Tuesday, February 22, 2011

http://jezebel.com/#!5766318/if-were-born-gay-how-would-we-know

I think this website is incredibly interesting, in part for the reasons that the writer highlights, as I agree that the idea that people are born gay is a convenient fiction that gay people like to perpetuate in able to deflect criticism from conservatives. That is not to say that I believe that we can say for sure that people are not born gay, only that I think that it is equally possible that being gay is a result of childhood or pubescent socialization, or that it is completely a choice. Certainly, I know people for whom it is a choice.
To me, the most interesting facet of this blog is these individual's attempts to make a coherent narrative out of their lives. As the author of the Jezebel post points out, as kids are unaware of the taboos against certain behaviors, almost everyone probably has a picture in which they seem to be transgressing gender norms. I think that while the intention of the blog may be to make a political point about the genetic component of homosexuality, individually these people are simply attempting to write a story of their life that explains its later manifestations as a logical result of its beginnings. There is definitely a large rupture in the lives of homosexuals, who suddenly at the age of 15, 21, 30 announce that they will begin to live their lives in a radically different way. This can be very disconcerting to others, but particularly so to the person himself or herself. As such, one does not want to see their life heading in one direction and then taking a drastic and unexpected turn mid-way down the road. It is this desire for coherence that draws gay people back to their young lives, to try to construct the possibility of a future within earlier presentations of the self.