To those who think I made a choice,
We make choices every day: what to eat for lunch, what to wear to your college interview, whether to study now or watch Netflix instead. Most of the choices we make affect us only for a certain amount of time and then they are forgotten, but others may determine your entire life’s path. What college you go to, what major to choose, whether or not to have kids, what decision to make in your medical emergency. We are forced to make millions of choices over the course of our lives; some choices we make turn out to work out in our favor but others just don’t. That’s how the statistics of life work. Not everything tends to go your way.
The same thing is said to be true about the things you cannot choose. You didn’t choose the color of your eyes, yet people still compliment you on the beauty of your baby blues. You didn’t choose to have a physical ailment that affects you every single day, yet people still look at you and judge you like you’re so much different than they are.
You’re born with a lot of predispositions that you must live with and cope with for the rest of your life. Sexuality is one of those things. This one is for all of the people who believe I made a choice to be gay: When did you choose to be straight? The reason I ask this is 1) because 99.9% of people who believe sexuality is a choice are, in fact straight, and 2) because not one person in this world can determine the moment they “chose” their sexuality, simply because, well, they didn’t.
If you’ve ever had one, think back to your first love. Do you remember the moment you fell in love with this person? Do you remember why? Did you consciously say to yourself, “You know what, I want to fall in love with them?” Do you remember, possibly, trying so desperately to stop being in love with them because of how badly they started to treat you or because you didn’t feel you could live the rest of your life with them? Most of you are probably thinking, “I had no control over loving them. It just happened. I couldn’t stop loving them even though I so desperately wanted to.” This is how we, the homosexual community members of the world, have felt at one time or another. We never chose to like the same sex, it’s just how we were born. As hard as some of us may have tried to change our sexuality, or tried love the opposite sex in order to follow the status quo, we learned pretty quickly that it’s just not how love and attraction work.
Of course my life would be easier if I loved in the same way as heteronormative people do. It would have eliminated a huge portion of my life that I spent hiding and trying to change the way I am. It would have been easier not to have to wonder how someone may react to something as simplistic as who I am capable of falling in love with, something that will never affect them directly. Easier? Yes. Necessary? No. We are all born with characteristics about ourselves that aren’t generally easy to handle at certain times, and mine just happens to be my sexuality. Do you really think that the LGBT members who are thrown into categories they never asked to be put into would CHOOSE to be humiliated, abused, teased, taunted, threatened, or discriminated against? I would say not.
I understand that it may be easier for those of you who believe, or want to believe, that it is a choice for us. It’s what makes sense to you, it’s how you’ve been brought up, or it’s what you’ve always thought. Well, in the nicest way I can possibly say this, screw that. Broaden your ignorant mind into understanding that people are programmed differently and just because my sexuality “doesn’t make sense to you” doesn’t make it unnatural. Just because you were “brought up thinking this way” is no excuse not to educate yourself into understanding our circumstances better. Past generations were brought up thinking that black people should sit in the back of the bus because they were less humane than the rest of us white folk, but our generation sure negated those thoughts even if we were raised in a racist family. Times are changing! It’s 2016. It’s time we stop making people feel bad for things that they have no control over. Hell, even if I did have control over who I love, why would I change it to please you?
So what all of this boils down to is that sexuality has never, is never, and will never be a choice that someone can make. Black people never chose to be black, women never chose to be women, and gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and straight people never chose their sexuality. Instead of attempting to degrade and belittle us, why don’t you put your efforts into educating yourself on subjects like these? If you don’t care or think it doesn’t pertain to you, shut the hell up about it then.
Although I cannot speak for everyone in positions similar to mine, someone has to be the voice for those who cannot, for safety or social reasons, say it themselves. Here’s to ending stigmas and stereotypes about the LGBT community and here’s to progressing a movement towards social inequality for those who never made a choice.
