Choices.

One of the prominent previous proponents of 'reparative therapy' retracts his claims, and admits they were based on a biased study. The article also cites claims that the therapy is harmful and contributes to depressive thoughts and actions. Even Alan Chambers, the president of Exodus, a Christian therapy group for gays, is speaking more liberally about whether being gay can be changed.  Then again, those who claim to have been 'fixed' by reparative therapy complain that they have indeed been changed and that if they had known these therapies were possible, that they might have avoided said depressive thoughts and actions, and speak out against the recent ban of these therapies in California.
Interesting. As a queer woman myself, I try not to judge people on their sexuality. If a person truly does not feel like being gay is part of who they are, I try to accept that. If for them, it is a choice, I try to accept that, too. I just worry that talking about change can cause harm to people who could live a happy, fulfilling life accepting their sexuality and acting on it, because they believe it is sin and that if there's a possibility they could change, they should act on it.
I've read that religious faith is a choice. I immediately rejected the idea, because if I could choose to simply believe, it would make life so much easier, rather than all these pesky questions and doubts. Then I started wondering.
I think I do choose my faith, but that it's a choice where the unconscious mind has to be making the same choice as the conscious mind. You can force yourself to choose black socks instead of white, healthy food instead of candy, a donation to charity instead of a trip to Disney World. You can't force yourself to choose faith.
If being gay is indeed a choice, it's that kind of choice. If your subconscious doesn't want to change, you can't. If it does, maybe you can. It would explain a lot.
Who has the right to tell someone their subconscious needs to be behaving differently?
Nobody in their right mind would choose to be gay on the surface. All that hate? Limiting your options like that? Risking harm and even death? No way. But I wouldn't want to change, not now, even if I could wipe the memories of everyone around me to save me the embarrassment of coming out in reverse. I like the idea of dating a woman, being with a woman. You know how they say men are from Mars, and women are from Venus? How often people talk about not understanding the opposite sex?
I read about a study, and don't ask me to produce the article, I don't know where I left it, that women and men experience attraction vastly differently. The study involved watching the area of a person's brain that responded to attraction at the same time as showing the subject pictures and asking them to rate them attractive or not, or possibly somewhere in between. If a man was attracted to a photo, he was attracted to it. His brain and answers lined up. Women's did not. I also read, from a not so credible source, sixbillionsecrets.com, that all girls are bisexual. I know for me, and it may be because I'm a woman, or just because I'm odd, sexuality is highly linked to emotion. Nine times out of ten, I have to know someone at least a little to be attracted to them. I can walk through a mall and pick out pretty girls, but I can't walk through a mall and pick out even one person I'd sleep with, even if the usual social cues and moral standards were thrown out. So I like the idea of being with a woman, because a woman would, likely, understand me better, understand how I react, understand why I react, and touch me accordingly, because she feels it herself. A man may the sweetest, kindest, most understanding man in the world, but because he doesn't experience attraction as a woman, he can't instinctively respond to mine. Obviously, there are plenty of exceptions; I am talking generally.
So, there is actually a reason to choose to be gay. Allow me to reiterate. Perhaps one or two people on Earth today are crazy enough to take a reason like that as good enough to choose to be gay despite all the reasons I mentioned above to choose to be straight. One or two would pick being in constant danger of being treated as a pervert, a sinner, a weirdo, someone who doesn't need or deserve friends or basic human kindness, or even life, over the idea of having a relationship with an unprecedented level of mutual understanding. Especially considering how many straight couples get along just fine, and how many gay couples break up anyway--the two sets are equally volatile. The pros and cons don't balance. There is no basis for a conscious choice.
There is, however, just possibly, enough for an unconscious choice, especially for a woman.
But if you can't tell me to change my faith, you can't tell me to change my sexuality.

