You Can't Teach Kids to be Gay

Human sexuality is varied. That’s obvious.

Human sexual orientation, in contrast, is relatively limited. You’re either attracted to people who are the same sex as you, or the opposite, or both. Right? Well, it does dismiss people who are attracted to animals. It also discounts people who might be diagnosed as paraphiliac. It also waves aside people who genuinely are simply not interested in sex with anyone or anything.

Which actually means sexual orientation is also pretty amazing in its variations.

I am gay. I am a lady who likes ladies, “that way”. As it happens, I do wear comfortable shoes and don’t wear make-up or typical women’s clothes. I know plenty of ladies who like ladies who adore wearing and collecting high heels and feel odd without make-up or wearing trousers. That doesn’t make them any less gay or me more gay.

I know I was born gay, but I had boyfriends when I was a teenager because when and where I grew up I had to. My first official boyfriend was a Christian. So was I at the time. Comfortably, it meant sex was off the agenda. I don’t remember ever speaking about it with him, but the no-sex-before-marriage thing was convenient for me. My second boyfriend was delightfully camp-as and I wasn’t surprised when years later I found out he was gay. My third boyfriend, and actually the only one really worthy of that title, is bisexual, not that either of us knew that at the time. We had fun, we experimented, but looking back I know one of the reasons we got on so well was because sex itself wasn’t really an issue. I could write thousands of words as to why.

I went to uni in a different city to the one where I grew up, and I lived in the colleges. While I officially had a boyfriend in Sydney, my life on campus was quite different. I was still extraordinarily naive about my own sexual orientation, but I was beginning to learn about it all. Among my friends, there were two who stand out in terms of this. An Aussie lad and an American lass (an exchange student) who grew close, but were never actually boyfriend / girlfriend. The American returned to the States, and I became even closer friends to the lad. Even though we weren’t “going out” with each other, other students began to think we were fiances. Or, at least, would be once we graduated. It was on some level even then a convenience to us both - when we both reconnected some years out of uni when I was back in Sydney it wasn’t that surprising that we were both gay. (Post note: the American isn’t.)

Even though I know I was born gay, I didn’t realise it until I was 25. No point of reference, see. I knew about gay men (I was a teenager during the 1980s when AIDS was “the gay disease”; meaning, a disease only gay men got - not that it was, but it’s what people thought at the time). I didn't know about lesbians; this was a decade before gay women started to come out.

Kinsey is, so far as I know, the only vaguely scientific study into this, therefore the rest is anecdote. But, all that points to the idea that humans who like humans, “that way”, tend to be orientated towards the same sex, the opposite sex, or both sexes. If Kinsey’s research hold true, most people are more likely to be oriented to both sexes to varying degrees of fluidity. There is amazing variation that I personally know of through talking to people, listening to their stories, and reading about others experiences - throughout history. And not just in the West. It’s human, regardless of the colour of skin, language, culture. And humans aren’t unique. Many other animals exhibit sexual behaviours beyond male-female-for-procreation-only.

But, yet, there persists the bizarre notion that people can be taught to be gay, and therefore kids need to be “protected” from gay teachers and gay role models.

You can’t teach kids to be gay. That’s why there is no point in trying to stop educators from mentioning the realities of human life. In fact, it’s life threatening to do so. There are numerous studies on the numbers of suicides, self harm, bullying, assaults and murders that are the results of futile efforts to deny biological, observable facts.

Fortunately, now, in answer to anti-gay rants, there is the “it gets better” campaign. There are also Pride events, like the one in London today, which is where I’m heading.
.