By Cara Burke
Julie Bindel – freelance journalist, political activist and founder of Justice for Women, an organisation that supports women who have fought against or killed violent male partners – came to our school on Monday the 28th of November to discuss the possibility of the gay gene. The first thing which Julie Bindel said was that she thought that whether or not there is a gay gene shouldn’t matter. We do not need to justify our existence and our fight for rights by proving to others that we cannot help who we are. For most in the lgbt+ community, I’m sure this is a given; why should we need to justify ourselves to obtain the same rights as everyone else? However, she then went on to express the opinion which it doesn’t seem many in the LGBT+ community hold; that being gay is a choice.
I personally was taken aback by this thought. If being gay was a choice, then why wouldn’t people just choose to be straight? Why would we choose to live in a society which is discriminatory against us, and why would most particularly people in places where homosexuality is against the law choose to be so? Couldn’t it be argued by those against homosexuality that as it is a choice, people should just chose to be straight, and not choosing to be so is an immoral choice?
Bindel started off her explanation by claiming that the discovery of a gay gene and therefore the discovery that homosexuality is not a choice would not end homophobia. She said that we know that the colour of someone’s skin is determined by their genes, and yet that does not stop racism; people are not given rights simply because they can’t help who they are. In her opinion, people who are homophobic and bigoted don’t care about whether or not there is a gay gene, and to highlight that, she talked about when she went undercover as an unhappy lesbian by the name of ‘Joanna’ to a Christian gay counselling centre in Colorado in January of 2015, and how her counsellor didn’t seem to care about whether or not she could be “turned straight” or whether she was born that way, but rather cared that she stopped having sexual relations with other women so she could be accepted back by the church. So why should we spend so much time and effort trying to justify our existence when in the end, people who are prejudice against those in the LGBT+ community might not even care?
Julie Bindel has also said that the process of trying to discover whether or not homosexuality is determined at birth has often been homophobic and sexist. People have asked her whether or not her mother smoked or drank alcohol whilst pregnant with her, and if that could have had an effect, and posed ideas that a girl might be born gay because of too much testosterone in the womb – suggesting not only that a gay woman would be more ‘masculine’ than a straight woman but also that women who are typically more ‘masculine’ must be gay; these are propositions which have no scientific evidence to back them up.
Bindel then went on to say that coming out and standing up as gay is an action of pride; it’s a way of saying “I chose this life and I’m proud of it.” However, this does raise questions of how people can both identify as gay, lesbian or bisexual and still feel loathing for this identity of themselves. She has said that ‘choosing’ to be gay is not the same kind of ‘choosing’ what sauce to put on your pasta. She believes that it is primarily outside factors, such as discrimination from those you love, from political groups, or from strangers that make people feel bad about their sexual orientation.
The questions part of her talk of course brought up some things she has said in the past. Julie Bindel has said a few controversial things and has been very open about her views on the whole. On the topic of identity politics, Julie Bindel believes that a person who is going against the gender binary isn’t a different gender other than male or female, but rather a feminist, as they don’t comply to the gender roles and expectations of male and female. Whilst I personally don’t agree with her opinion that being gay is a choice, I agree that those from the LGBT+ community shouldn’t have to justify their existence and prove that they can’t help who they are in order to get the same rights as everyone else.
Julie Bindel summarises her opinion on whether or not homosexuality is a choice in a video for the Guardian newspaper.
