Your genes are gay.
More talk about whether there’s a “gay gene.” That post touches on my thoughts about the whole thing which are: demonstrating a solid biological basis for queerness? Interesting, sure, but beside point. The point is that there is no reason to actual discriminate against people in same-sex relationships, whether those people have a choice about the relationship or not.
I’ve got a strong suspicion that if the biological cause of lesbianism were to be discovered, and people could be tested for it, and they were to test me, my results would show I’m queer through and through. That suspicion is based on a lot of things, namely the fact that my liking girls can be traced back through my very early childhood (like, age three). My girlfriend, on the other hand, isn’t gay; she’s had romantic relationships with boys and certainly could have more in the future, and though she definitely likes girls, if I had to guess, I’d guess whatever biological forces are at work within my anatomy aren’t at work in hers.
So is it okay for me to be with girls because that’s my essential nature, and not okay for her, because she could (theoretically) choose to be with boys?
It’s okay for both of us to be with people of any gender, of course. So the whole question of where queerness comes from — which, let’s be honest here, is a question of whether it’s changeable — is just the wrong one to be asking.
There’s a very related discussion going on over here about whether it’s appropriate to ask why or how people have the preferences and orientations they do. And basically I think some people really do have a kind of choice, and some people really don’t. And both of those experiences are valid and real and okay.
13 Comments
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jonolan said,
October 16, 2007 at 4:09 pm
Daisy,
Removing the “choice” component will defuse some of the prejudice that exists. Is it a cure-all? No! Essentially in a perfect world you’re right – there is no reason to discriminate against people based on what gender they like to have sex with. This isn’t a perfect world though.
Daisy said,
October 16, 2007 at 4:16 pm
But jonolan, what about people who are making a choice (or could be argued to be)? Do we kick them out of the club? What’s our definition of “choice” here? Are bisexuals in same-sex relationships “choosing” in a way that homosexuals are not?
Essentially in a perfect world you’re right – there is no reason to discriminate against people based on what gender they like to have sex with.
There is no reason to discriminate against people based on the gender(s) of their lovers even in this world. I think that’s sort of the whole point.
jonolan said,
October 16, 2007 at 4:26 pm
First read the Bible; the book of Leviticus is very clear on “what to do to homosexuals’ :( second understand that there are people – I’m being generous with my definitions here – who take this word-for-word because they don’t want to or can’t think. Anything that might defuse some of their hate is a good thing.
As for your girlfriend – and my wife and our girlfriend – they’re screwed; this won’t help them.
Daisy said,
October 16, 2007 at 4:41 pm
Yeah, I hear you. I wouldn’t fight any gains that come of this research, of course. And I’ll be grateful for any allies it wins the cause.
At the same time, though, I think it is a worthy effort to refocus the debate as much as we can away from the perspective of the crazy people and onto the sane perspective that there’s nothing inherently wrong with a relationship in which the sets of sex chromosomes happen to be the same. I think a far deeper, more lasting victory would be one in which folks comprehend that love is love and everyone deserves respect, rather than one in which it merely gets down to “they’re born that way, so I guess there’s nothing they can do.” That latter view implies that the condition is undesirable and tolerable only because it can’t be changed, which I consider to be a load of shit.
jonolan said,
October 16, 2007 at 4:48 pm
Wake up, cry a bit, punch a few things and smell the coffee; you can’t change people’s basic ideology. Work for practical protections and reinforce the opinions of the moderates and the undecided. You can no more convince your staunch enemies that homosexuality is OK than you could convince them that abortion isn’t murder or that polytheism is a viable faith structure.
Winning people’s hearts and minds only works when someone else hasn’t already won them :(
Daisy said,
October 16, 2007 at 4:57 pm
Wake up, cry a bit, punch a few things and smell the coffee
Why that sounds like my average morning! : )
Seriously, I understand the situation and I understand we need to be pragmatic and I understand how set in their ways my enemies are.
