I have a weird feeling this post is ripping off The History of Sexuality in some way I can’t locate just now – if so, consider yourself acknowledged, Foucault!
I’m troubled by the proliferation of “I was born this way” as a means of justifying otherness. I don’t think otherness has to be justified, for a start. Additionally, it reads like an attempt to prove innocence – I can’t be blamed for the way I’ve always been! – as though any other way of coming into otherness would be criminal. Apart from all that, why does it matter if one was born a particular way or not?
What this assertion implies is that otherness is less legitimate if it is a choice, or if it’s something one hasn’t experienced from birth. I’m thinking particularly of trans and queer people, and how many are often met with ‘you shouldn’t be choosing that,’ and return with ‘it wasn’t a choice’. This narrative says that there are possibilities, good and bad, and if the one socially coded as bad isn’t chosen, it isn’t bad. The implication remains that it would be if it was chosen, and only as innocent victim does the other merit equal integration into society. That’s not ground I want to give up. I think otherness should be okay, however it comes about. If it comes about later in life, well, people change and people realise and people choose different labels, and that should be okay.
The flip side is that the “born this way” rhetoric shifts the focus to causes. If you were born this way, why? Let’s find genetic and environmental causes, because you are an abberation. You are wrong, and if it’s about what’s located in you rather than in both you and your interaction with society, let’s find out why. Well, no. I know some other people want to know why they are the way they are, but I think that that socially speaking it ultimately shouldn’t matter why someone’s trans or queer or any given thing. People shouldn’t be science experiments and fascinating theoretical examples. There’s nothing wrong with it, you are who you are, and you are not the product of morally bad biology. Nobody’s trying to find the cause of straightness or cisness, because they’re normalised.
If “I was born this way” is powerful and comforting to someone, I don’t want to deny them that. I just don’t want it to be the primary or only story of the causation of otherness. It’s okay as long as it doesn’t lead to the delegitimisation of other possibilities, or the dissection of people under this one.
I’ve posted on this topic, although I doubt you read that. http://enoughsnark.blogspot.com/2010/07/dont-leave-it-to-genes.html
I also find this deeply concerning. In addition to your points, there’s something a bit too Brave New World about this mode of science: not “let’s study the world and celebrate its diversity” but “let’s study it, medicalise it, and fix it”.
I find the whole “born this way” thing to be based on the naturalistic fallacy. I am all for people feeling empowered, but I hope the implications can be examined–especially since it erases experiences.
Thought this was fantastic!
I am eternally grateful for my fantastic partner. When I first realised I was attracted to women and had a run-in with a ridiculously incompetent counsellor who tried to tell me why I was feeling this way (could possibly be either a not-nurturing-enough mother or childhood abuse poisoning my view of relationships so what I wanted was actually friendship) and came home very upset/outraged/shocked he said basically this -
“Maybe those things did cause it, I don’t know. But frankly it doesn’t matter, because what you feel now is okay and valid regardless. I don’t care why you feel this way, I only care that you also feel happy and good and loved and valuable.”
Yes, *exactly*, Chally! I am so weary of the so-called nurture vs. nature debates (even though I still find myself engaging on those terms). Because when we debate those who would erase us on those terms, we cede the argument to them; we buy into their erasure of us. And attempts to find the “cause” of same-sex attraction and transness is scary, because that knowledge – which is always in the hands of cis/hetero folks that have the power – can be used to literally erase us. I’ve even heard so dyed-in-the-wool forced-birthers say that it’d be ok, or even good, to abort “gay” and “trans” fetuses (as if you could really tell they’re gay and trans while they’re still in the womb
What it gets down to is this: Every person has a right to control their body, their sexuality, and their reproductive capacity. Everybody has a right to change their bodies in the ways they see fit, whether it is piercings or genital reconstruction surgery or anything else. Everybody has a right to their identities (gender or otherwise).
