BBC World Service - CrowdScience, Why am I gay?

Contents:

• ‘I AM GAY – BUT I WASN’T BORN THIS WAY’
• WHY AM I GAY?
• AM I GAY?
• AM I GAY, STRAIGHT, LBIAN, BISEXUAL OR LGBTQ+?
• I LIKE GUYS BUT I DON’T WANT TO BE GAY. HOW DO I STOP BEG GAY?

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

For example, exposg a boy to toys tradnally ma for girls, such as dolls, won’t e him to be gay. ” Many people, cludg sex rearchers and scientists, believe that sexual orientatn is like a sle wh entirely gay on one end and entirely straight on the other. Sexual inty is how you label yourself (for example, g labels such as queer, gay, lbian, straight, or bisexual).

Some people may engage same genr sexual behavr but not intify themselv as bisexual, lbian, or gay. Some people stggle wh g out to others or even themselv bee they’re aaid of homophobia and sexual orientatn discrimatn.

Some people may thk they n gus if a person is lbian, gay, or bisexual based on superficial factors like how they look, drs, or behave. The are stereotyp, or very simplified judgments, about how lbian, gay, and bisexual people act.

WHY AM I GAY?

But jt like heterosexuals, there are many different ways that homosexual and bisexual people look, drs, and behave.

AM I GAY?

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. I me out at a nservative Christian llege the US and was a gay relatnship for around two years wh a basketball player who end up marryg a woman.

Well, you mt have been gay the whole time, some might thk, and bee of some relig shame, you cid to lie to yourself and experiment wh a girl. 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.

” Vios started circulatg on the ter featurg gay people askg straight people “when they chose to be straight. ” 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.

AM I GAY, STRAIGHT, LBIAN, BISEXUAL OR LGBTQ+?

”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. “Such statements, ” she wr, “fe blogil acunts wh an obligatory and nearly ercive force, suggtg that anyone who scrib homosexual sire as a choice or social nstctn is playg to the hands of the enemy. ” People who challenge the Born This Way narrative are often st as homophobic, and their thkg is nsired backward – even if they are themselv, for example, Cynthia Nixon of Sex and The Cy fame.

In a 2012 terview wh New York Tim Magaze, the actrs sually mentned that homosexualy was, for her, a choice. “I unrstand that for many people ’s not, but for me ’s a choice, and you don’t get to fe my gayns for me.

I LIKE GUYS BUT I DON’T WANT TO BE GAY. HOW DO I STOP BEG GAY?

Callg me “idtic” and “patently absurd”, Aravosis wrote, “The gay haters at the relig right uldn’t have wrten any better. ”Gay rights do not have to hge on a geic explanatn for sexualy (Cred: Ignac Lehmann)For Aravosis, and many gay activists like him, the public will only accept and affirm gay people if they thk they were born gay.

Patrick Grzanka, Assistant Profsor of Psychology at Universy of Tennsee, for stance, has shown that some people who believe that homosexualy is nate still hold negative views of gays. 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.

Instead, she suggts hg on the fact that far more people are now personally acquated wh someone who is gay. In 1985, only 24% of Amerin rponnts said they had a gay iend, relative or -worker —  2013, that number was at 75%. “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.