And yet I spend a good deal of my time saying over and over that homosexuality is okay and that abortion is not murder. What else can I do? We’re not going to win today or tomorrow, but we have to keep fighting anyway — the only other option is surrender, which isn’t an option.
you can’t change people’s basic ideology
I don’t believe that. If that were true, no one would have accepted the existence of zero, Columbus would never had set sail (flat earth), slavery would never have been abolished, etc., etc.
The fact is that we’ve come a long way. I believe we will, eventually, go a lot farther.
jonolan said,
October 16, 2007 at 5:33 pm
Well, one of us right. I think it’s me but I hope it’s you :)
Daisy said,
October 16, 2007 at 5:45 pm
I hope it’s me, too. Thanks for commenting, jonolan. : )
black_mamba said,
October 17, 2007 at 3:06 am
Is this gonna Kill You? No i Dont Think so !
deacon said,
November 4, 2007 at 8:25 pm
much of this comment is unrelated to this particular post but i just stumbled upon this blog while doing research for a queer issues paper. One interesting idea that i’ve been thinking about alot lately:
plenty of queer people oppose gay marriage as marriage is generally an institution developed in hypermasculine cultures in order to opress women and consolidate a heteronormative/monogomy-centric definition of family. In theory, gay marriage could be just a step in inducting queer people into this system and “normalizing” them. For a lot of queers this is a threat because we want to “retain our right to be complex.”
For a long time i was under the wrong impression that this was the only criticism queer folks had of legalizing gay marraige untill i began reading queer theorists with a staunchly socialist background. The idea of the heteronormative “nuclear’ family is tied closely to our capitalist system. “Family is the site of social reproduction that supports the market economy. Whether that family is homosexual or heterosexual, it serves the same purpose.”
Queer culture, in part simply because of the fact that it exists outside of the social binary of hetero man/hetero woman, has been able to radically reexamine the cultural definition of family in our society. By making homosexual monogamy a cultural norm, the function of the “queer counterculture” as a critic of traditional “family values” might be largely neutralized if it ceases to be perceived as countercultural. Queer could become the new black, tolerated but with aspects of the queer identity sterilized much in the same way black americans are now “equal” without actually being equal or having there black identities deemed relevent by the society at large.
Gay marriage could turn out to be another “success story of capitalism”
all of this has forced me to seriously reexamine my ideas about gay marriage.
i support national legalization because it is probably the fastest way to allow for a greater degree of economic/social equality for monogamous homosexual couples, however i abhore the institution of marriage and as a male bodied feminist and an opponent of capitalism and religeous indoctrination i will never feel any form of marriage is right for me. however it is important for me to remember that there are many gay men and women who do want to get married and why the fuck shouldn’t they be able to?
Of course, gay marriage still leaves many groups out of the equation. People with multiple partners, people who live collectively as a family but are not able to enjoy the same economic benefits they would if they were a biological family, etc.
Making marriage for gay people legal is deffinately a step toward giving queer people equality, but i feel it is a much smaller step than any of us like to admit.
as for the whole gay gene thing, i deffinately agree that “proving” that sexuality is biologically influenced will only strengthen the minoritizing view that homosexuality is simply a genetic defect.
I think we all need to work towards shattering the whole gay/straight binary. I am male bodied and identify as male. I am attracted to both males and females. I generally prefer sexual activity with females but enjoy sexual activity with males and being penetrated sexually by either males or females. While penetration of a male by a female is a normal aspect of many heterosexual relationships, i would not define myself is a heterosexual even though i have been attracted to and had sexual relationships with a much larger number of females then males. I would not consider myself a gay man because i am not solely attracted to males and i am not bisexual by many definitions because many definitions state that bisexual entails equal attraction to either sex.
In fact, the people i am most attracted to are transgendered males (f to m) who are more feminine in appearance than they are masculine. What am i to classify myself as?
