"When did you choose to be queer?"
"Sometime in the spring of 2012. I don't remember the month. It was definitely a weekday, though."
I don't actually think 'choice' is particularly relevant to morality. By which I mean that while it's vitally important to protect the right to choice (autonomy, self-identification, consent--these are not optional) I don't generally think something becomes more moral or less moral because it's a matter of choice. And one of the most common places we see this is in talking about whether it's okay for lesbians to get with other ladies, or whether it's okay for trans men to transition, or et cetera et cetera heterocisnormativity.
"These people are choosing to act in unnatural ways!"
"But it's perfectly natural; they're born that way. You don't choose to be straight, do you?"
No, stop, back up. This is a derail, and it's one that we've spent too long allowing, and it's one that plays against the kinds of choice that are important, and it doesn't win us much anyway.
It doesn't matter if being queer is a choice.
It doesn't matter.
It's not a choice; anyone can tell you this, but that's not the point to fight. What matters is that ending discrimination is a good thing, and allowing people to consensually love and marry and boff is a good thing, and allowing people to be themselves is a good thing. The law already tells us who can consent to what and who can't. Job done, game over, high scores all around. It doesn't need to be any more complicated than that.
If we keep hyping up how important it is that there is no Queer Choice, we lose ground in two important ways. First, we leave open the notion that if there were a choice involved, it might somehow become okay to discriminate against gay men because, after all, they decided not to conform. (This just in: racism would still be stupid even if every human in the world had the power to snap their fingers and turn white.) And secondly, it helps people who keep bringing up even stupider arguments, like arguing that marriage equality some kind of 'gateway right' and soon we'll be legalising incestuous marriages and sex with ducks. As if the only reasons we have problems with those things are because they're 'unnatural', rather than obviously harmful and consent-unfriendly.
We know that people can have inborn tendencies toward terrible things that are totally unrelated to sex, so we have reason to think there are inborn tendencies towards terrible sexual things. 'Born that way' is not relevant to the morality. Kleptomania is real; that doesn't make stealing morally appropriate (although it does have significant impacts on how people need to teach themselves and choose to respond and et cetera my point is not that mental illnesses are morally suspect either just so's we're clear on that). Rape culture narratives tell us that men can't help being aggressive and hostile when they want to make with the boning, because they're 'born that way'. To hell with 'born that way' as having relevance to sexual morality. What matters is: does this hurt anyone and does it help anyone? And all else equal, sex and gender queerness gets a pass on that.
There are plenty of bigots who have already fully embraced the 'born that way' aspect and still don't care. From this we get the Side B Christians who believe that gay people exist but that it would still be wrong for them to act on their nature (the only kind of romantic/sexual attraction they experience) because apparently sometimes their Creator just likes to screw with them. So even buying into 'born that way' doesn't actually guarantee any kind of acceptance; sometimes it just means they treat the desire of girls to kiss girls the same way they treat a heroin addiction. Awesome.
In case I don't already bring this up enough: I'm bi. (I am not pansexual, but I'm pretty sure this applies to anyone who is, too.) I like girls enough that I was able to get through about 27 years without even acknowledging that I like guys too. If anyone does have a choice, I do: I could probably limit myself to relationships with women and end up just about as happy as I would be if I considered both women and men. If I date a guy, it's not going to be because I have no other choice, it's going to be because I've said okay, this is a thing I could try: let's run with it. That's not immoral either.
And I'm no expert on trans issues, but it seems to me that a huge emphasis on being 'born that way' is of less-than-zero help to people who already have to fight to define their identity in any way other than according to the assumptions made by other people at the time of their birth.
'Born that way' is deterministic, and that's a problem for anyone who doesn't fit into the popular categories. The people who have any kind of fluidity in their identity (attraction to more than one gender, or transition through more than one gender identity) already get sidelined constantly when it comes to the supposed rainbow of diversity. There's no such thing as a 'bisexual relationship'--it's a superposition (to get quantum mechanical again), it's being in a state of appearing either straight or gay until suddenly you aren't. I have genderqueer friends who've done their best to help me understand the idea of feeling male one day and female another and genderless a third, and suddenly 'born that way' isn't a checkbox but a probability distribution or a Venn diagram and it's still all harmless and it's still okay.
