A Fan Writes: "...[T]here is no gay gene!..."

Dateline: 07/19/99

I guess the person who sent me the following (via an old anonymous survey on the site) decided that I wasn't getting sufficient hate mail:

yeah, you all need to clean your act up, being gay is a sin, but i am sure you have heard that. Anyway you may choose to not believe the bible cause it dosent fit your lifestyle, like a child crying to get there way. but the truth is the truth. oh by the way, there is no gay gene!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Since they really didn't have anything new to say, nor say it particularly well, I was going to file the note in the circular when I reread the closing line:

"there is no gay gene!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

I realized that the number of exclamation points there-attached suggested that the author deemed that statement to be of some final and earth-shattering importance.

We know that the potential of a gay gene has received some coverage, along with the potential of a special lesbian ear. The latter has been almost forgotten by everybody but me, the latter still very much an ongoing topic of discussion, as evidenced by the reference above, by one who would most likely never be suspected of having even a passing knowledge of more than the most basic of information.

Having hopefully satisfied the giggle-bones of those who enjoy the hate mail section, let's take a look at the underlying premises which would render the "there is no gay gene!!!!!!!!!!!!!" comment a "case closed."

1. It presumes that there is something so wrong with being gay that an explanation is required.
2. It assumes that we're premising our battles on the concept that if some gay/lesbian genetic disposition was confirmed that there would be more widespread support for gay and lesbian rights because then it's "not our fault."

I could go on, but I'm sure you have already spotted the trend.

Hello! Wake up! We don't care whether there is a gay gene. We don't care whether there are special lesbian ears. We don't care about anything beyond doing all that we can do to ensure equal treatment and rights in all aspects of life. (Well, we do, but you know what I mean.)

We have to be alert... it's very easy to become lax, and fail to notice the underlying homophobia in even the friendliest of statements or people.

It's important that we make an effort to recognize the little homophobias of every day life, and educate those around us who are often very well meaning, but sometimes fall into the trap of validating that homophobia.

For each and every right we don't have and each and every problem we face has, as its underlying basis, some form of homophobia - whether obvious or not.

And each and every time we fail to note and correct that underlying homophobia - and each and every time one of us validates the underlying homophobia by engaging in it ourselves - we keep the flame of homophobia alive and burning that much longer.

Off and on over the next several months we'll take a look at some of the more pervasive forms of homophobia, many of which we countenance by our silence and sometimes even by our complicity.

In Pride,
Deborah