Wondering what you guys think about Cynthia Nixon saying she's "gay by choice."

She chose her words incorrectly while making that speech. I took it as she's bi sexual ldo or perhaps she didn't explore until later in life, but I can see how most people would interpret that as her saying homosexuality is a choice.

I think this is totally fine and everyone calling her out on it should stfu. She may feel she personally is gay by choice, and who is everyone else to say that is not her experience? She never said it wasn't possible for anyone else to be gay not by choice - just that she feels she is. I also think there is some choice for a lot of people in living a homosexual life - myself included.

It's also a good point she makes that it shouldn't matter whether being gay is a choice or not - why should choosing a certain lifestyle make one less entitled to human rights? The LGBT movement wants to claim being gay isn't a choice in order to create sympathy and depict a picture of us as victims of a birth-defect of sorts... that way, it is simply cruel to subject us to a life without rights when it wasn't our fault! But really, that is simply not the lived experience for a lot of people, and I think it's BS to hate on someone for saying it, simply because a lot of conservatives aren't comfortable allowing people to choose to live a lifestyle that isn't going to church every week and having as many babies as a wife's uterus can hold.

This obv!

Was going to post on exactly this topic after reading this article: http://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk...gay-by-choice/ . Feel like the article (and Vanessa obv) hits the nail on the head.

Just catching up on the thread, and I had two quick stories about the "Kiss Cam" that really illustrate what an interesting and transitional time I think we're at wrt LGBT acceptance.

1) Every major professional sports team in my city used to have a kiss cam. A few years back the WNBA franchise stopped doing it b/c they believed that one large part of their audience (fathers with young daughters) didn't want to see another large part of their crowd (lesbians, ldo) kissing on camera. LGBT advocates in town made a bit of a stink about it, but as far as I know, the team still doesn't have a kiss cam...

2) Last year I went to see the professional baseball team and at the end of the kiss cam segment, the crowd focused on a guy and a girl who appeared to be in their early 20's... the guy sort of sheepishly went in for a kiss on the cheek, but before he could get there, another girl sitting next to the "couple" swooped in and planted a huge kiss on (presumably) her gf. The crowd exploded in a genuine mixture of laughter and excitement...

Hopefully, as long as the second situation keeps happening, we should have to experience the first situation a lot less frequently...

Oh and as far as the gay by choice thing goes, +1 million to what Vanessa said. I personally believe that I was born gay, but even if I choose it, I should be allowed to do so and my civil rights should not be constrained in some misguided attempt to try to force me to conform to the societal norm.

having trouble finding a LGBT OBGYN.

I'd be curious as to why that particular doctor would need to be LGBT to meet your needs.

I'm sure, if you can't find an LBGT one, you can find one that is LBGT friendly. Although they probably don't advertise that.

doesn't the significance/weight of immutability come from the way the supreme court developed equal protection? The "by choice" debate is pretty frustrating, and I think gay people are trapping themselves a bit by allowing it to be framed in that way, but isn't it also sort of legally necessary at the moment?

I think that the majority of people who say it is a choice are either ignorant or bi-sexual (2+ on the kinsey).

For bi's it obv is a choice. Really don't think you can "choose" to be gay. As that implies that many suicidal gay kids just needed to "choose harder/pray harder" and their family and friends wouldn't have alienated them which lead to their suicides/bullying/being homeless/drug abuse/etc.

Woah, what?

Please elaborate on why you think this is.

If being gay isn't a choice, and being straight isn't a choice, then how the hell would being both (being bi,) be a choice?

I am bi - sexual, and not only do I not consider it to be a choice any more then being straight or being gay is, but I think, in some ways, it is and always will be harder to be bi then it is to be gay.

I mean that bi's can choose to only be with men/women if they so desire. Obv you didn't choose to be bi.

Sorry, i should have clarified better.

The problem is, as I see it, that Cynthia Nixon made the same mistake you did. Sexual orientation, your actual preference of gender(s) that you are sexually attracted to, is not something you can choose. Science has identified several contributing factors, but choice hasn't been one of them. Efforts to change people's sexual orientations (basically seeing if they can choose to no longer be gay) have been shown to not work.

On the other hand, sexual behaviors are most certainly a choice. The gender(s) you pursue is totally in your control (though possibly with familial or societal influences).

The "being gay is/isn't a choice" debate is about sexual orientation, not behavior (else it would be a pretty boring and quick debate). So for someone to say that they are choosing to be gay when they are referring to their sexual behaviors is to be misleading.

