I’m guessing no one here is surprised to find that family behavior is key to health of gay youth (many thanks to P for the link).
But please, if you read the article, don’t roll your eyes at the first few paragraphs, send a mental d’oh to the writer, and bolt away — it gets more specific as it goes on, and some of the conclusions are, I think, very helpful. In particular, the idea that “acceptance” is not an all-or-nothing event, and that even in an environment of general disapproval, any small steps toward acceptance can have a solid positive effect. When you consider that the negative effects include suicide, depression, and drug abuse, then any nudge in a different direction is a good thing.
It astonishes me that this is the first study to ever “establish a link between health problems in gay youths and their home environments.” It’s not that no one could prove it before: it’s that no one ever bothered. That, as much as anything else, points to how much impact intolerance has in the world. And of course, the lessons of this study go beyond being a queer kid. We’re all different. We could all use whatever little bit of nice each other can spare.
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Cheryl, absolutely yes. Medical bullying is one of the most entrenched social norming forces we have, especially for issues of gender (whether it’s “gender disorder” or “hysteria” or so many others).
The whole idea of gender non-conformant behavior as a signal of illness is wacky to me anyway, especially with young people — I have always seen it, in others and myself, as “I want to try on this identity today.” Sometimes it leads to “this identity forever.” And so what? If the human behind the identity markers is kind, loving, respectful of others, productive, etc. then why should the rest of us give a fuck?
Eek. Preaching to the choir, I know (grin). Although I’m glad for any study like this one, it still astonishes me that it’s the first.
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Just ducking in to say that I am not always sure what my position is on gender fixedness or mobility. Partly because I tend to think that any issue of identity (which is how I regard the personal experience and expression of gender) is so deeply personal that I hesitate to codify it. We all have experience of gender, both doing and being done to. But it’s not identical experience. To me, having a position on other people’s gender is like having a position on their love or joy or fear — I may not always get it, but it’s real for them, and I acknowledge that even if I deeply dislike their choices.
(Which is not to say I dislike anyone’s choices in this conversation — just that there are some choices I don’t like. People get to be themselves, but sometimes I want them to be themself over on the other side of the room from me.)
I think one of the greatest evils of social norming in areas like gender, sexual expression, race, physical ability — anything that ties into assertion of identity and personal power — is that part of the norming is to teach people that other people’s choices are not real. That’s part of what makes it okay to bully others out of those choices.
Of course, another part of the norming is to teach people that only certain choices are real, i.e. available to them. That’s the part of norming that makes people freak out when they run into someone whose choices they had never imagined before.
I realize I’m not telling either of you anything new. Just wandering through the maze of my own thoughts here. I certainly think we are all in agreement that refusing to see what is real helps none of us, and hurts many of us very deeply. It hurts the ones who refuse to see, as well — but they don’t see that either.
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Cheryl, I have no wish to offend you. I think we are having a semantics misunderstanding, not at all surprising in such conversations. I don’t think people “choose” to be queer or straight, to be transgendered, etc. If I gave that impression, then I made a communication mistake.
I do think that we all make choices about how we express our own notions of gender and identity in terms of our personal presentation, etc. And we choose whether to be true to what we know of ourselves, or not. That’s the kind of choice I meant. I stand by the word “choice” in that regard.
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I would certainly be touchy about anyone telling me such a thing. And what you’ve said parenthetically is the meta issue — there are plenty of any kind of people who will only accept the One True Way of being, whatever that Way may be. This is a thing about people that alternately makes me sad and drives me fucking nuts.
There are no simple choices in these matters, we agree on that as well. I don’t think anyone has the duty to be out. When people choose not to be true to themselves because of their circumstance and environment, I get that, and assign no blame or judgment. I might very well make the same choice in the same circumstances. But it is still a choice.
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Just dropping in to say how very much I admire this conversation: honest, clear, passionate, listening, pragmatic. I wish the whole world could talk this way. Thank you.
