unr 60% to ias reached cril mass pop culture, first wh Lady Gaga’s 2011 Born This Way and one year later wh Macklemore’s Same Love, the chos of which has a gay person sgg “I n’t change even if I tried, even if I wanted to.

” Around the same time, the Human Rights Campaign clared unequivolly that “Beg gay is not a choice, ” and to claim that is “giv unwarranted crence to roundly disproven practic such as nversn or reparative therapy. ”People who challenge the Born This Way narrative are often st as homophobic, and their thkg is nsired backwardAs Jane Ward not Not Gay: Sex Between Straight Whe Men, what’s tertg about many of the claims is how transparent their speakers are wh their polil motivatns. In fact, the homophobic and non-homophobic rponnts he studied shared siar levels of belief a Born This Way Samantha Allen not at The Daily Beast, the growg public support for gays and lbians has grown out of proportn wh the rise the number of people who believe homosexualy is fixed at birth; would be unlikely that this small change opn uld expla the spike support for gay marriage, for stance.

WHY DO LOTS OF PEOPLE THK THAT PEOPLE CHOOSE TO BE GAY?

“It don’t seem to matter as much whether or not people believe that gay people are born that way as do that they simply know someone who is currently gay, ” Allen spe of the studi, those who ph agast Born This Way narrativ have been heavily cricised by gay activists.

Siarly, Ward has received her own hatemail for phg agast the lg LGB narrativ, wh some gays tellg her she’s “worse than Ann Coulter, ” the ntroversial US thor of books like If Democrats Had Any Bras, They’d Be Republins. The efforts are potentially harmful, acrdg to the APA, “bee they prent the view that the sexual orientatn of lbian, gay and bisexual youth is a mental illns of disorr, and they often ame the abily to change one’s sexual orientatn as a personal and moral failure.

The APA, for example, while notg that most people experience ltle to no choice over their orientatns, says this of homosexualy’s origs:“Although much rearch has examed the possible geic, hormonal, velopmental, social and cultural fluenc on sexual orientatn, no fdgs have emerged that perm scientists to nclu that sexual orientatn is termed by any particular factor or factors.

CAN A PERSON BE BORN GAY?

”Siarly, the Amerin Psychiatric Associatn wr a 2013 statement that while the of heterosexualy and homosexualy are currently unknown, they are likely “multifactorial cludg blogil and behavral roots which may vary between different dividuals and may even vary over time. ” Acrdg to LeVay’s rearch, a specific part of the bra, the third terstial nucls of the anterr hypothalam (INAH-3), is smaller homosexual men than is heterosexual as they might, scientists have stggled to inty any particular gen that nsistently predict the directns of our love and sire (Cred: Ignac Lehmann)Read moreYou n spot the problem wh this study a e away: were the gay bras LeVay studied born that way, or did they bee that way? Bis the dividual criqu leveled agast each new study announcg some gay gene disvery, there are major methodologil cricisms to make about the entire enterprise general, as Grzanka pots out: “If we look at the raveno pursu, particularly among Amerin scientists, to fd a gay gene, what we see is that the ncln has already been arrived at.

” Our sir may exprs themselv many different ways that do not all nform to existg notns of ‘gay’, ‘straight’ or ‘bisexual’ is one of the bt takeaways of Ward’s Not Gay, a peratg analysis of sex between straight whe men.

”Gay or not, our sir are oriented and re-oriented throughout our liv (Cred: Ignac Lehmann)In fact, the straight-intified men Ward studied for her book sometim found themselv suatns that sparked the sire for homosexual sex: aterni, ployments, public rtrooms, etc. I’m claimg that at some pot durg llege, my sexual and romantic sir beme reoriented toward menThkg back to my llege romanc wh women and men, I n beg to unrstand how my own experienc might have helped me to ‘cultivate’ my sire for homosexualy. “Limg our unrstandg of any plex human experience is always gog to be worse than allowg to be plited, ” he gay rights activists pared sexualy to relign - a ccial part of our life that we should be ee to practise however we like (Cred: Ignac Lehamann)So what are we to do wh the Born This Way rhetoric?

10 ANTI-GAY MYTHS DEBUNKED

”Acrdg to surveys, ls than half of Generatn Z intify as "100% heterosexual", suggtg more and more people have embraced their sexual fluidy (Cred: Ignac Lehmann)Perhaps is time to look to the begng of the gay rights movement. As a member of the Lbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgenr (LGBT+) muny, I n promise you that no one would ever necsarily choose to be gay knowg what this world would force them to endure solely bee of their may have admirable popular ins such as Ellen Page, Sam Smh and Ruby Rose — but the vlence we face as mori every day is pletely like other gay and lbian dividuals, I did not choose to be gay.