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The Appeal of "Born Gay"
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The idea that people are born gay, lesbian, or bisexual is appealing to many of us for lots of reasons. Many if not most of us experience the direction of our sexual desires as something that we have no control over. It seems to us that we are just that way, so therefore the logical conclusion follows that we must be born that way. The people who are most overt in their hatred of us (the religious conservatives, fascists, homophobic traditionalists, and others) insist that being gay is something we choose, and we know we can’t agree with them and their illogical conclusion. Hence, born gay, according to liberal rhetoric. Liberal heterosexual allies love the idea. If homosexuals, bisexuals, and pansexuals are born that way, then of course they shouldn’t be punished for it. “Born gay” can also be a relief to any of us who have doubts about our sexuality or who feel ourselves giving out from the weight of the oppression on our shoulders. If we’re born gay, then it’s not our fault, and we’re certainly not choosing to be the oppressed. "We just can’t help it, so leave us alone, we say." It also answers those who worry about the effect of too many out-of-the-closet homosexuals: if people are born this way, then young people won’t be unnaturally influenced by us.
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Problems With "Born Gay"
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I hope you see where I’m going with this: “born gay” is an idea with a large following, LGBT and otherwise. It’s an idea designed to allay the ingrained fears of a homophobic society and the internalized fears of gays, lesbians, and bisexuals. What’s most striking about the “born gay” phenomenon is that the scientific evidence for it is thin, yet it doesn’t matter. It’s an idea with such utility that one doesn’t need much evidence in order to make it attractive.
The evidence does not one side nor the other; people do not "choose to be gay" nor are they born gay. Rather, the evidence points to that strictly heterosexual or homosexual of society are largely the product of forces within said society, that we have no natural predisposition towards exclusively one or the other as a species. One of the main ways we can draw this conclusion is by observing other sexually reproducing, social species in the wild. With no social constructions around sexuality and gender, we can observe their behaviour without such things. We consistently see examples of bisexual individuals within said species, but we don't get to see any significant portion of the population be strictly homosexual.
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Alternative to "Born Gay"
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We can take a constructivist approach to this, people acquire these strict traits relating to homosexuality due to societal mechanisms influencing them. This does not equate to having a choice, no choice was made by the individual. We do not need to be born gay to justify it! We need to stop catering to this moderate point and instead point out pseudo science, making our own points. Don't compromise your sexuality for the rhetoric of others.
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