Post #1826519

2026-04-24 22:02 UTC

How many times have you heard closeted or coming out queers say things like "but I don't think I want to be super flaming/butch/etc"? How many times have you heard the assimilationist recommendation, "you can just be a 'normal' guy who happens to be gay... an Anderson Cooper kind of gay"? People who believe the immutability framing still have an understanding of gender and sexuality as assemblages that include cultural elements, even if they don't recognize it. "If I'm gay, do I have to be rainbows and glitter and fierce?" Bioessentialism just can't hold water for our lived experiences, even without visiting the graveyard of failed attempts to find neurological and genetic bases for queerness. 4/6

Replies (1)

@lina@neuromatch.social 2026-04-24 22:02

Those assimilationist refrains are, of course, a reinforcement of the bioessentialist narrative - "culture is ephemeral, your unfortunate biology is the only thing gay about you." It's a facet of western, colonial attitudes of white/cishet/male identities and cultures being unquestionably legitimate while all others are subject to scrutiny. You may be "born this way", it might even be a part of some god's grand plan, but you're still not as natural as the straights. What were simply unnatural acts before "born this way" are now the symptomology of a naturalized-as-unnatural being. I'm not saying that sexual preferences, likes and dislikes are fundamentally fungible, invalid, or problematic. They're definitely more fluid than they're usually given credit for though, and, through the construction of immutable sexual identities, have been made intelligible within a framework of coloniality that produces systems of domination. 5/6

Open ##1826520