Here is an excerpt from an interview that Cynthia Nixon gave to the Daily Beast

I notice that Cynthia got a lot of heat in the gay community over her comments, but not very many got upset that she wasn't being properly respected as a bisexual. I think that's because most of the G's and L's out there don't respect it as "true" sexual orientation and think that it's a cop-out or lack of commitment. She's quite right about the lack of recognition and respect for that.

I actually don't like the term bisexual myself and avoid using it. Mostly because the prefix "bi" means two, which would limit myself to the two well defined and accepted genders. That's not true for me, although I do like both men and women, nothing is more attractive to me than someone who is genderqueer, transgender, third gender, etc.

So that leaves things like pansexual, which sounds way too much like we've got a thing for kitchen implements. Or something like omnisexual, but that is too broad, connoting that we would be attracted to anything and everything.

I prefer to just say that I'm open minded, or if pressed will admit that my sexual preference is often. Which is actually truer than anything else.

Last season, I made a comment to a bunch of my girlfriends that "People get the wrong idea, they think because I'm married to a woman I'm a lesbian!" They laughed, and humored me that they could see how that could get misconstrued. I really wasn't kidding though.

My current relationship is certainly by choice; not because she is a woman but because I love my wife very much. If I were not with her, though, there is no guarantee what the gender of the person I would be dating would be. It could just as likely be a man, a woman, or none of the above.

So some folks would probably say that I am a lesbian by choice because I'm in a permanent relationship with a woman. Others would say that I'm still as bisexual as before we were together when I still had a boyfriend, it just happens that the person I'm with is currently female. I just say that I'm very happily married to a the best mate I could have.

If either of us changed our gender would that make us straight, bi, or just incomprehensible?

I knew a couple of women who were very much in love. In college folks would look at them and say "what a nice lesbian couple." Then one of them changed gender to male. Then people would see them and say "oh what a nice straight couple." Finally years later, the other one changed over to male as well. Then they became a "lovely gay couple."

Did anything really change in their relationship? No. they started out as two people very much in love and that never changed. Only the labels about them mutated.

Sorry for the long rant. I just get tired of folks in both the straight and gay communities that want to put us all in little male/female gay/straight boxes. I believe that real life is way more messy than that.

Shauna

Excellent post, AAmazOn. IMO, she was technically incorrect (as gangstaman pointed out) when she said it was a choice, or rather it was in the wrong context. However, as Vanessa stated, it was within her right to do so.

Great points.

A lot of the discrimination towards sexual minorities in Western society is because of our fixed definition of sexuality. Even the Kinsey scale, which is certainly an improvement over the "there is gay and straight, and gay is wrong" mentality, doesn't really provide enough fluidity.

It's funny how people assume and expect that other facets of a person's life and personality will change over time, but not their sexuality. Particularly for women, whom studies have shown have a more fluid sexual orientation and behavior dynamic than men, the constant need to label and put ourselves in boxes to fit societal constructs of what sexual orientation "should" look like can cause people to assume an identity they don't find authentic.

It must be pretty confusing. I can't really relate, but I find it fascinating.

I'll never understand why some people care about with who or what other people are having sex. Who gives a ****? You want to pull a train with 8 albino dwarfs and a sheep while swinging from a chandelier, it's none of my business.

Just be sure you have the consent of the sheep.

I don't have time to read/respond to this thread right now, but let me just say that I am very pleased that it exists and I intend to become a regular on it. As a gay male poker player, I often feel that there are so few others who are gay who do what I do, so I am excited to read all of this, and I thank whoever started the thread. Peace. XO

Looks like Nixon is clarifying her comment and echoing some of the sentiments shared in this thread:

"My recent comments in The New York Times were about me and my personal story of being gay. I believe we all have different ways we came to the gay community and we can't and shouldn't be pigeon-holed into one cultural narrative which can be uninclusive and disempowering," she explained.

"However, to the extent that anyone wishes to interpret my words in a strictly legal context I would like to clarify: While I don't often use the word, the technically precise term for my orientation is bisexual. I believe bisexuality is not a choice, it is a fact. What I have 'chosen' is to be in a gay relationship."

What a wonderful thread. Much respect to sgt for all her effort itt.

I see there is nothing about transgender itt (unless i missed anything), which I feel is always left out from GLBT discussion. Being gay/bi/lesbian is hardly a big deal anymore in today's world, but FARRR from perfect or what it should be like). There still is obv a lot of discrimination against gays which is not right (hell gay marriage isn't legal everywhere).

However I feel transgender people have it way worse (not a competition ofc). Even within the gay community they aren't completely accepted (at least imo), as people just dont understand them. They are people too.


