Just wondering what you all think. For a lot of campaigns in favor of the LGBT community one of the most popular slogans is "Its Not A Choice" -- to be Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, or Trans. But for me that raises the question: What if it was a choice for some people? Would that automatically make it immoral to be this way?

I think it's a weak argument, since several choices are clearly being made. A gay person is clearly choosing to have gay sex, a transsexual person is clearly choosing to transition. What should be happening is that people should stop caring.

When I hear about people who are okay with gays because it's "not a choice" but aren't okay with transsexuals because "it is a choice", I think they're even more moronic than a straight up homophobe.

No, this is something that always annoys me about that argument. The anti gay side opines that it's "an immoral choice to be gay", and the LGB side retorts "it's not a choice we were born this way". And although they (LGB side) are technically correct to say so, they really should add something like "and even if we weren't, why shouldn't we choose to be gay if we wanted to? what business is it of your's what two consensual adults do in the bedroom as long as we are not harming anyone else?".

Not doing so seem's to implicitly grant the questions premise that homosexuality is inherently immoral, which the other side haven't proven.

Quote from: DrillQuip on January 21, 2013, 01:37:21 PM
Would you feel similarly about people who are trans*? Would it be inherently immoral if someone started as a man and transitioned to becoming physically female because they simply chose to? (Assuming they have no regrets after the fact)

As in someone who felt no gender dysmorphia (no compulsion to change) but simply chose to switch sex for the hell of it?
No I don't see were immorality comes into it, this person is altering their own body and nobody else is being harmed in the process.

I think if the charge of immorality is going to be hurled one way or another the person doing the hurling at least has to make a case for why first.

I'm still of the opinion that anyone who seeks to demonize others for the sake of labeling them as different (i.e. non-heteronormative), whether it be a choice or not, is full of horse you-know-what and probably is harboring some of those feelings themselves. 

Quote from: ShannonD on January 21, 2013, 01:48:26 PM
I'm still of the opinion that anyone who seeks to demonize others for the sake of labeling them as different (i.e. non-heteronormative), whether it be a choice or not, is full of horse you-know-what and probably is harboring some of those feelings themselves. 

Ted Haggard comes to mind 

Quote from: DrillQuip on January 21, 2013, 01:58:10 PM
Okay, just wanted to know. In your previous post you mentioned the LGB, not the T so I just wondered if you thought it might be different.

Oh yeh I only left it off because I normally see that argument come up about sexual orientation not gender, but I feel the same way about it too.

DQ, that's a really good point. Never really thought about it that much. I'm of the opinion it wouldn't matter at all. I don't think it works with the religious crazies anyway. They are convinced it's morally wrong and nothing anybody says would change it. Not sure if it helps people who could be persuaded though that that this is not something someone chooses. But come to think of it. I don't care.

--Jay

I'm pretty much just echoing what everyone else has said but yeah...it bugs me when I hear people say things like "It's not our fault, it's not a choice!" - it's not a "fault" to begin with, why should anyone have to justify something about their own lives that have no bearing on other people regardless of whether it's a choice or not.

It brings up another point which I've seen discussed before, if you could take a pill that would make you straight/cis (as in the sex you were born as) would you? Or would you choose to still be gay/trans? It's a really tricky question to answer, because on the one hand...being trans is no picnic, but on the other, would you favour a complete change in identity over transitioning?

I remember a conversation with somebody once that basically went along the lines of

"I'm trans"

"nah you aren't, there's no such thing, you just want to be weird"

"actually studies have shown blah blah blah <insert links to a few reputable studies showing the validity of transgendered people>"

"oh I see, I didn't realise, I apologise then"

It's like....in one way I was happy I enlightened a mind, but why couldn't they just accept my feelings about my own body without "proof" .... gah people! 

I don't think anyone grows up and says to themselves, "hey it will be so fun to be marginalized" or "I want people to shun me and persecute me and make fun of me" or "i look forward to being beat up or killed". It is so much safer to be heterosexual and cisgender and yet they still are what they are in spite of the danger.

What about the intersex people? You can't use "they chose to do this" argument against them. I am offended at people who suggest being transgender or lesbian or gay or bisexual is a choice as well. While LGBT don't have an obvious physical condition as some intersex people do, who then are intersex supposed to love if they appear as male or female and yet feel attracted to the same sex, some people will see them as heterosexual or homosexual depending on how much they look like one sex or the other.

I have been told if I am intersex or transgender (which i am both) i am not allowed to transition, cause its wrong and makes me look like a lesbian because i like women. Or i am told to get a surgery and take hormones because i cannot keep my ambiguousness or gender fluidity and have to be put in a box for it to be ok.

