Choices

Some people say that being gay is a choice. If a gay person really wanted to, they could change their feelings. I don't buy it. Others have said it, and I've said it before too, but I'll say it again: why would I choose this?

I am more than aware of the distaste that many have for someone who is gay. I read comment after comment on the Ladies Home Journal website of people who were so upset that Ellen was on the cover. They were cancelling subscriptions, so offended that LHJ was furthering the gay agenda and promoting the homosexual lifestyle. Blah blah blah. They are, of course, entitled to their opinion. And some of them were of the opinion that being gay is a choice.

Why would someone like me, who was raised actively LDS in a conservative (sheltered) town, who grew up in a home with a mom and a dad, who is sensitive sometimes to a fault, choose to be gay? Why would I put myself in this "hated" stereotype? Why would I choose to possibly lose people that I care about?

Why would I agonize over what I feel if I was choosing it?

I don't have a say in it. I didn't choose that my eyes are blue. I didn't choose that I'm 5'4" tall. I didn't choose my name. I haven't made the choice to feel an attraction for women instead of men. Does a straight person sit down with themselves one day and weigh out the pros and cons of liking men vs. liking women? Do they decide that they're going to like the opposite sex? No, I'm pretty sure they don't. It's just that way for them. And it's just this way for me.

Here's where my ability to choose comes in. I can choose how I react to my feelings. I can choose who to share my information with. I can choose how to share my information. I can choose to hide who I am from the world because of how I think I will be treated. I can choose to pretend that I'm not gay because that is more socially soothing. I can choose to live openly as I am. I can choose how to react when someone tells me that they don't agree with my "choice."

When I wake up in the morning, my first thought is not "I think I'll be gay today." Everyday I make hundreds of choices. I've probably made millions in my lifetime. But choosing to be gay was never one of them.

Instead, I'm choosing to acknowledge it, because I can't change it. I am who I am. Today, I'm choosing to try and accept myself...because that actually is my choice.