Misconceptions the 'Good Guys' Have

Today I saw a picture that said, "I am gay! I have the constitutional right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
Can you guess what's wrong with this statement?
Answer: The 'right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness' is not in the Constitution. It is in the Declaration of Independence, which doesn't actually determine our laws. You have the constitutional right to freedom of religion, freedom of the press, a trial by your peers, and a few other things encoded in what's basically an appendix to the Constitution, the Bill of Rights.
That's not the point.
The point is that if you don't check your facts and know your material cold, why should your opponent take you seriously? How can you argue with an anti-gay-rights person that your rights are being infringed upon if you don't know what your rights are? How can you convince them that you have a point if you say something that's merely in the right spirit, but not factually correct?
To change minds, your arguments have to be airtight. You want to be the one poking holes in their arguments, not the one scrambling while your arguments are falling apart. Granted, you'll probably have more success changing minds by standing up and saying, "I am a gay second class citizen, and this is my story," but when the people on the fence call out to you and say, "Hey. Why should I help you get married?" what are you going to say?
Well, for starters, if you want to do any good, you won't quote the Constitution without having article and paragraph numbers.
For another thing, you won't say something like, "Being gay is entirely genetic." Quoting scientific findings is a lot like quoting legal decisions. You're better off having someone who understands the field putting it in layman's terms. Thankfully, I'm a lot better at deciphering science-speak than legalese. I wrote the paper on this, literally. (You'll get to see it soon.) Here's what we know or think we know:

• If one identical twin is gay, the other twin has a 50/50 shot at also being gay. 
• Identical twins share the same genes. Anything that is entirely genetic will be the same for both of them. Always.
• If a gay man has a gay uncle, they may tend to share a gene on the X chromosome.
• Just because two things tend to happen together, doesn't mean one causes the other. There's a whole bunch of ways things can be linked. For example, you notice that the tree leaves in your neighborhood are turning yellow and falling off. Is the turning yellow what causes them to fall? Is the falling (or preparation for falling) what causes them to turn yellow? Or is something else causing both?
• Fraternal (non-identical) twins are more likely than ordinary siblings to both be gay.
• Some people still claim to have changed sides or chosen their sexuality.

We are not helping our case at all to claim that being gay has been proven to be caused by genes. The best we can do is admit that the whole thing is confusing, complex, and hasn't undergone enough study. Our focus needs to be not on why we are gay, but whether it matters that we are.

Makes sense to me

A nice, clear explanation of why same-sex marriage is completely different from marrying pets, inanimate objects, corpses, or children. View here. This is what I'm talking about.

Mind-opening

In my English class, each of us has to choose a social issue and write all his or her papers that semester on that topic. (You may notice my language is more correct than usual. That's English class rubbing off on me.) As you may imagine, I chose gay rights. The more I do my research, the more I am appalled and frightened by the opinions some people have, and enlightened about others. The biologist, the computer programmer, and the lesbian desperate for civil rights within me want sexuality to be a fixed, born-this-way, unchangeable kind of deal. But to be fair, the more I read personal statements and about my opponents' opinions, I'm starting to wonder about that. I'm reading more and more about people who seem to have successfully chosen to be straight again, perhaps after confronting some deep dark past. I'm reading about studies that show changes in sexuality over a lifetime. I'm reading that 'many' homosexuals seem to display the psychological circumstances I dismissed, detachment from the same-sex parent, and huge numbers of gay men who were, as children, molested by men. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm taking all of this with a grain of salt. But now I think that sexuality is probably far more fluid than my black-and-white philosophy had room for. It's entirely possible that some people can choose their sexuality, or change it. It's possible that sexuality can change and evolve on its own, even after adulthood, and that environment does play some part in it. Don't take this as somehow an admission of guilt, though. I firmly believe that most people would suffer more harm than good to try to change their sexual orientation, and that forcing it is likely a bad thing. I do not believe there is anything wrong with being gay. But if your sexuality starts to change, I think it's important to be open to it, to be willing to go with it, whichever direction it runs in. Sexuality is most likely this giant interaction between genes, hormones, environment, and maybe a few other things as well. After all, people weren't considered homosexuals forever. It was many years before people who liked the same gender stopped having anything to do with the opposite gender too. My thesis changed from somewhere in the vicinity of 'sexual minorities should have legal minority rights' to 'all hail freedom of sexuality' and maintaining that anyone should be able to be with anyone and not be discriminated against for it. I'll post my paper on here if my teacher lets me.