Quote from: Shawn Sunshine on January 21, 2013, 02:15:53 PM
I don't think anyone grows up and says to themselves, "hey it will be so fun to be marginalized" or "I want people to shun me and persecute me and make fun of me" or "i look forward to being beat up or killed".

This ^ How on earth do they rationalize their "it's just a choice" stance with the many gay people who take their own lives because they couldn't become straight to please their peers?

Quote from: DrillQuip on January 21, 2013, 02:32:34 PM
All good points but I'd like to touch on this one in particular. What if it was completely safe to transition publicly and no one would hurt a person in any way if they decided to change their body from being one way to another gender wise? Would there be anything inherently right or wrong about the persons choice to transition (partially, fully, not at all, whatever)

But it isn't.

The situation is that we, along with just about anyone, are dealing with something essentially based upon irrational argument.

I'm not passing judgement on any religion, I'm seeking to make the point that religion is, by definition, about faith. Those that believe whatever, will do so whatever we or anyone might say.

It just seems a rather pointless provokation, when we might be better sticking to the defensive action. That way at least, the naysayers are making the running. They are attacking us. It becomes their place to prove their argument.

Quote from: DrillQuip on January 21, 2013, 02:51:44 PM
But what if it was? What if transitioning was safe to do, free from the scorn of others? Is there inherently anything right or wrong about choosing to transition?

Of course not. The issue is self expression and individualism.

Our Struggle

Let me show how this question is a bit silly. If being X was a choice would that make it wrong?

Is it is wrong from being a choice or was it wrong from the beginning? See what I mean? :3

Quote from: DrillQuip on January 21, 2013, 01:16:48 PM
Just wondering what you all think. For a lot of campaigns in favor of the LGBT community one of the most popular slogans is "Its Not A Choice" -- to be Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, or Trans. But for me that raises the question: What if it was a choice for some people? Would that automatically make it immoral to be this way?

Do you think that your line of questioning is even realistic? What if i believed, for example, that the Easter bunny is real and I am convinced that my conviction is not a choice. Would you believe me? Would it be okay if i considered you to be immoral if you didn't believe in the Easter bunny but I did?

There is an argument  that Sartre created in philosophy that goes like this "I am condemned to be free". What Sartre was after was saying that even if you opt out, you still are making choices, so you can never be free. In a sense we all choose and we can all exist with either our positive or negative freedoms.

Ask the exact opposite of this question if you don't believe that the argument is itself, ontological: Suppose for a moment that being LGBT is not a choice under any circumstances. Would it be immoral to treat such a person with contempt? Suppose I could prove that every single LGBT reason was born that way. Would mistreatment of such a person be morally justifiable?

Knowing the 2 questions now, does it make better sense to treat another person with respect and humanity or consider that person immoral without knowing for a certainty?   In other words is it always better to be kind to your neighbor or a stranger and not use morality on them or is it better to imply immorality when you cannot possibly know?

Looking at this way, what difference does it make if it's a choice or was imprinted on our brains before we were born? Doesn't it make better sense to say it is moral all the time? Suppose half of LGBT have special brain structures that identify them as such, but half do not. Would it make the half that are not any different? Would it be okay to say that the half who lack this brain difference are immoral? To me I am lead back the original answer which is no matter if it's a choice or not, it must be moral.

The short answer to the original question: No.

The way I've grown to look at the issue is there are two components.

Deep-seated feeling: If someone is sexually attracted to individuals of the same sex, feels trapped in the wrong body, or loves the color blue, a person cannot control that.  These are feelings that are part of a person's foundation, and someone trying to change that is going to cause problems for the individual of interest.  These feelings are not a "choice."

Action: A person can more or less embrace parts of themselves by seeking out relationships with people they are attracted to (even if they are of the same sex), working to transition, or by wearing the color blue.  The "choice" here is whether someone goes ahead and follows through with what their heart tells them (and helps them feel more-actualized), or whether the person suppresses/denies it (and suffers), and I'm inclined to favor the former even when the choices are "weird."

The merits of a "choice" come down to benefits/harms to a good degree, and the simple matter is that same-sex partnerships, sex-changes, and wearing blue are all acceptable options if they stem from a person's freely-given choices (although "always wearing blue" is usually a problem for people who play on sports teams, but there is a bona fide occupational reason for that) -- they do not cause "harm" to people, although sex-changes probably warrant some level of control simply because it is a long-term, expensive, irreversible process that some people with gender issues may not benefit most from (one cannot "experiment" with a sex-change to explore their identity the same way as a person can "experiment" with same-sex attraction).  If these things help someone realize and live as their true selves, they should be embraced rather than prohibited.

