this post was submitted on 28 Jan 2025
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I think what you're saying is completely correct and I agree completely, kids know they're straight when they're young, so of course it stands to reason that they know they are gay or any other thing too.
I do have young relatives who changed their mind also though, and I worry too much of you "you just know, it's so obvious" can have a negative impact too, if a growing child decides to change their mind on what their sexuality is, they should not be worried that it might appear disingenuous or abnormal.
It can be obviously one thing at one point and later it can be obviously a new thing, sometimes it can be not obvious and that's all fine and part of the human experience. Generally I'm saying: we should all be allowed to decide whatever we like about ourselves and our identity, and change those decisions whenever we like too.
What I'm trying to clarify is: let's not let people changing their mind about their identity be used against the argument of you know whether or not you're gay when you're young.
Though I think it's fair to say that the above post does not say "you know" but rather "I knew"...
Anyway I'm rambling now, out of fear of being taken out of context, so I'll stop :)
this is what bothers me so much aboit the "born this way" narrative. living is changing and experimenting. trying to galvanise people into one specific identity for life is just another face of cis-heteronormativity. we need to be free to be our authentic selves in every moment, as we feel in that moment.
A lot of narratives like "born this way" are oversimplified by design so cishet people can begin to comprehend it. And sometimes they can't even understand that.
They were "born that way," but some people take a while to figure out what exactly "that way" is.
Was I born this way though? That question might not even make sense, humans are very complicated and constantly changing. "Born this way" is a retort to the "it's just a phase" argument, but I think it misses the mark. Perhaps it's a phase, perhaps not, why should it matter?
We can philosophize about how hidden variables control how people develop, and those variables may exist, but that's really just a scientific curiosity, it should have no bearing on how we treat people.
the more i learn about humans the more one thing becomes clear to me: humans are incredibly good at adapting to new environments and accepting them as their new normal.
we are so incredibly shaped by our environments, i doubt there is much essential about people other than maybe a few inherent tendencies. that doesnt mean tho that people dont aquire attributes during their lives that become basically impossible to change. what has been unleashed once might be impossible to lock away ever again.
but whether inherent or not doesnt matter, because imo we should always let people be the way they wanna be and support them, unless they are being harmful (by a libertairian understnading), which is when we should try to help them or at least protect ourselves from them.
Yeah, I sometimes wonder what if [something] went differently in my life when I was younger, but I realize that future "me" is a different person. Maybe I would've preferred to have been them, maybe not, but I'm not them and I don't want to be them now.
The original 'born this way' movement wasn't so much to imply people are 'X' way and there's nothing that changes, it was a response to (Christians) claiming that people we being made gay, or that they chose to be gay instead of 'what they were born as' which was heteronormative stuff. It was the idea you could 'anti-gay' it out of them.
Now though, of course you're right, there's no 'way you are born' and everyone grows and changes as they age and experience. At the time though we were fighting a post-Reagan society that was hell-bent on turning back as many societal acceptances as possible (sound familiar? :( )
So yes it's both out of date and not entirely correct, but the spirit is why it's still used, I think. 2SLGBTQIA+ aren't a monolith, and I don't speak for everyone, I just lived through it.
It's because if you think you're gay and kiss the same gender then discover you weren't actually gay, you become tainted forever and upon death your soul turns into a cold sore in someone's mouth instead of going to the Promised Land to play the harp with everyone else. Or something that makes about as much sense as that.
cooties 😔
You're absolutely correct. Some people "just know" and stay thay way, some "just know" and change, and some take a while to find out. There is absolutely no reason why that should be a problem.
My brother knew he wanted to be a doctor when he was five and he stuck with it. I'm 36 and I still wonder if I chose the right profession. Why is this considered normal for what you want to work with but not who you want to be with?