Is the notion that queer identities and sexuality are innate incompatible with the view that genders are socially molded?

Question

Probably the single most important proposition/thesis/tenet regarding queer identities currently held is that

• Queer individuals, just as cishet individuals, are simply born the way they are: they do not "choose" to become queer, they do not "turn" queer due to exposure to other people's queerness, etc., any more than cishet individuals "choose" or "turn", etc.

and probably the most important one regarding gender more generally is that

• Genders, and their associated gender roles and manners of gender expression are, to some extent, socially and culturally molded: they are not completely determined by biological factors

but then one may wonder "How is it that we are born bound to be attracted to some genders and not others, and to identify with some genders and not others, not knowing which society/community we are (going to be) born into?", or contrapositively, "If an individual were to be born in a society with different genders (and roles, etc.), their gender identity and sexuality could presumably be different from the current ones, so it cannot be said to be innate"

So my two intertwined questions are: (1) Am I commiting some mistake, and this incompatibility can be solved, or is there a real problem? (2) Is this issue well-known (or at least somewhat-known) among the academic community, and discussed in the literature?

[Context: I'm a queer person, perfectly happy with my identity, but with very little exposure to academic queer studies and gender studies, and this question has been on my mind for a while: besides the discomfort the question itself brings, it's just terrifying to think it could be used to propel hateful rhetoric towards the queer community, so I tend not to raise and discuss it, but now that I'm more acquainted with PhilSE I feel it might be an adequate place to do so]

Answer 1

As for gender, you could potentially argue that the 'seeds' for your behaviours and identity which then conform to certain social roles in some way which leads you to be classified as a certain gender are there from birth. This would sort of account for an innateness, although one's gender would still be contingent on the state of gender norms. It's also probably putting unscientific levels of emphasis on nature over nurture. However, to then accept the common view that to be, for example, a woman, is to identify as a woman, would be difficult, as we are definitely not born identifying as genders, especially if they're socially constructed.

As for sexuality, it's a little different, because the attraction to certain genitalia could be seen as innate (although there is not evidence suggesting a full genetic explanation of sexuality), and the attraction to femininity or masculinity as extensions of that. For example, you find penises and other male sex characteristics attractive, and notice that these characteristics tend to exist in people who, for example, don't wear makeup and wear dresses, and so you're less likely to be attracted to those who wear makeup and dresses. I would be surprised if anyone was truly attracted to a gender identity in itself rather than the characteristics which are associated with them.

A similar thing can be applied to gender. A transmedicalist view might be that you are born with your gender identity, and that it is determined by the level of gender dysphoria you would have in each sex's body. The liking of things which are then socially associated with each gender, like dresses and makeup, is an extension of wanting to fit in with the sex you're most comfortable with.

With all that being said, I do think you are largely correct, at least about gender. I think lots of progressives act like you're born with your gender and it's socially constructed, when I think it's better to just bite the bullet that it is socialised into you partially. I think people don't like that because now the idea that you can be socialised into your gender makes people's minds jump to people screeching about how Disney is turning their kids gay apparently and conversion therapy.

Answer 2

Just two cents.

The latest and largest genetic studies on LGBTQI+ sexualities (ca 2019-2023, half million people involved) have made clear that actual genetics play a lesser role, which on top of that is indirect (and tends to have even less importance as more people are included in studies), ie no gene(s) related to sexuality per se, but rather to general tendencies like risk-taking and openness.

There is no single gene responsible for a person being gay or a lesbian.

That’s the first thing you need to know about the largest genetic investigation of sexuality ever, which was published Thursday in Science. The study of nearly a half million people closes the door on the debate around the existence of a so-called “gay gene.”

In its stead, the report finds that human DNA cannot predict who is gay or heterosexual. Sexuality cannot be pinned down by biology, psychology or life experiences, this study and others show, because human sexual attraction is decided by all these factors.

There is no ‘gay gene.’ There is no ‘straight gene.’ Sexuality is just complex, study confirms

So really, there are many and diverse ways sexuality plays out and evolves (like any sufficiently complex social behaviour, with a variety of valid expressions), and there are both social constructs and choices to be made, almost all over the place.

Sidenote: I stand for LGBTQI+ diversity and equal rights.

Answer 3

It may be that while many aspects of gender are defined socially, gender identity itself may be closer to innate. And sexuality is related to gender but doesn't always cut along the same joint as gender - some people are attracted to a particular gender identity, some people are attracted to a particular type of genitals.

So when you put it all together, it can make sense how sexuality can be more innate while gender can be more malleable

Answer 4

The key point you might be missing here is that simplistic "nature versus nurture" debates in general are dead. Modern psychology understands that it's always an interaction. Software doesn't run without hardware or vice versa. One evolves much more slowly then the other, but neither is ever fully independent nor determinant.

The only truly tricky part is that there's a lot of details we don't yet understand, especially about sexual orientation.

When it comes to the basic mechanics that underly gender we know a long list of biological facts that influence it at different levels. We know that most (nowhere near all) human individuals have either XX or XY sex chromosomes, and that individuals tend to exhibit various biophysical differences in predictable ways based on these genes. XY tends to mean more testosterone which tends to mean more body hair and muscle mass. All of this has complex influence on patterns of cognition, emotions, etc.

Human cultures in general all have some set of social concepts influenced by these facts. With no significant exceptions that we know of, some destinction roughly resembling "male" and "female" is universally understood, but only roughly. As we've seen, the underlying biology is complex in ways that are superficially obvious (there are individuals who "break the mold" in every culture) but also not easily understood in any complete way. Therefore it's not surprising that important details about what the two broad categories actually mean and how binary or fluid they are, vary widely.

