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Another thought on 'born this way'

Discussion in 'Gender Identity and Expression' started by DesertTortoise, Nov 24, 2013.

  1. DesertTortoise

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    This is great read.
    I’m Queer & So Are You: Against Being Born This Way | Blunderbuss Magazine

    ---------- Post added 24th Nov 2013 at 09:41 PM ----------

    There's something to be said for the born-this-way idea being but an evasion of complexity. "Choice" is such an elusive, impossible thing to define. That we can choose against ourselves, as it were, that we can be so overwhelmed by romantic expectations and conditioning that we choose what is utterly impossible to make good on--then stick with it though it kills us. There IS an ineluctable quality to our deepest choices--but in no way can they be reduced to any primary set of variables or conditions. People drive themselves battty trying to figure out the right label...Am I Bi? Queer? Lesbian? Trans-male? Trans-woman, ungendered? ... where do I fit on the fucking Kinsey scale. We need so much to have it all wrapped up, branded, packaged and shelved with the right LOC number.
    There's something really really wrong with this.
     
    #1 DesertTortoise, Nov 24, 2013
    Last edited: Nov 24, 2013
  2. UndercoverGypsy

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    I read it until it got to the feministy stuff about rape for no apparent reason. Interesting, though.

    Like the author of that article says, who gives a shit if there's a gay gene? It's already established that it's not a choice, and environment has a massive impact on every other aspect of our lives, so why not sexuality?
     
  3. Summer Rose

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    The thing is, in many respects, the impact society has on who we become, for better, for worse, whether we suppress or express ourselves...it shapes who we are. Yes, genes have a significant affect too, but society can play a more specific role in telling us who we should love, why, and how we should go about it. Not only are some people born to be a certain way, but they're born unable to separate societies views from their own.

    I tend to ask myself who I really want to be, try to understand what my heart wants. It says I should be a woman, so...fair enough. Somethings, I've found, shouldn't be questioned (either they raise too many questions, or they're is no good answer, or both).
     
  4. DesertTortoise

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    Let our answers be broad, tall, deep, entangled and with as many loose ends are we have days in our lives to keep pulling at them.

    It's a misunderstanding of genetics to see it as a working out of a predetermined or preprogrammed result. Nothing much works like that, except for theologians. From the time of conception, the developing embryo responds to changing conditions. Genetic coding is marvelously flexible, in that changing conditions can lead to the suppression of some genes and the activation of others--and there's evidence that never stops. Keep in mind, that some of the most important of those conditions which can affect us down to the molecular and genetic level--are choices we've made in the past.
    Just can't ever draw a line between biology and environment. Choices happen at intersections along the way.