The problem is that right now there is no definitive answer as to whether sexual preference is an inherited trait, or if it’s learned behavior, just a lot of suppositions. If we knew the answer to that, that would make the question easy to answer.
Since we don’t know, we have to assume. To do so, and for the sake of argument (and I am not making this analogy in anauthoritary way in the least bit), let’s use another type of human behavior that has caused people to be outcasts, had prominent scientists advocating forced conversions, and to this day is a divisive force on our society…
Hand preference.
Hand preference (as in, rigthy or lefty) is said to be hereditary in nature, but can also be influenced by cultures as a whole and in individuals independent of cultural biases. This is something that some researchers see as analogous to sexual preference.
I had a friend who was right handed and who suffered a serious injury to his right hand, which rendered his right hand useless for some time. In order to function, he learned to write (and do other things) with his left hand. After some time, he because equally adept at using his left hand as he did his right.
Then the bandages came off. We will leave my friend’s actual circumstance (partially because it’s too small a sample to mean much, and partially because I don’t remember) and extrapolate the following possible scenarios:
He could have gone back to his right hand and never used his left again.
He could have continued using his left hand and never went back to his right hand.
He could have become ambidextrous.
The questions that come from this experiment are, assuming the things in quotations are labels, akin to the label “gay” (to differentiate from behavior, which is not in quotations):
Was he still “right-handed” when he was learning to write with his left hand?
Was he still “right-handed” after he learned to write with his left hand?
Is he still “right-handed” in any of the situations above?
Personally, I think that the person is still “right-handed” even if they learn to use their left hands as well or better than their right hands, and even if they like it better. They were born that way, they reached out for food and crayons and mother’s hand with the same preference all along, and it took an injury to change this preference.
Of course, if the person went on to say, “I’m a lefty now,” I would have trouble arguing what they, personally, feel on the subject, and even harder to argue it if they’re writing with their left hand at the time.
It’s a complicated issue; however in matters of self-identification, I am usually one to side with those doing the identifying. If I am to take it at face value when someone says, “I was born gay,” I feel compelled to take it at face value when someone says, “I was gay, but I’m not anymore” to maintain consistency.
However, if you feel that someone hard-wired to be a rigthy will always is a “rigthy,” no matter what “hand” they use or whetever they want to label themselves, then I can see you taking the other side of things. I see the merits in that argument as well.
Of course, until we know within a reasonable degree of error where sexuality comes from, we cannot answer that question at all. When we do figure it out, there are going to be some people who don’t like the answer at all, I fear.