'Born that way' play into the idea that people don't change, can't change, shouldn't change, and I don't believe that, and I'm very done with ceding that point to bigots in the hopes that it will somehow encourage them to change.
Showing posts with label Schroedinger's Closet. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Schroedinger's Closet. Show all posts
Thursday, May 16, 2013
Thursday, April 4, 2013
Schroedinger's Closet
The blogqueen and I have an ongoing discussion about closetedness--we're both bisexual (Erika has apparently made it a life goal to start a flibbertigibbet), which is an interesting mix of privileges and disadvantages. It's super-easy for us to pass as straight if we want to (I've only dated women so far; she's happily engaged to a dude) but bisexual erasure is a thing and it can come from any side and in many forms. Women get told they're all basically bisexual and that they should be exhibitionist about it to attract men, men get told that if they ever fail to find other men sexually disgusting for even a moment then they are gaaaaaay. We all get told that we're in denial about our homosexuality, or that we just want to seem chic and liberated from social norms. And a lot of the time, people just forget we exist: I've been looking into some online dating stuff recently and found that it's surprisingly uncommon to be able to identify as interested in both men and women. (eHarmony only supports male/female couples and has a separate-but-obviously-still-equal-I've-never-heard-of-this-Jim-Crow-fella site called Compatible Partners that's only for same-sex couples. But that's not surprising since this guy Warren who started the place sounds kinda homophobic.)
I clicked to the realisation that I'm bi about a year ago, in a sequence of events that was weirdly understated (nothing happened that would make for a particularly good anecdote) given how abrupt and conclusive it was inside my head. This post isn't really about that, or the internal debating and rationalisations for years prior to that which had allowed me to continue assuming I was straight. This post is about what's happened since then.
Erika knows I'm bi (she was the first person I told, but wouldn't it be kind of hilarious if this post was the first place she heard about it?), and for months she was the only one. The next step was referring to myself as bi on internet forums where I used a screenname and no one there ever had or will meet me personally. Next was a post on my old personal blog, just a few months ago, which most of my meatspace friends and relations know nothing about. A couple of days ago I told another friend who lives in another country (our in-person contact has mostly been through globetrotting adventures, because obviously that is the best kind of contact). And now there's this.
People who still don't know I'm queer: my parents, my brother, my closest friends from school and university, my co-workers, and basically anyone I hang out with on a regular basis. And this is where I start to get tangled up, because I can't decide whether I want them to know or not. I can't decide whether I think it's important or necessary or even just more convenient.
No one ever has to come out as straight. No one ever says "OMG, you never told me you were a hetero!" That seems fine to me; by the same token, I don't think there should be some kind of obligation on people who aren't straight to just inform others of that particular facet of their identity. And for a variety of reasons I've hardly ever told my parents about anything going on between me and girls, unless it took the form of "I can't join your plans because I have a date tonight"*, so I don't feel like I should need to just announce that the scope of potential partners now includes guys.
On the other hand--I live in Canada, I easily support myself, and I work and hang out with good people, so in practice I have very little to fear in regards to homophobia. Certainly a lot less than some people do. And normalisation is good: the more straight (or straight-identified) people are familiar with queer-identified people, the less they see us as alien, outsider, unreal, invalid. We're practice--have a queer friend and improve your ability to think compassionately, to support equal rights, to reject harmful stereotypes.** (And, possibly for some of those straight-identified people, help them figure out their options and their actual identity a bit better.) There is real value in being 'out', not just for me, but for other people, and if I'm privileged enough that it's not going to cost me anything, I should be trying to help people, right?
(Plus, as friends have observed while helping me cope with Pointless Crushes On Straight Boys, being out makes it easier for those dudes who might be actually be interested to determine whether they should make a pass at me or not. This is a reasonable point, although eyebrow waggling can reduce its credibility.)
I filled out a hilariously bad survey for some politically conservative US organization the other day, and when it got to orientation, I was given the options of Straight, Gay, Bisexual, Do Not Wish To Disclose, or In The Closet. It was great. 'In The Closet' is an orientation now? (Observation from Erika: "More of a dedication to fashion, really".) Truly these people are on the cutting edge of social analysis.
