A Position Without Evidence
Anti-gay activists would have you believe that being sexually different is a choice. The theory is that people can be “infected” or “groomed” by exposure to anything LGBTQIA+, from books and movies to people and rainbow symbols. They think that being queer is contagious, caught from being around LGBT people. And they say that it’s important to avoid exposing young people to the reality that LGBTQ people exist.
It was precisely that kind of willful ignorance about sex that led to the “Lavender Panic” of the 1950s and which has, once again, reared its pitiful tiny head in today’s world. It is currently a rallying cry among religious fanatics, authoritarians, and their followers. They seem to imagine that censorship and erasure of queer cultures can guarantee that everyone will grow up straight and narrow.
It’s the central argument for banning books, movies, and even art from schools and libraries. And it is one of the dumbest lies told.
Why is it Wrong?
Because the facts are stacked up against the lies. The fact is that sex and gender nonconformists are as old as time. Not only have we always existed, but we have always existed in places where being queer could mean arrest or even death penalties.
No amount of erasure can really erase us. With every new generation of humans, more LGBTQIA people are born. After gay people were wiped out by totalitarians (as happened in Nazi-era Berlin), new generations of gay people were born (see gay life in Berlin today!) People like us are born every single day. That’s one of the biggest sets of data we have to show that sex and gender differences are inherited traits.
DIVERSITY is the only true norm. Conformity is political.
I Never Could Catch Vanilla
Let’s unpack this notion that being queer could be contagious with a simple question: if identity was something you can catch by being exposed to it, why am I not solidly straight? Even blow jobs and masturbation were considered perverted in my youth. Day after day, I read books, saw movies, and heard teachers and parents re-enforce the vanilla doctrine that the only way to be normal in the world was through monogamous, binary heterosexuality. Put another way, I was groomed to be straight.
Yet, from the time I was a mere babe, I figured out that touching my genitals felt awesome. Without the assistance of books or movies to “corrupt” me, I touched myself. And when I did, I had fantasies about what I later realized were common fetishes and kink. I’d been taught that these things were supposed to be shameful, but wow, they gave me so much joy and delight. When I realized in my teens that jerking off was so common that vibrators weren’t just for neck pain, or that some men liked men and some women liked women, it was a relief.
Growing up, I felt doomed. No matter how many stereotypes about sexual normality were thrown in my face every day of my life, I knew that being straight would never give me the happiness I craved.
What finally rescued me from that abyss of despair was learning that there were others like me. And that, ultimately, is what frees people like us: accepting that people like us not only exist but that we can find happiness in a world that tries so hard to brainwash us into believing there is only one right way to express sex or gender.
How Does It Even Begin?
In reality, you can’t catch sex or gender identity from someone else. Being queer is not contagious any more than being straight is. You may be able to psychologically manipulate people to accept victimization or to consider unhealthy behaviors and beliefs to be normal. Cults do it all the time. But you simply can’t change sexual orientation or gender identity — not through medications, prayers, or wishful thinking.
All you can do is demonize it to the point where people are terrified to express their true orientation or identity. That’s what homophobes and transphobes do: they try to convince you that the way God made you isn’t good enough. You have to follow what they say though certainly not do, as many know quite well by now how many anti-LGBTQIA politicians and clergy are themselves LGBTQIA.
Reality check: Sex and gender identity form in early childhood, long before you have the language to speak about it. It begins before we have the adult hormones that drive us to seek out partners. It begins with what seem to be quirks — perhaps loving shoes or wearing opposite-sex garments, or maybe a special love for childhood games like “cops and robbers” that involved captivity and bondage.
Community and Exposure Made My Life Happier
Healthy exposure to people such as yourself is NEVER a bad thing! Contrary to dumb myths, it’s precisely what gives people the courage to be themselves and lead happier lives. Shakespeare said it all when he wrote “To thine own self be true.”
A wonderful thing happened in my teens. LGBT people began to march for their rights. The summer after Stonewall, the news reported that gay and lesbian people were going to march in Greenwich Village. That day, I told my parents I was going to a museum in the city. But I didn’t. Instead, I got off the train on West Fourth Street and went to an area I’d never visited.
Crowds of people were drifting past and assembling along 7th Avenue. I followed them to Sheridan Square and watched the marchers from the sidewalk. There they were! Gay men, lesbians, trans people, thousands of them, some carrying signs.
I was in awe of them. How could they boldly stand up in public and assert that they didn’t just exist, they were happy to be who they were and demanded their human rights?! It blew my mind, and it inspired me to realize that maybe I wasn’t alone!
I didn’t (and still don’t) identify as gay or lesbian, and I didn’t quite fathom there was a place for bi-oriented people like me or I would have jumped off the sidewalk and marched with them. No matter: I was with them in my heart! A sexual outlaw, A renegade. A nonconformist.
I was not alone. I fit in someplace. And, even better, I found people who loved
the real me — the kinky, pervy, nonconformist me!
Finding out You’re Not Alone
Discovering queer community, realizing I wasn’t alone, and knowing that there were people who were courageous and committed to making their truths known liberated my consciousness. It gave me hope!
If these thousands of glorious people could come out in the clear light of day to proclaim they were here — risking arrests, risking getting beaten with clubs or warehoused in mental institutions — then surely there was hope for me that one day, I could step out of my own closet.
It took me almost 15 more years to find the BDSM world. Finally, I knew! I was not alone. I fit in someplace. Seeing other people like me was the beginning of my radical liberation from shame and romantic despair. I stopped caring what other people thought. I was beginning to love myself. It felt like a gift from the gods.
Love Your Self As You Are
Growing up kinky, queer, non-binary, or otherwise “different,” often includes struggles and self-doubt, insecurity about being weird, fear that your needs and desires make you unlovable, and endless questions about the future. But as you grow up, you find ways to cope. You start affiliating with people like you, people who accept you, who give you the space and the kindness to be yourself. And, sooner or later, you find people who love you exactly as you are.
The real you has been with you all along, waiting to emerge, blossom, and overcome the obstacles that other people’s ignorance put in your way. You’re as good as anyone else. You deserve respect. You deserve love. And you absolutely deserve compassion. The people who already know that want you to succeed.
Happy Pride Month. Feel proud! You have overcome a lot of social programming just to be reading this. 🙂
photo credit: Toni Reed https://unsplash.com/@trfotos
Further Reading
Liberating Bisexuality is Liberating
