Torn This Way

Born this way: Fun hair and a willingness to take fashion risks

Queerty has a post about the Fraternal Birth Order Effect, the theory that for each older brother that a guy has his chances of being gay increase by about 33 percent. This isn't exactly new news -- for whatever reason, it just popped up in the blogger's mind recently so he wrote about it -- but I've always found it very interesting seeing as I am the youngest of four boys. (My mom's first baby died of crib death when he was about 2 months old.) What caught my eye this time, however, wasn't some new scientific discovery about the hypothesized antibody that forms in Mom's womb after giving birth to her first boy, but some of the comments people are leaving, which read like a Republican presidential candidate denying climate change and evolution while "Born This Way" is blaring in the background:

Scott: This “antibodies” theory sounds like crap. I resent these theories that imply that things didn’t go right and a gay child was born, that heteros are better. I am not a birth defect. I’ll bet there are 2 genes somewhere that govern sexuality and 2 recessive ones got together in my case. No matter what technique was used to create me I’m sure I’m exactly the way the universe intended me to be. I’m perfect the way I am.

James UK: I am the eldest of 3 boys. The younger 2 are straight, married with a kid each. I am the gay one – the very gay one. I think that we are born gay. Whether it is genetic or due to in utero hormone levels or a combination, doesn’t matter to me. There is nothing wrong or abnormal about being gay. It’s nothing that I’ve ever felt the need to apologise for or explain away. I am as good as anyone else, gay, straight or anywhere else in between.

Listen, I grew up thinking I was the only gay person in the world, too. I'm really happy that the Internet, It Gets Better and Lady Gaga are around these days so others like me don't have to feel so isolated for so long, and don't have to grow up believing there is something "wrong" with them. So I can understand how putting why we are the way we are under a microscope would make someone who has struggled for acceptance feel uncomfortable. But it's another thing all together when LGBT people become so consumed with self-acceptance that they're no longer open to the wonders of science and learning about themselves -- something I thought The Gays LOVED to do! -- and begin to sound exactly like the same wingnuts who use ignorance as a basis for denying anything that doesn't fit into their agenda.

I say to my fellow LGBT citizens: Feel good about yourself. Fight for our rights. Demand equality on all levels. But whatever you do, don't fight for the right to be as ignorant as our oppressors. (Saying you know gay people who are first-born makes you sound like someone saying it was cold outside in June, so there's no global warming.) As Larry Kramer is quick to point out, many of the smartest people to ever live were born this way. Let's embrace -- and enjoy -- finding out why. (No one is saying this isn't a complex issue and that birth order is the ONLY factor.) And if sick people try to use this information for evil (as some understandably fear), we're strong enough -- and smart enough -- to deal with it when the time comes. I'm not willing to abandon my thirst for knowledge just because I'm fearful of what stupid people might do with it. I was born this way.