The difference between being gay and *being* gay

Being gay is either something you’re born with or it’s a choice. It came up in the movies we watched repeatedly as a way of both reinforcing that separatist view, that in order to create a safe place for a gay identity, you must first establish that to be gay is something separate, something different from the normal in order to gain special protections and rights.

In "Mean Little Deaf Queer", I think Galloway puts it very succinctly when she states that it’s a matter of us and “them.” She’s mostly relating to her experience as being disabled/handicapped, but there are direct parallels between that simple statement and the ideology that being queer is something you’re born with or a choice. Like the little deaf queer that she was Galloway chose neither to be gay nor to be deaf. What she did choose was to live with those conditions on her life and push through them.

Queerness is not something people choose. I don’t know of any straight person who would choose to live their life as a gay/lesbian/bi/trans person if they weren’t. But if being queer is something that is innate, that you are born with it, then to go back to Gayle Rubin’s constructivist views, how you choose to live that life, how you express that sexuality or gender identity is a product of your upbringing.

In an upbringing that believes that being queer is somehow wrong, to be gay or rather I should say to live a gay lifestyle then must become a choice. Who you are constructed to be and what you are as a result of that does not allow for a gay identity so to have a gay identity is to choose not to be what you were born to in favor of being what you were born. To become what you were born and accept that is a choice.

So, is being gay something you’re born with or is it a choice? It depends on what you mean by being gay. It is at this junction that the religious institution and the queer community often reach an impasse because they both mean very different things and have very different views on this matter.

They equate being gay to living a gay lifestyle and accepting yourself as gay. These are not the same thing. Identity is a personal matter, and to call a thing an identity when a person does not identify as such is an assumption that devalues the identity of that person.