Birth or Choice???

Birth,with 100% certainty! Yeah,some people say it's a choice, but never someone I dated.

 

I have never met a gay person who thought it was a choice, but i have met a few who thought they were gay because of nurture type issues. "Distant father / Overbearing mother" thing. I personally dont believe that, since SO much of todays society is like that. Parents often are never there these days with them both working long hours to make the money they want and/or they need to get on with life. Im 100% sure its just how you are born.

 

ive never met a gay person who has said they choose to like the same sex, im not sure many do unless they mistake the realisation of likeing someone and and wanting to act on it as a choice as the only choice there is wanting to act, i myself dont think its a choice i think things in your life when young can subconciously affect your sexuality, looking back i do see some fem things that could of affected me but i believe your just created how you are

 

I have to agree and say I have never met a gay person that said being gay was a choice and I have to agree. The only choice there is, is whether or not you CHOICE to act on it. I mean you can always choose to be in a heterosexual relationship and not be happy and know that that's not something you want.

 

Birth, not choice.

Unfortunately, some people just don't have the capacity to understand very much outside of what they know to be true for themselves... the idea of someone being gay is so unnatural to them, therefore it must be a choice.

My supervisor at work thinks it's a choice... she once said some noise about "nuts and bolts" -- there's a penis and there's a vagina...and that how things should be... I told her she sounded like a hick.

Even more ignorant, this guy who likes me at work (and has been present for some of the conversations with my supervisor) is so homophobic-- I think he also thinks it's a choice... anyway, one day he was talking about how he thought some guy in our building was gay... he was like "I can totally tell because he talks so softly...man, I think a lot of people are gay." -- and this is a guy who asked me out... how ironic, hey?

 

i dont know whether its from birth or not, i mean, i was dropped on my head when i was 2, maybe i turned gay after that (i dont really think that--just not saying i know for sure), but what i do know is theres no way in hell that its a choice..i have a feeling my roommate thinks it is so at some point i'm probably gonna have to confront him about that

 

id prob next time they start bitchin call him a homophobic asshole

 

same actually... its like finding a straight person who says thats a choice. unless theyre questioning theyre sexuality they just dont think about it

 

I spent most of my life choosing *not* to be gay. That included an exorcism, 26 years of marriage, etc. It is only a year ago that I gave in and admitted that I cannot choose to be straight. There is choice in this: you can choose to accept yourself or to hide, you can choose between casual sex or a committed relationship, you can choose to live your sexuality or remain celibate. If it was a question of choice, I would not be here. My grandmother got beaten on a regular basis (in school) because she insisted on being left-handed, somehow her teachers thought that was a choice as well.

 

Definitely not a choice. I've never understood that line of reasoning -- who would choose to be ostracized, judged, and discriminated against? You are who you are, and that's everything. Accepting it can be difficult, but it's not a "lifestyle choice" -- it's affirming that you're the person you are, whether you believe that god, nature, or your upbringing made you that way. I'm skeptical of the upbringing theory, but in the end it doesn't matter. Accepting the fact that you're queer is one of the hardest things to do in life -- it doesn't matter why you are the way you are, just that you can be proud when you look in the mirror.

 

Why would anyone choose to be discriminated against? Why would anyone choose to be gay when being straight is just so much easier? Why does anyone still question the fact that it's an innate part of us?

And even if it was a choice...which evidently it's not....but even if it was, whats the big friggen deal. You fall in love with someone...bish bash bosh, you live happily together.

 

I believe gays are born with "homosexual tendencies" so to speak, but the opportunity and possibility to act on them is given by the society you live in. For example, a gay woman in an arab country with sharia law obviously can't live as an open lesbian, and has to marry a man at a young age. So this is all obvious stuff, but I believe since she's never exposed to any kind of choice, and maybe even never hears about the gay culture or its existance, her homosexual feelings and needs might be less important. But this is all speculation, since I have no personal experience about that, just thoughts...

 

I asked someone who thinks being gay is a choice this question - If sexual orientation is a choice, when did you choose to be straight and make the decision not to be gay? The answer was they didn't choose to be straight ... which just contradicts their own arguments! Any further arguments they had, that weren't based on 'cuz god says its wrong', were easily responded to by quoting their own words.

 

Hell, even my conservative Christian relatives don't seem to think it's a choice. I was at my aunt and uncle's house, and the subject came up about people who claim to have changed to be straight, someone said, "Well, if they 'change' and marry someone of the opposite gender, I kind of doubt they were really gay in the first place. I don't think you can change." Which sort of surprised me!

Though my uncle did go on to say, "I don't wanna know if you're gay, don't tell me, and don't try to convince me it's a correct lifestyle." Which is great, because I'm pretty sure my cousin (who's his stepdaughter) is a lesbian or bisexual (either way, she listed 'women' and 'boobies' in her LJ interests, and totally had a suicide girls sticker and an HRC sticker on her car. And a 'roommate'. I'm assuming, mind, but c'mon =P). So much for being involved in the lives of your kids! But it could be worse.

Nobody has ever said to me, personally, that it's a choice. Most people either don't make a big deal of it, or it makes them uncomfortable enough to just change the subject away from The Gay. =P

 

To me, it IS a choice. To a degree.

I didn't choose to BE gay. Liking guys is part of my programming. I did, however, choose to LIVE gay. To come out, to date guys, to have sex with guys, to partner with a guy. I could have chose to ignore that programming. I could've forced myself to live alone, or to date women, have sex with women, and maybe marry a woman. But I chose not to. I chose to live by my programming, and it's made me a much better, much happier person.

The few times I hear that sexuality is a choice, I don't argue. But I say, "I want you to think for a minute. I want you to think about what it would be like for YOU to choose to live gay. Given that you're only attracted to the opposite sex, imagine pretending that that isn't the case. Pretending that it's really the same sex that turns you on. So despite your desires, you date only the same sex, have sex with only the same sex, and settle down with somebody of the same sex - somebody you're not attracted to at all. Yes, that's a choice you could make. But it's not much of one, is it?"

Lex

 

i never chose to b gay. but like others said, you do choose to live the life and do things that follow your gay/bi/trans feelings.

sure, you can choose to never come out and b with someone of the opposite sex, but at the same time you sacrifice your happiness and in some cases, your life, for a lie.

 

I hear that idiotic choice stuff a lot, usually from people who want to sound open minded saying 'It's OK, it's his choice' (though with a subtle tone that suggests but he'd better stay away from my kids).

 

I truly believe that sexuality is a subconscious choice.

It has everything to do with the resolvness of the oedipus complex (it happens when you're born and is set and finished when you're approx 4 years old). The underlying theory is very complex to explain here and varies depending on whether you're a male or a female.

So it's a choice the baby/kid programs in his behavior and that cannot be changed forever and again, it's not a conscious choice but an unconscious choice. Nothing can be done about it...

I do not think it's something that comes at birth (i.e. genetics).