This ties into disability, too. I have Asperger’s, (a form of autism) and while I process things *differently* than a lot of people, there’s nothing wrong with that – it’s just how I’m wired. Yet there’s all kinds of curebies who want to eliminate autism by testing fetuses and then “offering” abortion to their (future) parents. (And this is one area where a focus on pro-choice in isolation without considering how this intersects with disability gets to be problematic.)
*chinhands* Yes, this, basically. What happens to people who do, or would choose to be [x]? Case in point, I’m bi, but I’m also sure that I could comfortably elect to live as a heterosexual, if I elected to only sleep with dudes, and focused my social activities on heterosexual spaces. I could probably do the same with respect to women, but right now I don’t *want* to do either of those things.
I rather like Greta Christina’s writing on the subject – on bisexuality and choice, particularly. I also like, although I’m a little more cautions with, her article on why we shouldn’t disavow probable causes just because we don’t like them [warning - she's more trusting of the scientific process than some might be, and the blog in general contains a fair bit of athiest critique].
From the first article:
Oh, pfft, my blockquote tags didn’t work. Imagine that last para nicely blockquoted, would you?
Mmmhmm, perzactly. This is why I’m intrigued that Lady GaGa’s song is considered such a straight-forward liberation narrative. To me it feels, well, kind of retrogressive in particular ways…
But of course, part of the reason that people *do* play the ‘born this way’ game is because it has political legitimacy: choosing, in neoliberalism, is equated with responsibility, and if responsibility can be located with the one who is different, well then, why should any bigotry be changed? The individual is responsible for the bigotry because they chose to be different. Nothing needs to change. It shouldn’t work this way, don’t get me wrong, but this is part of the problem with science being considered such a source of truth – science gets to determine what is immutable, naturally given, Really Real. And anything else is a choice.
And in this context, it’s not really surprising that lots of people will insist on being ‘born this way’: it’s a counter-discourse, an attempt to claim back ground, to challenge the claim that, say, queerness is unnatural. But at the same time, that attempt to claim back ground participates in the legitimation of the idea that ‘the natural’, usually defined by science, decides what’s legitimate (and as you and GallingGalla point out, that makes for some pretty problematic ‘new science’). Some people advocate the use of these forms of essentialism or naturalisation as a *strategy* for intervention, accepting the problem of affirming essentialism or this false naturalisation as the yucky side-effect of one of the few successful means we have for challenging the, for e.g., ‘queer shouldn’t exist because unnatural’ talk. I remain pretty powerfully ambivalent about that, though.
The brief version? I have problems with ‘born this way’ politics, but I find it really hard to just be straightforwardly rejecty of it, because it’s one of the few techniques for getting a political foothold, and it’s been successful(ish – that is, for particular groups in relation to particular claims) in the past. But. Butbutbut. [nod]
@WildlyParenthentical: Yes, very much yes. Consider that science is still dominated by cis het white men, so of course they get to determine what is “normal” and what is not.
NOTE that the following is US-centric.
I think that one problem with “born this way” arguments is that it can be used to divide marginalized groups. Even in my own “they’re crushing us into the dirt” group – trans* women – white middle-class trans women are taken more seriously, and have considerably more safety, than trans women of color (I’m not saying that white trans women never experience transphobic violence – I have – but that it occurs considerably less often). And certain groups of white middle-class trans women have bought into this HBS[*] woman / woman born trans crap that they then use to split off from other trans* women and they treat trans women of color, poor trans women, genderqueer trans women (such as myself) like crap.
Or look at the gay folk who’ve gained the most acceptance in the US: cisgender, white, middle-to-upper class folk who emulate heteronormative values and lifestyles. They engage in the “We’re just like you” discussion to legitimize themselves while subtly and not-so-subtly excluding poor people, people of color, PWD from their very mainstream movement.
* HBS = “Harry Benjamin Syndrome”, a non-medical “diagnosis” that often appropriates intersex identity.
just a quick note to say THANK YOU for writing this, Chally. I’ve written about this on my own blog and I can feel the momentum building to write about it again. I worry about the reliance on innate biology for all the same reasons you mention here. I dislike that it erases the element of actively embracing one’s lover as someone one chooses to be with — out of desire rather than lack of an alternative — and embracing one’s own self with joy rather than just feeling fatalistic.