Am I closeted? I don't exactly hide that I'm bi, but I don't volunteer it any more than other people are all "Why yes, I'm very hetero today, thank you for asking". If I am closeted, when did it happen? Was it when my brain was all you should go up to that guy and put your mouth on his mouth and I was all "Well, that pretty much settles that question" but I kept it to myself, or was it years earlier, when I first started finding ways to ignore or explain away the less-blatant hints I was giving myself that I liked guys as well as gals? If I start letting people know more often that I'm bi, at what point will I stop being closeted? Who needs to know? Parents are generally a big deal, but if I tell them and no one else, that's not exactly a major life change. No one I work with knows, but to my knowledge it wouldn't affect anything anyway. (It was a couple of years before I found out one of our stats guys is gay, and then only because of an offhand reference to going somewhere with his boyfriend. He is pretty campy, but I try not to assume--for that matter, I still can't be 100% sure he's gay and not bi. Bisexual erasure: just for the record, we bi folk can make the same foolish assumptions.)
Being in the closet is a weird idea at its root. It makes sense on the surface, in that it involves people hiding 'themselves', but it also starts from the assumption that other people are entitled, or at least can expect, to know what the thing being hidden is. (There's a wonderful RiffTrax of a short film on making friends in high school, where the shy (white) hero pauses at the door before a party and they narrate for him "What if they find out I'm black?!") When I saw a co-worker on the bus reading A Song of Ice and Fire, she surreptitiously joked to me that she is 'a closet nerd'. Closeting seems to me like if it's not about protecting yourself from harm (and I don't think I'm in danger of harm), it's about hiding something shameful, and I am by no means ashamed to be bisexual. Some ladies are hot. Some dudes are hot. It's not complicated. I just also don't feel like random strangers have a right to expect that I inform them "By the way, I'm totally going to queer this place up".
So I think I'm in Schroedinger's Closet, in a state of being simultaneously out and closeted until I observe whether there's a particular reason for me to go out of my way to tell the person I'm talking to that I am bisexual and the waveform collapses. Also there's a zombie cat in here? It's pretty cool. But I wonder sometimes if it's enough.
---
*I don't date much and I've never paid a lot of attention to following gender roles, so I've always kind of wondered if my parents suspect I'm gay. Part of me wants things to work out so that one day I can go up to them and say "Mom... Dad... I think it's time I told you the truth. I'm bisexual. THIS IS MY GIRLFRIEND AND YOU CAN'T TELL ME OUR LOVE ISN'T REAL." I aspire to be an entertaining son; my track record is pretty solid.
**My favourite stereotype right now is of course that bisexuals are promiscuous sex-mad fiends, because I am feeling quite comfortable here in the exact centre of the Kinsey Scale, and I am so far from promiscuous that the light reflecting off promiscuous won't reach me before the sun expands and consumes the world.
---
[Edit to add]: Also! There are only two days left to vote if you have any interest in or opinion on the Book Club's first book. Candidates were listed in this post here.
I clicked to the realisation that I'm bi about a year ago, in a sequence of events that was weirdly understated (nothing happened that would make for a particularly good anecdote) given how abrupt and conclusive it was inside my head. This post isn't really about that, or the internal debating and rationalisations for years prior to that which had allowed me to continue assuming I was straight. This post is about what's happened since then.
Erika knows I'm bi (she was the first person I told, but wouldn't it be kind of hilarious if this post was the first place she heard about it?), and for months she was the only one. The next step was referring to myself as bi on internet forums where I used a screenname and no one there ever had or will meet me personally. Next was a post on my old personal blog, just a few months ago, which most of my meatspace friends and relations know nothing about. A couple of days ago I told another friend who lives in another country (our in-person contact has mostly been through globetrotting adventures, because obviously that is the best kind of contact). And now there's this.
People who still don't know I'm queer: my parents, my brother, my closest friends from school and university, my co-workers, and basically anyone I hang out with on a regular basis. And this is where I start to get tangled up, because I can't decide whether I want them to know or not. I can't decide whether I think it's important or necessary or even just more convenient.
No one ever has to come out as straight. No one ever says "OMG, you never told me you were a hetero!" That seems fine to me; by the same token, I don't think there should be some kind of obligation on people who aren't straight to just inform others of that particular facet of their identity. And for a variety of reasons I've hardly ever told my parents about anything going on between me and girls, unless it took the form of "I can't join your plans because I have a date tonight"*, so I don't feel like I should need to just announce that the scope of potential partners now includes guys.
