You don’t need me to tell you that Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way” has been an anthem for the LGBTQIA+ community since its 2011 release. Many queer folks have long found comfort and validity in this notion that their sexual identity was baked in since conception, and who can blame them? When I was coming to understand my own bisexuality in high school, I needed that anchor. After all, if I was indeed “born this way,” no one could challenge my identity. That was important in a time when much of my self-concept felt uncertain.

Nature or Nurture?

Here’s the thing, though: when we claim this innate, immutable orientation, we are technically subscribing to a kind of biological essentialism, a belief in an unshakeable genetic destiny. That doesn’t necessarily mean the “born this way” narrative is harmful, but we should ask ourselves what implications that has for the rest of our worldview. There’s a 2016 study by Patrick Grzanka and colleagues that illustrates this point. These researchers surveyed nearly 700 people on their beliefs about essentialism in sexual orientation and found that when people reported essentialist views across multiple dimensions, they displayed much more homophobia compared to people who only believed sexual orientation was innate. In other words, although people who support LGBTQIA+ folks often believe the specific, “born this way” form of essentialism, when those beliefs about biological destiny spread into the rest of someone’s perspective they may correspond with more negative attitudes toward queer people. This suggests that adopting any kind of biological essentialism is playing with ideological fire; a little bit might be harmless, or even helpful for the average person, but the risks increase dramatically if it spreads to the rest of our worldview.

So, am I suggesting that sexuality is merely a product of our environment? Not at all. In the nature vs. nurture debate, many queer people have flocked to the nature side for good reason. Homophobic people have historically claimed that a nurture-based identity is a convertible one, and if queerness was solely determined by external factors, then they would probably be right. Instead, we lack evidence that sexual orientation conversion therapy works, and we furthermore know that it can cause significant harm (Przeworski et al., 2021). However, while I would never endorse efforts to change someone’s sexual identity, there is some evidence that attraction may shift on its own across someone’s lifetime. We call this “sexual fluidity,” and according to one study over half of young queer people may experience this kind of ebb and flow in their attractions (Katz-Wise, 2015). While this does not mean anyone can control or actively change their sexuality, it does suggest that attraction is not as set in stone as biological essentialism would have us believe.

Nature and Nurture

So, neither nature nor nurture gives us the full story of sexual orientation. Plus, an overemphasis of the role of either biology or environment in sexuality often leads to harmful beliefs about queer folks. The clear path forward accepts the combined roles of nature and nurture in sexuality. Granted, in doing this we give up the clear validation of the “born this way” perspective. However, I’m not convinced that narrative helps us much in the first place. When biological essentialism is the validating foundation for sexual identity, then the common experience of sexual fluidity becomes a threat. The large percentage of queer folks who report a history of sexual fluidity are incentivized to ignore that part of themselves since it challenges the immutability that seems so important to a “born this way” sexuality. A more helpful approach to validating sexual identity would accommodate this common experience. So how can we envision this more open and empowering understanding of sexual identity?

Regardless of nature and nurture, we ultimately don’t know why any one person is in the LGBTQIA+ community; there is no assessment that could chart the precise factors that make anyone straight or queer. No matter how many objective lines we try to draw around various labels, each person determines their own sexual identity simply by choosing the word that feels right to them, and the intuitive loving response is to believe and respect them. In an ideal world, queer folks would not have to make appeals to nature, nurture, or anything else to gain confidence and dignity. To my mind, this seems like the best solution; let’s keep the nature/nurture question open and allow everyone to explore their own sexuality without needing to find the “final answer” for how they identify. For some people, their sexual orientation may still feel like a fixed point, and others may find that sexual fluidity occurs throughout their life. Either way, they deserve to find a welcoming community with empathetic people.

Reach Out

If I could offer one final thought for young queer people, including my own teenaged self, it would be that you have nothing to prove. There is no test you must pass to “validate” your identity, and whether you have felt different since birth or have only just started feeling disconnected from heterosexuality, you get to decide what to call yourself. You deserve love and respect for who you are and who you want to be.

I remember there was a time where I would have given anything to just sit with someone who knew what I was going through, and any one of us mental health professionals would love to be that person for you.

If you know what it’s like to question your own identity and want someone to look for answers with you, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me or any of the other therapists here at Optimum Joy. You can read more about me and my counseling style on my bio page, and feel free to complete our intake form to get started today!