With sexual orientation there are various studies that seem to show there must be biophysical and epigenetic differences at play. But as Nikos' answer shows, there is nothing like "a gay gene", and I'm not sure that any specific casual mechanism has been robustly proven to exist.

The key conclusion I take from all this is that your assertions are overly simplistic and the apparent contradictions dissolve when we recognize that cultural and biological patterns are interdependent.

For example:

Queer individuals, just as cishet individuals, are simply born the way they are: they do not "choose" to become queer

Not wrong, but very incomplete. Queerness is one culturally specific way of recognizing that not everyone is unambigiously heterosexual and male or female. There are biophysical traits that underly at least some (if not all) of this diversity, but we don't know what most of them are or exactly how they work. Meanwhile a person makes choices throughout their life that influences their own behavior, gender presentation, etc. These choices heavily shape (but don't freely determine) whether or not they are perceived as queer in society. And ultimately to identify as queer is an individual choice that isn't determined by biology or even behavior. All of this can be true at the same time.

How is it that we are born bound to be attracted to some genders and not others, and to identify with some genders and not others, not knowing which society/community we are (going to be) born into?"

We're born with DNA which is ultimately nothing but a list of protein recipes. Without those proteins we wouldn't exist. Those proteins profoundly but indirectly influence who we develop into as individuals. The concept of gender is a human interpretation of the complex consequences of statistical and comparative patterns in certain parts of our DNA (among other things). Nobody can read your DNA and predict that you are queer, at least not yet. But even if we ever get to that point it will be a culturally conditioned interpretation of behavior patterns and the biochemistry that influences (but never fully determines) those behaviors.

"If an individual were to be born in a society with different genders (and roles, etc.), their gender identity and sexuality could presumably be different from the current ones, so it cannot be said to be innate"

You would develop differently for sure. You're not literally born with a gender identity or sexual orientation. The same ingredients don't always make the same cake, and even the same cake would be received differently in different cultures. But that doesn't mean the ingredients don't exist.

Answer 5

One could say the following:

• Someone has a (partially or completely innate) attraction to some set or sets of physical and behavioural characteristics.
• Society can group and define sets of characteristics into gender classifications in different ways, and social norms can influence those characteristics (i.e. gender is socially constructed).

These notions are compatible.

The key point to note is that someone isn't attracted to the concept of a socially-constructed gender in itself, but rather they're attracted to the underlying characteristics which that gender refers to, which needn't be socially constructed.

To some extent, it's the difference between words, and the things the words refer to.

As an analogy, we can come up with different classifications of cars, but that isn't going to suddenly make some small Renault Clio a good offroad vehicle, nor appropriate for large-scale transport. The underlying characteristics are what they are, and which characteristics you'd be looking for in a vehicle for some use case remains largely the same, regardless of how classify cars. Although this analogy probably has a whole range of issues (most significantly that we can build cars in whichever practical-limitations-permitting way we want, but the same can't be said of humans).

Answer 6

I think your question is confusing identity - or attraction - and behavior. Being homosexual or heterosexual describes who someone is naturally attracted to, while gender roles and mannerism are a problem of behavior. One can't really chose what they are attracted to (if only because it is this very attraction that guides their choice), but one can chose how they behave.

Considering the question of sexuality in itself, where attraction and behavior are intertwined, we can make the distinction clearer by observing that people don't always have sex with who they are attracted to. The obvious exemple being the case of male/female segregated populations (prisons, boarding schools) where people who are otherwise heterosexual adopt homosexual beheviors (one could argue that sex between inmate is all too often non consensual, but I'd argue that while the victim has no choice the agressor has, and effectively opts into homosexual sex rather than abstinence). Another exemple would be sex workers, who are not attracted to their client, and people who consent to sex without being in the mood in order to get a favor. This used to be the case much more often when relationships were not free and people, sadly, often had very litle liberty in choosing their partner. We see here that there is a distinction to be made between attraction (who you want to have sex with) and behavior (who you effectively have sex with).

Once this distinction is made the problem you identify in your question is solved: attraction is innate and behavior is a choice, albeit heavily constrained by social norms and culture (can we say you have a choice when sleeping with who you want can lead to your execution? Question left as an exercice for the reader).

I think we can make the same distinction when it comes to gender: what gender one identifies and want to be identified as a man or a woman seems to be innate (people who suffer from gender dysphoria, AFAIK, don't chose their condition, they just feel innadequate when identified as the gender matching their body), but how we chose to express this identity or if we chose to express it at all, the behavior, is a choice constrained by social norms and culture. For exemple I am a cishet man, I'd feel weird if people identified me as a woman, this is the identity, and in order to be identified as I identify I wear trousers and shirts I buy at the "mens" part of the garment store, this is the behavior.

NB: "people who consent to sex without being in the mood in order to get a favor" -> I am concious that this is dangerously close to the border with rape under the threat of not getting said favor. I am not trying here to make light of the topic, but I think there still can be an area where there is a material interest to engage in sex that yet does not correspond to the definition of constraint.

Answer 7

No, the two ideas are not incompatible, in that the way in which you interact with the world will be the result of both nature and nurture. You can be born with, or acquire over time, certain tendencies. How those tendencies determine your development then depends on the environment in which you find yourself. For example, if you are very sporting, the sports you are likely to take-up will depend on your circumstances. If you consider contrasting sports such as polo, soccer, ice-hockey, camel-racing, game shooting and baseball, say, you should see that the chance of you taking up one rather than the other is not determined by your innate sportiness so much as by where you grow up and your social class. Likewise with your feelings about gender. You might have feminine tendencies, say, but how people express femininity varies from society to society.