Recently there has been a lot of discussion around Bill Richardson's statement about GLBT people choosing. The topic is rife with nuance. I'm not sure Governor Richardson has pursued that nuance as much as some of us. But there is nuance.
I offer my view. I used to do a monthly column for the Arkansas GLBT news magazine, Triangle Rising. Here's what I believed when I wrote that column...with a poem attached.
From Outside the Gender Prison: The Gender Prison
[first appeared in Triangle Rising Newsmagazine, Little Rock, AR, September, 1997]
Being gay is not a choice because, given the way gay people are treated in this society, who would choose to be gay?
I've heard that sentiment, if not those exact words, more times than I can count in the five years since I came out. If I hear it one more time, I just may scream. The thoughts behind those words really bother me for several reasons.
First of all, the sentiment expressed seems to indicate that someone who consciously chooses to live a gay life is somehow less homosexual than people who have not, and I really have to challenge such an implication. While I may or may not have been born transsexual (and I don't think at this point in my life that it really matters or that I care), I did make a conscious decision to change my genital morphology and, since my attraction to women did not change, begin to identify myself as a lesbian. Some people disagree with me, but I don't think that I'm less of a dyke because of it. And so what is wrong if someone who identifies as a gay man or a lesbian has made a conscious decision not to be heterosexual? Big deal! More power to them!
The thoughts behind those words up above imply that being gay is such a horrible fate that only those who have it thrust upon themselves by some outside force would submit to it...and I refuse to think that being gay is terrible at all...or even mildly annoying. Being gay is just different. Yes, it is outside of what is considered the norm in this heterosexist world. But being normal is not something I would ever be happy trying to attain. If you ask me, I think that the act of striving to be average must involve some sort of weird mental aberration (but then, I'm not a psychologist and have no say in such things). I wasn't normal when I lived as a (semi-)straight man (I was a long-haired hippie freak and proud of it) and I'm not normal now.
What really get's my goat (how the heck did that phrase come into the language?) is that such a statement is a reaction to those who claim that gays have "chosen a lifestyle" which is not in accordance with their beliefs, and hence in some way inferior to theirs, and claiming that being gay is not a choice is letting those people set the rhetoric of the discussion with what I believe is a red herring (another animal based phrase). Even if being gay were a "chosen lifestyle," who the heck are these people to determine that their "chosen lifestyle" (if one person chooses to be gay, mustn't one also assume that others choose to be straight?) is superior to anyone else's. This is not a world that comes with one true moral code, no matter what those people believe. People choose what they believe in many phases of their lives. I choose to believe that being queer is a Good Thing.
Maybe it's because I'm in a sense closer to having chosen to be queer than most queer people. Or maybe it's because I have a daughter who is also a lesbian and I haven't for an instant ever wished she were straight instead. But having seen life from (at least) two different sides and having been involved in the fight for our rights, if I could choose a sexual orientation for a new life born today, I would choose for that being to be gay. Sure, it might be easier in some respects to be straight, but an easier life is not necessarily a better life. In overcoming adversity, we learn so much about ourselves and have such wonderful opportunities for personal growth. And in my philosophy, that's what our existence is all about.
To me, straight nearly equates to boring nowadays. The opportunity to create a better world is an exciting challenge.
© 1997 Robyn Elaine Serven
Art Link Who?Choosing
He was
I am and will be
It took a sharp blade to divide us
He carried me through tough times
and brought me to where I could be
but it was unbearable
too utterly suffocating
and bitterly ravaging
that he lived while I hid
wasting away
slowly rotting
the years away
a life mislived
It was him
or both of us
There was only one vessel
One had to die
I chose
I chose him
I do not regret that he lived
I am who he wished he could be
but could not manage
to be
Not to be
was the alternative
so I chose
--Robyn Elaine Serven
--January 25, 2006 |
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