Can You Choose to be Gay?

Contents:

• ‘I AM GAY – BUT I WASN’T BORN THIS WAY’
• WHY ARE PEOPLE GAY? GAY BY CHOICE OR IS BEG GAY GEIC?
• THE POWER 'CHOOSG TO BE GAY'
• WHY I 'CHOSE' TO BE GAY
• CAN YOU CHOOSE TO BE GAY?
• BEG GAY NOT A CHOICE: SCIENCE CONTRADICTS BEN CARSON
• IF BEG GAY WERE ACTUALLY A CHOICE, THIS IS WHAT SOME STRAIGHT GUYS WOULD CHOOSE
• BEG GAY: A LIFE STYLE CHOICE?
• 10 ANTI-GAY MYTHS DEBUNKED
• ARE WE BORN GAY?

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

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.

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.

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

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.

THE POWER 'CHOOSG TO BE GAY'

”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.

“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. 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.

WHY I 'CHOSE' TO BE 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. ”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. “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?

CAN YOU CHOOSE TO BE GAY?

It is a big leap om thkg that homosexualy is a ep part of one's sense of self to assertg that particular sexual formatns and sir are blogilly of do not thk of our sexual sir or inti as ak to that almost nsumerist notn of choice—a liberate and straightforward act, like choosg to eat lobster or buy a pair of Nik. " Gay evabily is posed as the narrative of our liv; one do not "bee" gay but eher reprs or accepts what is always already laypeople and scientists fervently believe that "scientific rearch n help dispel some of the myths about homosexualy that the past have cloud the image of lbians and gay men, " th perhaps openg the door to more "tolerant" attus. This gets to the heart of a real problem: In searchg for a blogil basis for homosexualy, most scientists nnot help but re-scribe the most nstraed fns of sexual inty, fns that have been vigoroly challenged by theorists and historians for theorists have long disputed the easy assumptns that lk behavrs wh inti.

BEG GAY NOT A CHOICE: SCIENCE CONTRADICTS BEN CARSON

The assumptn of "gay" as a tegory clearly leated and easily knowable is challenged theoretilly, historilly, and many Lat and Central Amerin ntexts, for example, more emphasis is placed on an dividual's relatnship to particular sexual acts than to some totalizg inty, so who perat and who gets perated may— some ntexts—be more termative of inty than "sodomy" many South Asian cultur, such as Thailand, sexual inti are formed much more around specific kds of genr portment, which do not translate easily to the simple moniker "gay. Native Amerin ncepts of "two-spir" or "berdache" don't f easily wh the normative ncept of homosexualy as a unique mory inty eher, as dit an unrstandg of genr inty at odds wh the mastream Amerin mol of mappg genr onto sexed when this nuanced and plited historil and cross-cultural work nonts the recent obssn wh immutabily and blogil origs, we have a ser set of problems, if not real ntradictns. One is no longer someone who lik a ltle this or a ltle that, but one is a gay person, part of a class or even speci of scientists have "rolved" this very ser fnal problem wh a batn of subjects' self-reportg, clared homosexual experienc, and measured physlogil reactn to visual stimuli.

A woman who f herself as exclively heterosexual might get turned on by a geo gay man (or woman), but this says ltle about her own self-intifitn or her own actual sexual behavrs and practic (which, turn, may say ltle about her inty) if one reports that one is gay for a scientific study, but fact has never had same-sex sexual behavr, then how is that measured?

IF BEG GAY WERE ACTUALLY A CHOICE, THIS IS WHAT SOME STRAIGHT GUYS WOULD CHOOSE

While gay teachers may not "turn" kids gay (jt as my hetero parents failed to turn me hetero), n't we also offer up the possibily that openly gay teachers (or neighbors or mothers or firefighters) may create environments that enurage expansive thkg about sexualy and genr? Challengg both the fear of homosexualy and the iology of immutabily that attempts to refute that fear pends on a very different set of assumptns: that beg gay is jt fe, thank you very much; that gayns is not a problem to be unrstood, or solved, or even tolerated; and, more to the pot, that there is a posive benef to an expansive and open approach to human sexualy and genr.

BEG GAY: A LIFE STYLE CHOICE?

