This video has been doing some rounds recently.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJtjqLUHYoY&w=560&h=315]
Watching it made me think about my coming out, and people asking me, “when did you find out you were gay?”. It always bemused me – as if there was a date that I suddenly ‘figured out’ that I was gay. I decided to start responding “when did you find out you were straight?” It not only confused people, but I think it also got people to question some of their assumptions about sexuality.
I think lots of queer people have probably had this sort of experience. And in doing so I think many have framed their understanding around the development of sexuality wholly through that experience – sexuality is developed at puberty, you get given your label (gay, lesbian, bi or straight) and then that is what you get for your life. It’s not a choice. It’s a message that has even taken a deeply political tone – how often do you hear people say that sexuality is not a choice so therefore we shouldn’t discriminate against the gays and lesbians?
I think it is about time we challenge this ‘choice’ (or really non-choice) narrative. And as luck would have it, Charlie Anders, the authors of one of the latest chapters I’ve read in That’s Revolting, ‘Choice Cuts’ would happen to agree with me. What a great opportunity to mix a bit of a rant with a review at the same time. Anders goes straight to heart of the issue:
The involuntary queerness story is the linchpin of many queer peoples strategies to claim normality. “We didn’t choose this” becomes part of “We’re just like you in every other way.” Because, of course , if it wasn’t for that one difference, queer people would all be just like Republican hate-monger Orrin Hatch. Even the women.
For Anders, this seems like a very strange version of ‘pride’:
“Straight-acting” gays and “soccer-mum” lesbians always seem to be the ones who claim the lack-of-choice defense most vigorously. It’s no more our fault than a blink in response to a finger jab in the eyes. It’s always struck me as a weird version of pride. Aren’t people usually proud of their decisions and the things they’ve built for themselves? The implication of the “we’re just built this way” argument always seems to me that if queer people could choose, of course they would choose to be straight.
In fact, I don’t see this as just an ‘implication’. I think many queers believe it outright. The amount of times I’ve heard queers say “why would I choose this” is amazing – a form of internalised homophobia that whilst based in the idea that no one would want to live with such prejudice, actually facilitates a discussion around how awful it is to be queer. Of course this is something that has been inflicted upon us by a homophobic society – the idea that being queer is an awful thing to be stuck with – but there is also a bit of a political agenda here.
Because if we decide that ‘queerness’ is not chosen, we get given it at birth, and it is nice and simple, just like straightness, then it gets rid of all the scary queer stuff. It gets rid of the exploring your sexuality, and just says – you have a sexuality, and it is nice, simple, and vanilla. We’re saying, don’t worry conservatives, you shouldn’t feel threatened as us – we’re just as conservative as you, we’re just born differently.
Of course, this has it’s problems. Firstly, it says that we’re breaking the rules of society because we’re forced to, not because they’re shit rules. And in doing so, we’re only breaking them a little bit, not enough to freak you out too much. But do you know what? I want to break the rules – they are rules that need to be broken. As Anders states “I want to keep on being openly frivolous, breaking the rules for fun rather than out of necessity.”
But, it’s more than this, because it means that the queer community is once again limiting itself to a set of a few different options of acceptable identity. And one who chooses a ‘sexually deviant’ lifestyle is definitely not one of those acceptable sexualities. There can be no better example than this than the way actor Cynthia Nixon was treated after she said her sexuality was a choice. Nixon was quoted in a New York Times magazine a couple of years ago, saying:
“I understand that for many people it’s not, but for me it’s a choice, and you don’t get to define my gayness for me.”
The response was stunning. Wayne Besen, of Truth Wins Out, for example stated:
“Cynthia did not put adequate thought into the ramifications of her words…When people say it’s a choice, they are green-lighting an enormous amount of abuse because if it’s a choice, people will try to influence and guide young people to what they perceive as the right choice.”
Blogger Perez Hilton responded by saying:
We totally hear her out and true, we cannot define her “gayness,” but it wasn’t a choice for us. We were BORN gay. And millions of gay people around the world feel the same way.
Whilst both Bensen and Hilton framed their arguments around the impact on the queer movement, what they were actually saying is ‘you cannot express your identity how you want because it’ll freak out the conservatives’. As Anders says, it is the perfect way to exclude people:
It’s easy to make political arguments based on lack of free will. Nobody can really hold your identity against you if it was thrust upon you. That makes it easier, in some ways, to pus for nodiscrimination legislation, beacuse you can compare queerness to “inborn” traits like ethnicity.
It’s a lot harder to face up to opponents of queer rights and say, “Yes, I’m deliberately flouting your rules, because I like it.”
But whilst it may be easier to argue that we didn’t ask to be this way, it makes our coalition a lot smaller. You leave out people like me, as well as other potential allies.
I guess, in the end though, what this all amounts to is an level of self-hatred that needs to go. Being queer can be fucking awesome and we should bloody celebrate it. Of course, many people still face awful queerphobia and that can make life hard, but the problem here isn’t ‘being queer’ it’s the way people react to us being queer. And therefore when we say ‘we wouldn’t choose this’ what we’re actually saying is ‘we’re just as ashamed of ourselves as the straight community are’. Well, we shouldn’t be ashamed. We should be proud. I know I am.