If I Weren’t Born This Way, I’d Still Be Normal and Gay
By: Jeremy Helligar
Tags: Sexual Orientation, Nature Vs Nurture, Homophobia, LGBTQ, Gay

It started as a dispute over whether teachers should address LGBT issues in school.

In one corner: Izzy Montague, a Christian mother based in London. In the other: Tom Cox, the gay father of a five-year-old son.

It took only a little over three and a half minutes for the March 21 Good Morning Britain segment to become heated and holier than thou, courtesy of Montague. She turned up the temperature and fired up social media by declaring:

“Of course I believe [being gay is] a choice. I made the choice on what I think is right or wrong. I don’t remember ever thinking to myself, Am I gay? Am I straight? It’s something that I have done based on how I believe. “So even if I was gay, I do personally believe that based on my belief, that I feel like a heterosexual relationship is the right course of action for me. “No one has forced you to be in a gay relationship. This is a decision that you have made … It’s a preference.”

Here we go again … again. It’s the age-old question that refuses to go away: Were gay people born that way — or did they choose to be who they are?

Montague’s reasoning is maddeningly convoluted. Is she acknowledging that homosexual feelings are beyond our control (as all feelings are), but whether we act on them is the choice we make? Does she really think heterosexuals choose to be straight, too?

Does a little boy who is attracted to other little boys choose to be (personally, I don’t recall ever picking door number one or door number two), or does it become a choice only when he starts having sex with them?

Basically, she’s suggesting that people who are attracted to the same sex should stifle it in order to conform to a life of which she and her God approves. She’s a walking advertisement for staying in the closet, because having Christian values should preclude loving honestly. At least she’s consistent in her misguidedness.

Here’s a better question for both Montague and Cox:

Why does it still matter whether sexual orientation is a choice? Even if presented with irrefutable proof that it is indeed predetermined, would homophobes feel any differently about LGBT people? Conversion therapy proves the answer is no.

Race is a scientifically proven fact of birth, and that hasn’t made racists any more tolerant. Like racists, homophobes are not paragons of rational thought. Exhibit H: Most of Montague’s argument.

Race is a scientifically proven fact of birth, and that hasn’t made racists any more tolerant. Like racists, homophobes are not paragons of rational thought.

Ultimately, homophobia is based on sex, because, to the homophobe, being gay is just about sex. As long as we have it, we’ll be pariahs, regardless of the origin of our sexual orientation. Better to be celibate and single, denying feelings that are beyond your control, than to let nature run its course.

No thanks. Whether I was born gay or chose it somewhere along the way is pretty irrelevant at this point. I’m here, and I’m queer. Whether others can handle it or not, well, that’s their choice.

An interesting study

If homophobes must blame someone for kids who grow up to be gay, perhaps they should start with mothers, like Montague, not education systems that allow LGBT lessons. That’s the gospel according to a study I once read about in Huff Post.

“Why Are There Gay Men?” asked headline. “Because Women Who Inherit ‘Gay Genes’ Have More Kids, Scientists Say.” (It’s since been amended to the more unwieldy “Male Homosexuality Study: Gay Men Have Evolutionary Benefit For Their Families, New Research Suggests.”)



Led by Andrea Camperio Ciani at the University of Padova in Italy and others over the course of several years, those scientists hinged their findings largely on the fact that the mothers and aunts of gay men tend to have more offspring than those of straight men.

The article (reprinted by Huff Post from Life’s Little Mysteries) began by conceding that while female sexuality is fluid, male homosexuality is “inborn” and “unalterable.” According to the study, it’s also genetically transferable, thanks to a so-called “gay gene” that’s passed along by the female relatives of men, namely their mothers and aunts.

The same genetic factor that influences sexuality in gay males also leads to these women being more fertile. This would explain why gay men haven’t become extinct over the years, considering that so few of them pass along the “gay gene” to future generations through procreation with women.



Are you still with me?



Apparently, this “gene” that creates gay men also makes female carriers likely to be more attractive to men. At one point, the Italian research team suggested that female carriers were more attracted to men, leading to promiscuous behavior, but they later retracted and adjusted that hypothesis.

Theory number two: This gene makes women more attractive to men. It’s not so much about promiscuity as fecundity, and behavior that promotes fertility.



Still with me? Because at this point, Camperio Ciani and company lost me me with the implication that gay men are more likely to have mothers who were born to breed, so to speak.



An excerpt from Huff Post, via Life’s Little Mysteries:

Turns out, the moms and aunts of gay men have an advantage over the moms and aunts of straight men for several reasons: They are more fertile, displaying fewer gynecological disorders or complications during pregnancy; they are more extroverted, as well as funnier, happier and more relaxed; and they have fewer family problems and social anxieties. “In other words, compared to the others, [they are] perfect for a male,” Camperio Ciani said. Attracting and choosing from the best males enables these women to produce more offspring, he noted.

I could spend all day poking holes in this theory. It revolves around the observation that gay men tend to come from larger families. But if a woman has a lot of children, wouldn’t that automatically increase the likelihood that one of them will be gay … or a doctor … or a future President of the United States?

And there are so many levels and variables of attraction and attractiveness among both men and women. The study simplifies both almost to the point where men and women seem less human than like bees.



Furthermore, why does this “gay gene” manifest itself one way in women (producing the drive to procreate and the ability to lure men into doing it with them) and another way in men?

No justification needed

For me, though, the bigger issue is this: Why do we even care? Why are we grasping at straws trying to explain homosexuality as if it needs to be explained any more than heterosexuality does?

On Good Morning Britain, Izzy Montague used procreation to support her supremacy theory regarding heterosexuality, once again simplifying gay to sex. Anyone can procreate. Straights do it. Gays do it. Birds do it. Bees do it. Flowers do it. And so do rapists. Procreation isn’t the meaning of life, love, or even sex, and I’m tired of homophobes using reproduction to exalt themselves and diminish everyone else.

Gayness isn’t a malady, an aberration from the norm that needs to be scientifically justified. Why are some people straight? No one ever asks that because it’s considered perfectly “normal.” Sorry to disappoint, but even if I, and not the God that made me, were indeed the architect of my sexual orientation, I’d still be perfectly normal.



Human sexuality, however, isn’t. It’s stunningly complex and weird. I accept mine as I do the color of my skin.

Those who feel they must explain and justify homosexuality can go right ahead. That’s one aspect of my over-examined life that I‘d rather just kick back and enjoy.