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. "Blogy tells that sexual orientatn is strongly fluenced by prenatal hormonal and geic factors and there is ltle rmatn supportg the notn that tn or teractns wh peers play any substantial role, " said Jacqu Balthazart of the Universy of Liege Belgium, and thor of The Blogy of Homosexualy.

” NEWS: Gay Teen Suicis and Bad Statistics Some say the bate shouldn’t matter outsi of the scientific world: Dpe his nvictn that sexualy is pretermed to some gree, Balthazart thks that society shouldn’t need scientific proof to rpect all typ of sexual orientatn. Even the most open-md heterosexual will still have a ltle b of nfn left si his bra about what beg a homosexual this ia of beg born straight and endg up formg a fay of man, woman, and child is so rooted society’s md, whenever a heterosexual, even the most clive one, meets a homosexual, they act as if they’re lookg at a cur fish the ’s nothg wrong wh that, though.

10 ANTI-GAY MYTHS DEBUNKED

Beg gay is jt a small part of what shap the life of a sensivy they velop about life; the way they fy genr bee they know om birth that they were born “different” (at least, acrdg to society); the self-disvery and soul-searchg to fd out how to bt navigate a world which so many homosexuals are still nied their rights to be normal of this n be found anyone’s md. Between 2 and 11 percent of human adults report experiencg some homosexual feelgs, though the figure vari wily pendg on the survey.Homosexualy exists across cultur and even throughout the animal kgdom, as the thors of a mammoth new review paper on homosexualy wre. Part of the explanatn is geic, but bee most intil tws of gay people are straight, heredy don’t expla everythg.The “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.

(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.) It shouldn’t matter whether people “choose” to be gay, but polilly, do—at least for now.One of the most nsistent environmental explanatns for homosexualy is lled the “aternal birth orr effect.” Essentially, the more olr brothers a man has, the more likely he is to be gay.

(Meanwhile, other studi have found the relatnship to be weak or nonexistent.) As psychologist Rch Sav-Williams wr an acpanyg mentary, the oute for any given baby boy might pend on the timg of the immune rponse and the fet’s sceptibily to the antibodi.Average prevalence 2013 (Sav-Williams and Vrangalova)Acrdg to the report, Blanchard now plans to tt mothers of gay and straight men for the prence of the antibodi. 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 few.The 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 wre.That reasong—that a tolerant society somehow enurag homosexualy to flourish—has been ed to support anti-gay legislatn Uganda, Rsia, and elsewhere. Now, if you fd yourself overwhelmgly attracted to members of the oppose sex, and not at all to members of the same sex (obvly, the are oversimplifitns; sex is not a simple bary), you would be a bad cizen of your language muny to go on and apply the label “gay” to yourself.

ARE WE BORN GAY?

But if you’re pable of feelg attractn to members of more than one sex, as many people are, and yet you orient your romantic and sexual behavr primarily around the “same-sex” si of thgs (by dt of your own ee choosg), then go ahead and nsir yourself gay. The timele of events history that led to the propagatn of the “’s not a choice” unter-argument clearly shows that this is not herently a matter of gay-rights activism, but, rather, a necsary graspg unto somethg prented by a segment of the scientific muny that simultaneoly uld enable a need moment of relief om relentls attacks agast the soul. If a group rts s beliefs ( the se of creatnism) or s moral standpot ( the se of gay rights) on a set of claims that are unlikely to be borne out by the evince (or reful nceptual analysis), then risks losg s beliefs, or sacrificg s moral standpot, when the plex realy n no longer be nied.

Ben Carson, a retired nrosurgeon and printial hopeful, recently apologized for a statement which he said beg gay is "absolutely" a an terview on CNN, the potential 2016 Republin printial ndidate mented that "a lot of people who go to prison, go to prison straight, and when they e out they're gay, so did somethg happen while they were there? And nearly 130 bird speci have been observed engagg sexual activi wh same-sex the evolutnary purpose of this behavr is not clear, the fact that animals routely exhib same-sex behavr beli the notn that gay sex is a morn human studi have found specific "gay gen" that reliably make someone gay.

But this so-lled epigenome n also be passed on om generatn to generatn, which would expla why beg gay seems to n fai, even when a sgle gene n't be such gay gen get passed down om generatn to generatn has puzzled scientists, given that gay upl nnot reproduce.