On the other hand--I live in Canada, I easily support myself, and I work and hang out with good people, so in practice I have very little to fear in regards to homophobia. Certainly a lot less than some people do. And normalisation is good: the more straight (or straight-identified) people are familiar with queer-identified people, the less they see us as alien, outsider, unreal, invalid. We're practice--have a queer friend and improve your ability to think compassionately, to support equal rights, to reject harmful stereotypes.** (And, possibly for some of those straight-identified people, help them figure out their options and their actual identity a bit better.) There is real value in being 'out', not just for me, but for other people, and if I'm privileged enough that it's not going to cost me anything, I should be trying to help people, right?
(Plus, as friends have observed while helping me cope with Pointless Crushes On Straight Boys, being out makes it easier for those dudes who might be actually be interested to determine whether they should make a pass at me or not. This is a reasonable point, although eyebrow waggling can reduce its credibility.)
I filled out a hilariously bad survey for some politically conservative US organization the other day, and when it got to orientation, I was given the options of Straight, Gay, Bisexual, Do Not Wish To Disclose, or In The Closet. It was great. 'In The Closet' is an orientation now? (Observation from Erika: "More of a dedication to fashion, really".) Truly these people are on the cutting edge of social analysis.
Am I closeted? I don't exactly hide that I'm bi, but I don't volunteer it any more than other people are all "Why yes, I'm very hetero today, thank you for asking". If I am closeted, when did it happen? Was it when my brain was all you should go up to that guy and put your mouth on his mouth and I was all "Well, that pretty much settles that question" but I kept it to myself, or was it years earlier, when I first started finding ways to ignore or explain away the less-blatant hints I was giving myself that I liked guys as well as gals? If I start letting people know more often that I'm bi, at what point will I stop being closeted? Who needs to know? Parents are generally a big deal, but if I tell them and no one else, that's not exactly a major life change. No one I work with knows, but to my knowledge it wouldn't affect anything anyway. (It was a couple of years before I found out one of our stats guys is gay, and then only because of an offhand reference to going somewhere with his boyfriend. He is pretty campy, but I try not to assume--for that matter, I still can't be 100% sure he's gay and not bi. Bisexual erasure: just for the record, we bi folk can make the same foolish assumptions.)
Being in the closet is a weird idea at its root. It makes sense on the surface, in that it involves people hiding 'themselves', but it also starts from the assumption that other people are entitled, or at least can expect, to know what the thing being hidden is. (There's a wonderful RiffTrax of a short film on making friends in high school, where the shy (white) hero pauses at the door before a party and they narrate for him "What if they find out I'm black?!") When I saw a co-worker on the bus reading A Song of Ice and Fire, she surreptitiously joked to me that she is 'a closet nerd'. Closeting seems to me like if it's not about protecting yourself from harm (and I don't think I'm in danger of harm), it's about hiding something shameful, and I am by no means ashamed to be bisexual. Some ladies are hot. Some dudes are hot. It's not complicated. I just also don't feel like random strangers have a right to expect that I inform them "By the way, I'm totally going to queer this place up".
So I think I'm in Schroedinger's Closet, in a state of being simultaneously out and closeted until I observe whether there's a particular reason for me to go out of my way to tell the person I'm talking to that I am bisexual and the waveform collapses. Also there's a zombie cat in here? It's pretty cool. But I wonder sometimes if it's enough.
---
*I don't date much and I've never paid a lot of attention to following gender roles, so I've always kind of wondered if my parents suspect I'm gay. Part of me wants things to work out so that one day I can go up to them and say "Mom... Dad... I think it's time I told you the truth. I'm bisexual. THIS IS MY GIRLFRIEND AND YOU CAN'T TELL ME OUR LOVE ISN'T REAL." I aspire to be an entertaining son; my track record is pretty solid.
**My favourite stereotype right now is of course that bisexuals are promiscuous sex-mad fiends, because I am feeling quite comfortable here in the exact centre of the Kinsey Scale, and I am so far from promiscuous that the light reflecting off promiscuous won't reach me before the sun expands and consumes the world.
---
[Edit to add]: Also! There are only two days left to vote if you have any interest in or opinion on the Book Club's first book. Candidates were listed in this post here.
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