Adrian, I agree with you about “making room” (#11). One of the nice things about making room for people is that you can still stand on the other side of the room from them if you want (grin).
And what Cheryl is saying about the human need for validation is a part of this too. If we make space for others, the cultural assumption is that we are validating them somehow, and that is just too hard for some people in some situations. If we could somehow steer the notion of “making space” from the current connotation of “agreement” or “assumption of likeness” to a more neutral meaning of “I see that you are real” or “Okay, here’s another way to be human”… that would be much more my idea of genuine acceptance. Not approval, not adoption, just the kind of acknowledgment that makes people able to begin bridging the emotional and worldview gaps between them.
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Cheryl, this is absolutely what I was trying to say but much better, much more clear. I like the term “repudiation” for this, it fits. Thank you!
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Okay, I think we’re done here for a while. Adrian, I know you have another comment in the queue, but if Cheryl is truly gone from the conversation then you are talking to the air.
Cheryl, if you wish at any point to re-engage, then we can take it from there.
I hope you’ll both return for other conversations with me, whether or not you choose to continue this one.
Wow. I’m sorry I came in late to this exchange. I’ll let Kelley decide whether to let this comment through. But I hope she does, if only so that Adrian will know that there are more people out there who agree with him.
It’s a popular misconception, and misrepresentation, to say that “social construction theory” equals saying that homosexuality or gender identity is a choice. Rather, social construction theory attempts to grapple with the fact that people experience socially constructed phenomena as if they were “natural.” (BTW, John Money was not a social constructionist — he denounced social constructionists. And he agreed that homosexuality must be an inborn “orientation”, not a chosen “preference”, else gay people could be forced to change. Which reminds me, I need to address this on my blog.) “Race” is also socially constructed, even though skin color is largely determined by biology: a “white” woman in America can have a “black” child, a “black” woman can’t have a “white” child — but the genetic mix is the same in either case. In Haiti and in African cultures, the “one drop of blood” rule works in the other direction, and a child with one “white” great-grandparent is white.
I don’t agree, though, that finding a gay gene or transgender gene would be a big help to us. No one doubts that women are born female, or people of color are born with their skin color, yet this not only has not helped feminism or the movement against racism, it was used against them: women just naturally are incapable of benefiting from higher education, blacks are just naturally suited only to work in domestic service and entertainment. How people view us is not determined by why they think we’re This Way — rather, their view of us affects, maybe determines what they will accept as an explanation.
On the other hand, religion is a choice, yet in the US people are allowed to make religious choices. Not consistently; people are ambivalent about it. But that’s a basic principle of our government. And I think we need to think more about what it means to make sexual and gender “choices.” The word “choice” isn’t as clear as many people seem to think, either. But I enjoy reminding people who attack us on religious grounds that religion — and bigotry — is a lifestyle choice. For that matter, so are marriage, having children, gender conformity, and heterosexuality. Choices aren’t trivial; choices can’t always be reversed.
I’m fine with the conversation continuing as long as it’s an actual conversation (smile). I would ask only that we move forward, not back.
(As a process note — generally my WordPress lets comments through automatically from anyone who has had a comment approved before. Adrian, I’m not sure why your comments are consistently held in moderation, unless it’s because you choose not to provide an email address, or perhaps there is some other arcane software reason… at any rate, I am not deliberately holding you in moderation, it’s just that WordPress never seems to recognize that you have been here before.)
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Let me try to clarify my bit about children…there’s really no comparison to be made between gender-imperatives and procreation-imperatives. My sole point was that something, like families, can be both socially constructed *and* inherent traits—an inherent desire to procreate and live communally is translated into a family-identity with all sorts of ideals and assumed relationships. The same *process* applies to my view of gender—inherent behaviors are translated into ideals and assumptions that I feel limit me.
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Hi Adrian,
And as you see, now that you provided an email address, the obliging program let you through without a peep (grin).
Are you asking me to delete your comments? If so, I just need you to be totally clear about it, because it’s not the kind of mistake I want to make. Once they’re gone, they’re gone.