Queerness, Choice, and Assimilation

Why “Choice” Has Nothing to Do With Equal Rights

Over the last 75 years, a number of groups have pushed a narrative of queer folks in which being queer is cast as a lifestyle, or a “choice.” The implication being that if being queer is a lifestyle, or something someone chooses to be, it is somehow less natural and valid than being “normal.” In other words, through the concept of “choice,” many groups have attempted to artificialize and invalidate queer lives. The reasons for this narrative’s existence all invariably boil down to an attempt to justify and excuse discrimination directed at queer people.

This issue is not unique to queer folks. All those that are not part of the current dominant culture face accusations that they somehow “choose” to be disadvantaged or discriminated against. These days, women are told that if they would just act more like men (not have kids, etc.), they would be more successful. Black folks and ethnic minorities of all sorts are told that if they would just act and look more like white people, they’d find that they aren’t systematically oppressed. The economically disadvantaged are told that if they would just stop being lazy and start trying hard like everyone else, they’d be able to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Queer folks are told that if they would just stop acting so queer, they’d be free of harassment and condemnation.

At every level, the dominant culture’s narrative of choice is used to justify and excuse oppression.

Photo by NeONBRAND on Unsplash

So it is of no surprise that in the queer community we have fought the messaging of the dominant culture through recourse to statements like “being queer is not a choice” or “we were born this way.” The reasoning behind these statements is clear: if it’s not a choice to be queer, and people still discriminate against us, then their discrimination will be exposed for what it is — unfair, prejudicial and bigoted.

This line of argument has been so effective that many of the groups that used to say “being queer is a choice” now say “it is a choice to act on your queer desires.” The progress is palpable. Can you feel it? No? Oh… Well, umm… I guess maybe it hasn’t been quite so effective. It turns out bigots don’t care if you were “born this way,” because you still “choose to act on your ‘unnatural’ desires.”

Now, you know what *has* been effective? “Not acting so queer.”

If that sounds exactly like what dominant cishet (cisgender and heterosexual) culture has always wanted, that’s because it is. The more that queer folks (and any other disadvantaged group) “normalize” themselves with regard to the expectations of the dominant culture, the more “progress” is made in the short term. The more that we “choose” to be “normal” the more people are willing to grant us certain rights that the fact of our humanity should have already granted us.

To be fair, this normalization of queer folks has been very effective. More people support the rights of queer people today than at any time in the past. Through queer folks making certain concessions to dominant cishet culture — both consciously and unconsciously — broad acceptance of same-sex marriage etc. has been achieved. It can be hard to criticize these concessions when faced with the progress won from them. They have had a positive impact on millions of lives.

However, they have also had a negative impact on many lives. Such concessions, while expedient, are ultimately opposed to the progress of the community as a whole. This is because these concessions work to dismantle the community itself in favor of “assimilation.”

Because they still invariably rely on the idea of “choice,” these concessions only ever shift the artificialization and invalidation directed at queer folks as a whole onto specific traits and subgroups of queer people. The “mainstream” queer community has been a direct party to this shift.

This can be seen in the disdain for “flamboyant” or “loud” gay men harbored by some “normal” gay men. It can be seen in femme marginalization and bisexual erasure in queer spaces. It can be seen in the exclusion of trans folks of all sorts in gay and lesbian spaces, and the marginalization of trans folks that don’t “pass” or “blend” or “have the surgery” in the trans community itself. The concept of “choice,” and the artificiality it imbues, lies behind not just the artificialization and invalidation perpetrated by dominant cishet culture, but also that perpetrated by the dominant members of our own community who are best equipped to assimilate.

Photo by Toa Heftiba on Unsplash

We need to scrub this narrative of choice and the concepts of “normal” and “natural” that lie behind it, from our minds and from our community.

Not only does it work to dismantle the community, it’s simply a bad way of thinking about the issue. “Choice” should have nothing to do with human rights, and should not be used as an excuse to marginalize and invalidate people.

Long before I was out, when I was still pretending to be a cishet guy, I could not understand why “choice” mattered when talking about the rights of queer folks. Why would it matter if someone “chooses” to be attracted to someone of the same sex? Why would it matter if someone “chooses” to be a different gender than the one assigned to them at birth? Why would it matter if someone “chooses” to be “flamboyant” or bisexual etc? What about these “choices” makes them bad? How is it that these things being “choices” justifies the marginalization and oppression of those who might make them?

It’s not that I thought that being queer was a choice. I knew enough queer folks to know that the vast majority do not believe it to be a choice. It’s simply that I couldn’t figure out why the heck it would matter if it was. It has always seemed like a specious argument. The question of “choice” has only ever served to distract people from the issue at hand: do queer folks have the same rights as other folks? The question is simple, and should be answered with a simple “yes” or “no.”

If, in answering this question, you must first ask whether being queer is a choice, you have already missed the point, and assumed that the rights of queer folks are contingent on society’s willingness to accept them. They’re not. That’s not how rights work. Until people understand this fact, the queer community will not achieve full acceptance and recognition — we will achieve only a very narrow and hollow form of tolerance.

We cannot gain true acceptance through erasing who we are. Assimilation — no matter how productive initially — is not the same as recognition. Our rights should not be contingent on how well we “blend in” with cishet culture, we already have them by virtue of being human.