Queer By Choice

Lesbians, Gay Men, and The Politics of Identity

Vera Whisman

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9780415910156
• eBook ISBN: 9781136042942
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

Queer by Choice enters the controversial debate of sexual identity by examining choice in gay men and lesbian sexual identity. Drawing on interviews with a sample of 72 people, Whisman analyzes if, and to what extent, choice played a role in determining identity. Contributing factors such as race, class, religion, and educational level are considered. The results of the study are stimulating and often surprising, and contribute to the escalating debates over sexual identity as lesbians and gays continue to soldier for rights and representation.

one

Dear Abby, “The Gay Agenda,” and the New York Times

In October of 1992, just in time for the referenda on Amendment 2 in Colorado and Measure 9 in Oregon,¹ a right-wing Christian organization called “The Report” released a twenty-minute video entitled “The Gay Agenda” (The Report 1993; orig. 1992). It is a slick and manipulative piece of anti-gay propaganda that may have been seen by a few hundred thousand people in showings on cable television and in church basements, Congress, and the Pentagon. Its distributors handed it out free by the dozens during the Oregon and Colorado campaigns, and its makers claim that 70,000 copies have been distributed.² The video’s centerpiece is carefully selected footage from the New York and San Francisco gay pride parades showing precisely those spectacles most likely to shock a conservatively religious, nonurban audience: public partial nudity (with a particular emphasis on bare-breasted women), costumed portrayals of s/m scenes, drag queens (including San Francisco’s Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence in their nuns’ habits), and tender, affectionate, open-mouthed kisses between men.

“The Gay Agenda” is notorious for the claim its parade footage is employed to make: that the real agenda of the gay and lesbian movement is to force a perverse and public sexuality on U.S. society. But the video narrative also contends that homosexuals do not qualify for civil-rights protection because homosexuality is a choice. This second point is made in testimony from farright ideologues acting as legal and medical experts, one of whom (Stanley Monteith, M.D., author of a vicious treatise on AIDS) refers to young gay men as “boys being actively recruited out of our homes, out of our schools.” Two men appear repeatedly who say they are ex-homosexuals,³ and psychologist John Nicolosi, who has made a career of claiming to cure homosexuality, tells the audience that his work is central to the mission of the anti-gay backlash:

The gay movement today is very much threatened by the kind of therapy that I do, because the therapy that I do can demonstrate that people can change. And it’s essential to the gay movement that it convinces American society that homosexuality cannot change; that a person is born gay; there is nothing they can do about it but to accept it. So when you have individuals who can say, “I was once gay, but am no longer”—some of them move on to marriage, you know, and have a family—then that threatens the assumption of the gay movement. (The Report 1993)

Although most gay activists would doubt Nicolosi’s claims of “success,” and be offended by the very idea that homosexuality needs “curing,” many would agree with his depiction of the public discourse about the legitimacy of homosexuality: In this view, the ability of lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals to win legal protection, cultural recognition and social acceptance rests on the claim that “homosexuality cannot change, that a person is born gay.”⁴

When, in 1991, two researchers separately released preliminary findings suggesting that homosexuality may be biologically based,⁵ they framed their claims in just such terms, utilizing Western culture’s understanding of biological causation as the antithesis of individual intent. Medical psychiatrist Richard Pillard, coauthor of one of the studies, pronounced that “a genetic component in sexual orientation says, ‘This is not a fault, and it’s not your fault’” (Gelman, et al. 1992). Some gay activists hailed the promise of biological redemption; Randy Shilts concluded that proving homosexuality is innate “would reduce being gay to something like being left-handed, which is in fact all that it is” (Gelman, et al. 1992). Dean Hamer, whose 1993 research cautiously claimed to have located a genetic predisposition for male homosexuality, sees its political use as “challeng[ing] those who say it’s a choice” (D’Adesky 1994: 108). And for their part, the Christian right has attempted to discredit such findings, lobbying to stop funding for Hamer’s “gay gene” research (D’Adesky 1994), and providing followers with material designed to rebut his findings (e.g., LaBarbera 1993b). But is it so simple? Will the lesbian, gay, and bisexual movement prevail if we can demonstrate that homosexuality is innate? Will the far-right backlash succeed if they can prove that it’s not?