I am a 18 year old who is finally coming to terms with being trans. I am living as a male atm and want to transition more than anything in the world. I wish more than anything i wasn't this way and am very scared of the road ahead of me. I am not happy as a male, but Im far from ready to transition yet, basically because of the extreme fear I face coming out to family. How the **** do I tell them I want to switch genders (rhetorical)? Im not even a feminen male as I keep all my femininity to myself being raised in a all male family (excluding mom ofc) and have created a person who is not me. Its that thought which tears me apart, I dont know how Il ever be able to tell my family. I know i should do whatever makes me happy, its just not that easy. I am seeing a therapist for the first time this Friday (huge step for me), which will begin my long journey.


Posting this here because Im a poker player (not pro) and would like to share my story on my favorite forum (long time lurker). I don't accept anyone to be able to help me, I just want to share my story.

Also, the choice debate regarding gays will never end, we all know its genetics. And no I did not choose to be trans, Id kill to be normal. Transitioning may be a choice, but its more a choice of being happy or unhappy.

Thank you for sharing your story.

We have had a well known trans player (Rosa Lee) comment in another thread, if you search this forum I'm sure you'll find it.

I think the difficulty with including the T into the LGBT community is that while LGB are sexual orientations (they describe who you are romantically/sexually attracted to), T is gender identity. They get lumped together for advocacy purposes, but they aren't really the same thing at all.

I think a lot of the confusion comes from how to label the sexual orientation of a trans individual (lol at needing labels, but humans naturally seem to seek organization and boxes to put things in). Is a MTF individual who is attracted to men straight (matching his assumed/felt gender identity) or gay (matching his biological gender)? I believe it's straight, but it seems to cause some people as much confusion as trying to figure out plot lines that involve time travel. And, of course, a lot of anger towards people who dare to go against the gender "God" assigned them at birth.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this community and find some support here.

Thanks SGT. And thanks alot for telling me about rosa, the thread in twss was a nice read, however the big thread in NVG (filled with douchebags) almost made me cry. Probably shouldn't of read that trash, but its hard not to see stuff like that, the amount of arrogance in that thread really hurt me.


This is absolutely correct, it isn't the same thing at all. But we still should be apart of the community. We are the ones who face the most discrimination (not a competition) and we need the support of the GLB community to stand up for us.

Anways thanks for carring , I am really sorry for trying to make this thread all about me, that's not my intention at all.

Some1 talk about their relationship!

As an NVG mod, I have to reluctantly agree that it is filled with douchebags.

However, many of those type of posters have suddenly discovered that if they post gay jokes in NVG and I catch them, they end up with the post deleted and an infraction. Then they send me angry PMs. And then I laugh at their stupidity.

This right here, is the real tragedy caused by ignorance, narrow mindedness, and bigotry.

That it would make you, or any one else, afraid, and scared to the point of wishing so much that you weren't this way, that you weren't you. That's what really tares me up inside.

The road ahead of you will be rough, you're right, but I hope, I really hope, that one day, when you've made your full transition you will be not only content and happy with your life but also fully comfortable with who you are and no longer wishing you were something, or somebody else.




I am not a Trans individual myself, but many of my ex - girlfriends are M2F Transgender, so I do know a little bit where you are coming from, and what you are going through.

Most of my M2F exes are Filipino or Thai (and I was with them while I was in the Philippines and Thailand.) They were mostly accepted by their friends and family, but it's a very different culture in those countries then it is here. I guess they were lucky for that.

Even still though, I could see, even just within their own heads, their own minds, they would sometimes have a conflict of feelings, and some confusion over just exactly how they felt, mostly feminine but sometimes with a twinge of masculinity.

It's not easy, I can tell that for sure.

I hope, that all goes well for you in your transition, and that one day, your family and friends will accept you for who you are, but remember the two most important things in your life.

1. That you are happy

and

2. That you know who you are, and YOU accept who you are.


You have my support, understanding and best wishes, and I feel it safe to say you have the support, understanding and best wishes of everyone else in this thread as well.

So remember, any time it gets particularly tough, or you are feeling really alone or down, you can also come in here, and we can help you through the rough times and the painful ones as well.

I know we are, more or less, strangers to you, but at least it's better then nothing at all.

Thanks for caring. But being trans is different from being homosexual. I wish i was born as a female, and didn't have to deal with all of this, is that so wrong? Ignorance, narrow mindedness? That is pretty ridiculous imo, why can't I wish i was born the way I should be? I would still be me, just the right gender. I don't wish I was somebody else, I just wish I was a female.