The time that a "choice" is wrong is when there is a demonstrable harm involved.  An adult with a sexual attraction to children (a pedophile) can never realize those desires, because doing so violates someone else's (a child's) right to informed consent -- the best someone can ever do is "pretend" to have such a relationship, and doing so requires that anyone else involved is actually an adult.  That has to be a tough way to live, and the person might benefit from a treatment/cure to control/fix that attraction, but I don't have the answers to what kind of approach is best.  But it is an issue whether one's deep-seated feelings can create intractable problems if those feelings are acted upon, and we are capable of arguing this from a universal perspective.

The issue really seems to be how thorough society is in vetting out which "problems" are intractable problems.  The LGBT spectrum is clean of these -- there are issues with anal sex being a high-risk activity more common to gay men (in terms of spreading STDs) and HRT/surgery creating irreversible changes to one's body, but they can be controlled by gay men avoiding anal sex (especially unprotected anal sex) outside of committed relationships and someone taking the time to make sure that HRT and then surgery is right for them.  Religious/emotional objections may be heartfelt, and the LGBT family may be "wrong" to such people, but according to the secular standard that the greater society needs to adhere to in order for religious freedom to exist, being in the alphabet soup is just fine.

"Choice" here is simply a matter of whether people live as themselves or suffer by denying it, and as far as LGBTs are concerned, the choice to affirm oneself is the correct one.  So, that's that, I think.

Quote from: Zumbagirl on January 21, 2013, 03:43:31 PM
Suppose I could prove that every single LGBT reason was born that way. Would mistreatment of such a person be morally justifiable?

Been thinking about this principle in general recently, that of placing blame on people depending on whether or not the choice was really theirs, because I currently feel pretty won over by the hard deterministic argument. So when talking about issues that involve choice as a factor I always have this nagging thought in the back of my head that goes something like "but what if we don't really have free will, then this whole argument is undermined!".

I like female persons, I like being gay. My sexuality has been pretty clear since I was a kid. But if I'd had the choice, I'd have chosen it for sure. From my perspective, for an action's morality to even be questionable it needs to cause harm. So... morality is a non-issue in this situation.

My trans-y-ness is complicated by the fact that it causes pain and requires medical treatment due to that pain. I live in a society in which conditions that cause pain are supposed to be treated for free. If it didn't cause pain...? I don't know. It gets complicated. If we are just talking body mod preferences, I'm not sure the public coverage would be reasonable. But, otherwise, no I don't see why there would be anything morally wrong with it. Because once again it isn't causing harm to another person.

Quote from: DrillQuip on January 21, 2013, 03:12:54 PM
I would say whether or not its a choice is irrelevant. But there seem to be people out there, both for and against being LGBT, who seem to think choice is important. I want to know why that is. What does choice have to do with anything when it comes to whether or not being an LGBT person is moral or immoral? Its not a silly question. Its pretty important (EDIT: Whether or not being LGBT is a choice) considering that its used all the time. We should think about it and what it means.

If you don't have a choice, you couldn't have gone the other way, and therefore it's what's right. I've had this same line of thinking myself. With transition, I used to wish that I'd just wake up as the opposite sex. I do still wish that, but for different reasons. The old reason was because if it just happened, nobody can really give me a hard time about it. It's not like I made the choice. It doesn't work like that in reality though. People against you will use the choice thing until it's proven that it's not a choice, then change to something else like demonic possession or mental health issues or whatever. If you're different, you're going to be attacked. Choice is just the easiest thing to bank on. 

I really never thought of the idea that choice is irrelevant until I got to this thread. I always looked at it as a source of validation, just like the people that are against me. I'd work hard to make them see that it's not a choice, so stop giving me a hard time about it. But you're right. What do they care what choices I make in MY life? Everybody's seen the man that got tattoos and other work done to make his whole body look like a lizard. The reviews on that are a bit mixed, but for the most part they consist of "wow that's awesome" or "good luck finding a job, idiot". Nobody really flat out says they're wrong. They just say they don't agree with it. So why does that line of thinking change when it comes to lgbt issues? Why is it suddenly not okay to make a choice? To me, changing yourself into a lizard seems far more extreme.

Well, there's nothing inherently wrong with wanting to get with someone of your own sex. Heterosexual being the "right" way is a subjective opinion lacking any logical basis.

Also, I don't care if someone wants to transition for the heck of it. It's none of my concern what one prefers. There are plenty of people, myself included, that wouldn't kill themselves if transition weren't in the future. I can tolerate living as a male, but tolerating isn't good enough for me. Is that so wrong? 

I never understood why heterosexuals were called "straight." They go for the exact opposite of themselves, which, to me, sounds like a huge bend in the road, not a straight line.

Anyway, to all of the anti-gay people out there, I simply tell them not to knock it till they try it.