We need to analyze these arguments in order to understand what interests are truly served by them. This is all the more important as the discourse becomes more and more widespread, as open debate about the legitimacy of homosexuality gradually replaces silence in the political culture of heterosexism:

The closet no longer reigns in solitary splendor as the metaphor for the political situation of gay men, lesbians, and bisexuals. Its door now opens directly onto the areopagus, the forum, the senate hearing room, the court of law—onto scenes of rational debate, public deliberation, and collective decisionmaking conducted under the aegis of reasonable discourse. The muse of rhetoric, if not her sister logic, presides. (Halley 1993: 1727)

The growth of the lesbian and gay political movements has brought not only homosexuality, but also homophobia out of the closet, forcing the latter to speak for itself, no longer able to rely on the unspoken assumptions that a snicker or an innuendo could once invoke. The temptation, now that the monster has reared its head, is to counter its every blow with a defense, as did the group of young men who carried signs in the 1993 March on Washington that read: “GAY MYTH #4: WE WANT TO CONVERT YOUR CHILD” and “GAY MYTH #9: WE’RE NOT ENTITLED TO EQUAL RIGHTS.”

But the discourse of homophobia is opportunistic and mutable; it can only be resisted, never entirely falsified (although so many of its individual claims, such as widespread child molestation by gay men, are quite obviously false) (Halperin 1994). Homophobic attitudes are “strategies for meeting psychological needs,” and do not arise solely from simple misinformation (Herek 1984: 7). We need to understand homophobic discourse in terms of its rhetorical strategy, not solely in terms of its truth or falsehood.

In a non-heterosexist society, the question of whether homosexuality is a choice would command little attention. But here and now the question matters very much, and in most of the settings—legal, cultural, interpersonal—where the legitimacy of homosexuality is debated, the lines are clearly drawn: Those who would argue against homosexuality claim it is chosen, while those who would argue for it claim it is not. The claim of “no choice” is to a pro-gay stance as the claim of “choice” is to an anti-gay one: a foundational argument. Anti-gay rhetoric uses the term “sexual preference” to imply choice, while pro-gay rhetoric uses “sexual orientation” to deny it.⁶ Legal cases with gay-rights implications have featured expert testimony that homosexuality is an immutable characteristic (Minkowitz 1993; Wolinsky and Sherrill 1993). On the other side, former Vice President Dan Quayle opines that “in most cases [homosexuality] certainly is a choice” (DeWitt 1992), and “Focus on the Family” (a far-right Christian group that campaigned for Colorado’s Amendment 2) claims that gay men and lesbians constitute “a group that has no reason for calling itself a group, apart from their chosen behavior” (Rabey 1993: 41).

The New York Times/CBS opinion poll made it official, demonstrating a correlation between the belief that homosexuality is a choice and a range of homophobic opinions (see Table 1). The Times analysis equates correlation with causation, claiming that the data show that beliefs about whether or not homosexuality is chosen “shape attitudes on everything from homosexuals in the military to gay life in general”⁷ (Schmalz 1993: A14; emphasis added). In fact the poll also uncovered large differences of opinion based on gender, age, education, region, and religion, but the Times article included findings only on the effects of beliefs about choice.

The Times analysis treats individual opinions about the cause of homosexualilty as relatively neutral beliefs that, once adopted, happen to have consequences for political attitudes. But individuals often select their beliefs to match their politics; one already states a political opinion by stating that homosexuality is or is not a choice. Such statements can function as metonyms, standing in for basic statements about whether homosexuality is a legitimate way of life. In the following excerpt from a “Dear Abby” column, it functions exactly that way; Ms. Van Buren responds to a letter that states “a person can be decent, respectable, and lovable, and still be gay,” by verifying that homosexuality is not a choice. The response would be a non sequitur—the original letter says nothing about the source of homosexuality—except that “not a choice” stands in here for “legitimate.”

Dear Abby:
I feel compelled to respond to a recent column in which Charles Piper chided you for encouraging a man to keep his brother’s deathbed promise. The dying Ray had asked his brother to tell their grandparents that he was gay. Mr. Piper felt that the brother had no obligation to keep his promise…. Contrary to Mr. Piper, you did not blow it, Abby. In fact, you gave the brother excellent advice. You said, “At the end, Ray wanted his grandparents to know that a person can be decent, respectable and lovable, and still be gay.” THAT is the central issue here.…
Linda in Milwaukee

Dear Linda:
Thank you, friend. I needed that. There are still many people who do not know that being gay or straight is not a choice. If anyone doubts it, simply ask, “When did you choose to go one way or the other?” (Van Buren 1993: C2)

The formula (“not a choice” = “legitimate”) is not the pop columnist’s unique creation. It may well have been used by at least some of the respondents to the New York Times/CBS opinion poll who, because they regard themselves as non-homophobic, selected the responses they believed were non-homophobic.⁸

Table 1: How the Public Views Gay Issues

Source: New York Times, March 5, 1993, p. A14.

