Debating away born this way

Debating away born this way

It’s refreshing to absorb diverging opinions on the hot issues of the day from those who’ve been around long enough to remind us where the ‘gay movement’ came from and where it may have shifted to.

Last week I attended ‘After Homosexual: The Legacies of Gay Liberation’, a panel discussion in Melbourne to celebrate the 40th anniversary of academic Dennis Altman’s seminal book Homosexual: Oppression and Liberation.

It was a joy to hear three academics — Altman, Alice Echols (US) and Jeffrey Weeks (UK) — in full flight, and a reminder that when focusing on current rights campaigning, some historical perspective can sometimes save us from ourselves.

One topic for discussion was Sex In The City star Cynthia Nixon’s recent comments that she chose to be gay.

“For me, [sexuality] is a choice,” Nixon told The New York Times. “I understand that for many people it’s not, but for me it’s a choice, and you don’t get to define my gayness for me.”

After being roundly pelted with criticism Nixon was forced to run for cover, issuing a statement to The Advocate confirming being gay isn’t a choice for everyone.

I sympathise with Nixon’s earlier remarks. I also realise for some people being gay is not a choice. Not everyone feels the same way about their sexuality. I understand people being upset the religious right might ‘use it against us’, but as Nixon pointed out, this is letting the bigots shape our position on who and what we are.

Weeks’ insights helped me square my own feelings about the saga.

“Our sexuality is something very personal, it’s different in every person and it’s made up of a host of different things … there are lots of people who change sexuality through a lifetime and there’s a huge variety of ways of expressing it,” Weeks told the conference.

“You can’t base a political movement on saying that the only valid reason for our struggles around sexuality is because we’re born with it.

“It can’t be a matter of faith. It’s got to be a matter of science and the science is always inconclusive about it. It has been for 100 years and it will continue to be so.”

More importantly, there needs to be enough room within the LGBTI community to be able to say how we feel — otherwise we’re scarcely better than those who seek to silence us in the first place.

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One response to “Debating away born this way”

  1. Maybe what Nixon was trying to say was that how we “express or parade” our sexuality is a choice? My career would have been impossible in the times I was working had I publicly expressed my sexuality. I’d have probably been in the clink as well.