I don’t think the discourses of “choice” and causality are mutually exclusive … I just don’t think causality is very interesting in the political realm. It’s interesting to my nerd-self, but it’s not interesting vis a vis whether I think same-sex sexuality should be afforded basic respect. I think my partner and I should be respected as lovers because we LOVE EACH OTHER … not because we were somehow predestined to be this way.
Anyway, thanks again for writing this! I’m bookmarking it for when I write my own rant :)
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Exactly the kinds of things I was thinking of, GallingGalla! I have a rather depressing version of the history of queer rights, where each achievement has been earned off the back of selling some other, allegedly less-natural, less-born-this-way group down the river (where, to be clear, I’m dubious about the whole more-or-less question in the first place, let alone being horrified by how it functions politically).
I know that there are some people who think that a balancing act is possible – that if one knowingly engages in public forms of essentialism/naturalisation one can also counter the horrible effects… but I kind of think that essentialism/naturalisation is so robustly reinforced by a vast array of institutions that I’m not sure one can rely on being able to counter those negative effects, uh, effectively.
Another example – I remember having a very similar discussion on some political theory blogs a few years ago – is about… I think it was Mothers Against the War? There was a discussion of how the use of the identity ‘mother’ was both politically effective and politically exceptionally problematic (for its exclusions, as well as for its reinforcing of the essentialist idea of motherhood, and for reinforcing certain identities as more politically legitimate) at the same time. I couldn’t resolve the tension then, either. ;-P
…And that final example had massive thread-drift attached. Apologies for that – should really be in bed and I’m just realising it’s showing!!
I find that a lot of people get hung up on silly things like this or the origin of mental health issues and whether psychiatric medications are “good” or “bad” (answer: neither, but forcing them on people is bad) and it’s just… so silly. I don’t see the point of it.
It doesn’t matter to me whether I was born or became queer and Autistic and having OCD and ADHD (though it does matter that they weren’t caused by bad parenting or vaccines, because those are harmful narratives). All that matters to me is that people get acceptance and (in the case of disability) whatever assistance and reasonable accommodations they need.
(Also it matters that depression and anxiety are sometimes situational, and that effects how they may need to be dealt with. For example, I just got SSRIs when I needed/need pretty much a life transplant.)
Examining the “born this way argument” has actually lead me to begin a more in-depth self analysis. Although society certainly is more interested in trying to find some reason for those who are not socially categorized as normal, I am one individual who does question why I have an attraction to those I perceive to be male, even after suffering so much abuse from males. However, I have to wonder how much someone who was assigned or identifies with all the markers this society deems normal (as I am black, non-gender conforming, and my orientation is abit harder to classify) would engage in such self questioning. I do think that generally the search for a cause strategy employed by many societies is destructive. Its a way to legitimize social othering. However, I also think if done right, it can be used to dismantle notions of biological determinism which society uses to other… I hope that made some sense. I just crawled out of bed. Anyway, I just ventured back on feministe and saw you left, and thus subbed to this blog.
…that should have read examining the “born this way” argument as you have in this post.
“Born this way” can be defensive…. I know some of my queer friends were upset about a group of people saying they chose to be gay because if that’s possible (and logic says it must happen) then it threatens to invalidate us. There’s a perception that if people can chose to be different then all people must have chosen it. I am a goth. I chose to be this. We all chose to be this. I am gay. I do not believe I chose to be this. Some people did chose to be this. Where does that leave me? It’s so easy for people to believe I can’t have been born this way because other people weren’t….. but I honestly believe I was. It seem there is no way not to invalidate others this way. Some people were born this way, some people chose it, some people chose to change away from it, and some people changed without choosing to change. Humans as a species just aren’t good at accepting that one thing can have multiple reasons or methods.
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