Gay identity has nothing to do with biology and everything to do with homophobia. Winning gay freedom will make gay identity redundant.
Gay identity has emerged as a reaction to homophobia. It is the affirmation of homosexuality, made necessary by the disparagement and penalties heaped on lesbians, gays and bisexuals by a homophobic society.
As a psycho-social defence against prejudice and repression, this positive assertion of gayness is totally understandable. But if the campaign for queer human rights successfully challenges straight supremacism, will the mindset of ‘gay’ continue to have any meaning or value?
The homosexual community has a huge investment in gay identity, which now extends way beyond a sense of self-worth to embrace a complete alternative lifestyle.
This means there is enormous resistance among gay people to the idea that ‘being gay’ could eventually lose its rationale and significance. Equally feared, is the notion that the social configurations of homosexuality (and heterosexuality) might change over time, becoming more blurred and ambiguous.
Most lesbians and gay men are wedded to the permanence of the hetero-homo split, accepting as universal and eternal the notion of society being forever divided between a straight majority and a gay minority.
The evidence of this is apparent in the recent revival of essentialist sexology, and its fervent embrace by many homosexuals.
The ‘born gay’ argument, discredited 30 years ago by the rise of the gay liberation movement, is now once again in the ascendancy. Premised on the existence of innate and fundamental biological differences between heteros and homos, it presupposes that the queer-straight split is here to stay. Implying an implacable and irretrievable sexual separateness between the two orientations, it closes the door on the possibility of ever overcoming the sectionalism that pushes one sexuality apart from the other.
This biological determinist explanation of queerness has recently been given a new boost by pseudo-scientific research which posits the existence of gay genes and gay brains. These theories are, however, unable to explain bisexuality or the experiences of people who, suddenly in mid-life, unexpectedly switch from heterosexuality to homosexuality (or vice versa). What’s more, the differences in genetic and brain structures identified by the studies could be entirely incidental and irrelevant to the origins of homosexuality. They might just as easily be a correlate or consequence of sexual orientation, rather than the cause.
The idea that hetero and homo attraction are mutually exclusive and prefixed at birth, was long ago refuted by Dr Alfred Kinsey. In “Sexual Behaviour In The Human Male “(1948), he presented evidence that “many males combine in their single histories, and very often in exactly the same period of time, or even simultaneously in the same moment, reactions to both heterosexual and homosexual stimuli”.
Although more recent research in Britain, such as The National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles (1990-91), found a much lower incidence of bisexuality than suggested by Kinsey, it did broadly confirm his basic thesis that some people are attracted to both men and women and that an individual’s sexual orientation can vary over the course of their lifetime.
The Kinsey researchers famously reported the case of a happily married young woman who, ten years into her marriage, unexpectedly fell in love with a female friend. Divorcing her husband, she set up house with this woman. Many years later, despite her on-going lesbian relationship, she had an affair with a man. Such examples of sexual flexibility don’t square with biologistic notions of rigid erotic predestination.
It is, of course, quite possible that various biological factors might predispose individuals towards homosexuality and, indeed, heterosexuality. However a predisposition is not the same as a causation. Most studies seem to show that biological influences are of secondary significance compared to cultural ones. If homosexuality was primarily explainable in biological terms, then we would expect it to appear in the same proportions and forms in all cultures. As the anthropologists Clellan Ford and Frank Beach demonstrated in Patterns Of Sexual Behaviour (1965), far from being cross-culturally stable, both the incidence and expressions of lesbian and gay sexuality vary vastly between different societies. There can also be great variability within each society at different moments in its history.
Despite obvious theoretical and empirical weaknesses, the claims that certain genes and brain structures cause homosexuality have been seized upon and vigorously promoted by many in the gay movement. The haste with which these unproved, questionable theories have been embraced is suggestive of a terrible lack of self-confidence and a rather sad, desperate need to justify queer desire. It’s almost as if those pushing these theories believe we don’t deserve human rights unless we can prove that we are born gay and that our homosexuality is beyond our control. “We can’t help being fags and dykes, so please don’t treat us badly”. That seems to be the pleading, defensive sub-text to the ‘born gay’ thesis.
Surely we merit human rights because we are human beings? The cause of our homosexuality is irrelevant to our quest for justice. We are entitled to dignity and respect, regardless of whether we are born queer or made queer, and irrespective of whether our homosexuality is something beyond our control or something freely chosen.
The corollary of the ‘born gay’ idea is the suggestion that no one can be ‘made gay’. This defensive argument was used by some gay leaders during the 1988 campaign against Section 28, which bans the “promotion” of homosexuality by local councils, and again during the lobbying of parliament for the equalisation of the age of consent in 1994.
Supporters of Section 28, and opponents of an equal age of consent, justified their stance with the claim that people need to be protected against ‘pressure’ and ‘seduction’ into the homosexual lifestyle.
Gay spokespeople responded by arguing that it’s impossible to ‘make’ someone gay, and that a same-sex experience at an early age cannot ‘persuade’ a heterosexual person to become homosexual.
At one level, they are right. Sexual orientation appears to become fairly fixed in the first few years of life. For most of us it is very difficult, if not impossible, to subsequently change our sexual orientation.
However, what certainly can change as people grow older is their ability to accept and express formerly repressed queer desires. A person who is ostensibly heterosexual might, in their mid-30s, become aware of a previously unrecognised same-sex attraction that had been dormant and unconscious since childhood. Society’s positive affirmation of homosexuality might help such a person discover and explore those latent, hidden feelings.
The homophobes are thus, paradoxically, closer to the truth than many gay activists. Removing the social opprobrium and penalties from queer relationships, and affirming gay love and lust, would allow more people to come to terms with presently inhibited homo-erotic desires. In this sense, it is perfectly feasible to ‘promote’ lesbian and gay sexuality and ‘make’ someone queer. Individuals who have a homosexual component in their character, but are inhibited by repression or guilt, definitely can be encouraged to acknowledge their same-sex attraction and act upon it.
Were future generations to grow up in a gay-positive, homo-friendly culture, many more people would have same-sex relationships, if not for all of their lives, at least for significant periods.
In this state of greater sexual freedom, where homosexuality becomes commonplace and ceases to be victimised, gayness no longer has to be defended and affirmed. Gay identity (and its straight counterpart) becomes redundant. Hurrah!
* Peter Tatchell is a contributor to Anti-Gay (Freedom Editions) and is the author of Safer Sexy – The Guide To Gay Sex Safely (Freedom Editions).
Unpublished November 1996