While i was genetically predisposed to have these sexual preferences, that does not mean that i cannot have a healthy relationship with a man simply because i am less attracted to males then i am to trans-females or biological females. Thus, while my sexual preference may be biologically fueled, the person i choose to be with is entirely a choice.
sexuality is one of the biggest grey areas in human existence. I think that in many cases we tend to think of sexuality as heterosexual, homosexual, or bisexual. However, many people’s sexual identities areto complex to fit neatly into one of three categories. Even a person who considers themselves to be gay could find they have love, affection, and attraction towards a person of the opposite gender.
my only criticism with anything you have said is that you cite the “love is love” argument at one point. This argument upsets me simply because of the language. Love is love is something i’ve heard thrown around by way to many “liberals” when discussing gay marriage. It seems to imply that non heterosexual relationships are only valid if love is involved. Why is it only okay for straight people to have casual sex? Safe enjoyable sex between consenting partners is a right that everybody should have.
anyway, i enjoyed reading this blog and will deffinately check it out in the future. The only thing i love more then reading what intelligent people have written is communicating with intelligent people, so if you have any response to anything i wrote in this way to long comment please email me.
Daisy said,
November 4, 2007 at 9:03 pm
Hi Deacon! Wow, thanks for the thoughtful comment.
I have some doubts about marriage as an institution, too; the anti-capitalism arguments in particular I find very persuasive. And yes, it’s one small step of many that we need to take. I do believe we need to take it, though. I think that, ideally, nationwide legalization of same-sex marriage would benefit just about everyone; monogamous queer folks and their families, of course, but also indirectly everyone living in a family other than the one-mommy-one-daddy-two-kids model by expanding, however narrowly, the definition of what constitutes a culturally legitimate family. Also, as long as the institution is going to exist — and that’s gonna be awhile — it damn well better be as egalitarian as possible.
As for “retaining our right to complex” — I think a truly complex community would have some people who want to have lifelong monogamous relationships (marriage), and some people who want to have committed relationships with multiple partners, and some people who aren’t interested in committed relationships at all, and everything in between. Same-sex marriage is one facet of that.
An analogy would be: I am no fan of the predatory corporate capitalist system we’re living under. At the same time, as long as it’s here, I want equal opportunity for women and people of color and people with disabilities and everyone else when it comes to those jobs. I want that both because it’s the right thing to do, and because it weakens one dimension of the current power structure (the white supremacist or patriarchal or ableist part, depending).
As for the “love is love” argument, I think you completely misunderstood my intention in invoking it (though I don’t doubt you’ve encountered others with those intentions). I have absolutely no problem with sex of any kind between consenting adults, from the monogamous to the polyamorous, the most committed to the most casual. Love is love and sex is sex. Is there anyone in the world who considers committed same-sex relationships to be totally okay, and casual straight sex totally okay, but not casual queer sex? That would be extremely strange. In my experience most heterosexist people are also against casual sex, period (the silly “family (patriarchal) values” crew, for example).
Daisy said,
November 4, 2007 at 9:06 pm
Also: I am all for shattering the gay/straight binary, and the gender binary, and, heck, dichotomous thinking across the board.
On the specific topic of bisexual identity, I know at least two people who are attracted to both male- and female-bodied people, but don’t want to identify as bisexual. I think a lot of people feel that way. It’s an inadequate term.
Emily said,
November 21, 2007 at 10:44 pm
Lawrence: it’s not okay to treat “the gay issue” and others that you feel estranged from as though they are, therefore, a hindrance to the struggle for a greater good (for who?) in comments on this blog. Your comment on this thread will be deleted. If you’d like to leave another comment, please read our comment policy on the about page before doing so.
Hint: Be respectful, constructive, and don’t treat entire populations as though they’re second-class citizens undeserving of full rights under the law and social acceptance because they are unlike you or the “sexually repressed heterosexual majority.”