Choices

Why anyone would think people choose to be GLBT is beyond me. And this is why.
Science indicates that genes and hormones both have to do with being gay. And it is definitively not classified as a mental illness.
Or, if you're the sort of person who doesn't trust science, here's some logic.
Why would I choose:
1. To risk my family ties and my friendships, and even be kicked out of my house
2. To make it more difficult to get/keep a job (it's still legal to fire me in most states)
3. To limit my dating options to less than 10% of the population
4. To be called names, teased, bullied, and even beaten and killed
5. To face such depression I commit suicide
6. To be persecuted by people who say they're of my own religion
7. To be stereotyped
8. To feel unable to talk about dating/crushes/love with friends, acquaintances or coworkers
9. To worry about moral issues, whether I'm unnatural or immoral or somehow not good enough
10. To face the incredibly painful pressure of coming out when anyone I love could turn against me, tell me to go away or get out, or start spreading the news around.

If people want to rebel, they do drugs, drink, smoke. Maybe, just maybe they hook up with someone of the same sex. But they certainly don't 'decide' to be gay.
If people just want more sex, they keep their options open! There are far more straight people to be found than gay people. And if you're going, well, what about those bisexual people? Then let me tell you bisexuals are often discriminated against by gay and straight alike. How's that for limiting?
And specifically for transgender people:
First, who's ever heard of being transgender? That's even harder to accidentally find information on than being gay. It's an awful lot of work to go to for a 'phase' or to punish someone.
Second, transgender people experience the feeling that they are actually in the wrong body (gender dysphoria). Not just dating the wrong people, but in the wrong body. How'd you like that?
Third, if a transgender person decides to dress as their gender identity, that can be quite obvious to complete strangers, much more so than someone's sexual orientation.
It's just too much to go through if you're not absolutely serious and positive, from my perspective. Combine the fact that transgender rights are even less prevalent than gay rights and you have a recipe for a life that people just would not choose lightly. Why go through any of that...unless it's something much more than a choice to you, unless the only choice involved is to stop hiding and lying to yourself and others and be who you really are?

It's really beating us over the head that it's not a choice. Just open up your ears and listen.

Knowledge is power

Have you ever heard something so ridiculous that all you can do is sputter, wishing you had words to counter it?
Sometimes, what you really need is a good course in logic.
If you can hope to counter some of the more negative and wide-spread beliefs about the GLBTQ, you can't just shout, "That's so untrue!". Well, you could. But people aren't too likely to believe you. You need proof. And proof often requires certain things.

• You may need to define certain words, like 'evil',
• You may need to set premises that everyone has to agree on, which isn't actually that hard if you start simple, and
• You need an ability to recognize what's logical and what's not.

Therefore, there are some courses that will be invaluable to you if you ever plan on speaking up. And please, do plan on speaking up someday. Maybe not today. Maybe not this year. But someday.
Basic logic and rhetoric are the most important, in my book. Look for something that promises to help you construct a good argument, and something that teaches you to recognize fallacies.
Geometry is also good, because geometry proofs are a lot like arguments, just with lines, points, and math instead of terms, fallacies, and examples, but it's a big course to take just for the proofs part of it. You'll likely take geometry anyway, or already have. If you already have, and have forgotten it, look online or borrow someone's book and quickly read through the bit on beginning proofs.
Even though you're less likely to take logic and rhetoric, you need it to be able to argue well. One of my rhetoric courses also had some fallacies in it, but I like having extra practice.
I'll give you a little more to go on about why this is so important in my next post.