Of course, choice/no choice is not the only dialectic plotted on the anti-gay/pro-gay axis. Certainly sick/healthy, immoral/moral, unnatural/natural would also stand in for anti-gay/pro-gay. But unlike these examples, “chosen” is a value-neutral term on its own. It is not immediately apparent why stating homosexuality is a choice is necessarily stating that homosexuality is illegitimate, but that valuation is explicit in stating that it is sick, immoral, and the like. The way claims about choice play out in discourses about homosexuality is particularly important. A recently published gay-affirmative book of “Answers to 300 of the Most Frequently Asked Questions about Gays and Lesbians” bears the title, Is It a Choice? (Marcus 1993), suggesting that this is the most frequently asked question. And those young men at the March on Washington who carried myth-bearing placards reserved for “MYTH #1,” WE HAVE A CHOICE.

Why not simply proclaim that we don’t and be done with it? I hope Queer By Choice will provide a complex answer to that question, which for now can be summed up in two parts. First, predicating the legitimacy of homosexuality on its not being a choice is profoundly heterosexist. The very wording of the New York Times/CBS poll’s independent variable question—which asked whether homosexuality is something people “choose to be” or something they “cannot change”—demonstrates that heterosexist bias, relying on precisely the same logic as “The Gay Agenda”: If it is possible for a gay person to change to straight, and assuming that such a person would make that change if she or he could, by not undergoing whatever is necessary to make that change, that person is choosing to remain gay (even if she or he did not choose to become gay in the first place). It is that reasoning that makes of “choice” and “change” oppositional terms, in the Times poll and in the rhetoric of the far right. If we argue against only the “possible to change” assertion, we leave unchallenged the more insidious assumption that it is desirable or necessary to do so. And to the extent that homosexuality is acceptable only if it is not chosen it remains stigmatized, illegitimate, deviant. Added to that logical weakness is an emotional one; as D’Emilio (1992) asks, “Do we really expect to bid for real power from a position of ‘I can’t help it’?” (187).

Second, the claim that homosexuality is legitimate because it is not chosen is androcentric, treating a common male experience as generically human. Apparently the vast majority of gay men in the U.S. do understand their homosexuality as an orientation they did not choose or create (Bell and Weinberg 1978; Epstein 1987; Harry 1984; Hart 1985; Weinberg and Williams 1974). But lesbian identities span a continuum, from a model of lesbian identity as a conscious political choice to a determinist model like that of most gay men (Bell and Weinberg 1978; Burch 1993; Ettore 1980; Golden 1987; Ponse 1978; Reback 1986). The “born that way” stance not only “lets the other side set the terms of the debate” in heterosexist terms, but “reflects the universal male experience in this culture, not the complexities of the lesbian world” (Van Gelder 1991).

Choice in Lesbian and Gay Identities

These claims—that homosexuality is or is not chosen, is or is not innate—are important beyond their function as political rhetoric. Gay men and lesbians understand themselves and their personal histories in these terms, experience their sexual desires as beyond or within their own control. These personal accounts must be respected; neither liberation nor scholarship would be served by dismissing them at the very historical moment when gay and lesbian voices are speaking for themselves. But respect does not preclude analysis, beginning with the recognition that lesbians and gay men experience their sexualities in a heterosexist and homophobic context.⁹ That context forces us to explain ourselves, for ours is not the unquestioned, the unmarked, the center. The very fact that lesbians and gay men usually do take a position on the etiology of our sexualities is a measure of our stigmatization.

Such personal statements, then, function as accounts, discursive devices that serve to neutralize stigma (Schur 1979), “employed whenever an action is subjected to valuative inquiry” (Scott and Lyman 1968). Accounts of identity, far from being mere descriptions of experience, are devices which individuals select and use because of what they can do for one in the negotiation of a hostile world. In the coming-out stories told by lesbians and gay men, such as those elicited by the interviews I conducted, these accounts weave into personal narratives, the telling of which constitutes one of the rituals of modern gay and lesbian life.

This book analyzes such identity accounts, as heard in individual interviews with a volunteer sample of 39 lesbians and 33 gay men. The interviews, comprising mostly open-en...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• 1 Dear Abby, “The Gay Agenda,” and the New York Times
• 2 The Pleasures and Dangers of Choice
• 3 Stories of Choice
• 4 Choosing a Story: Determined, Chosen, and Mixed
• 5 Difference and Dominance: Gendered Identity Accounts
• 6 Conclusion
• Appendix
• Bibliography
• Index