Same-Sex Marriage

A blogger asks friends and strangers alike: “Please do not ask non-straight people when they first knew they were gay or bisexual.” It seems that many straight people consider those who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT) as “different.” Since many people think of gay individuals as somehow aberrant or out of the ordinary, many people then want to know the history of how that thing happened to them—how did they discover their “different” sexual identity?

In correspondence from 1935, the psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud responds to a mother who wrote to him with concerns about her son. The doctor noted that she did not mention she believed her son to be homosexual, but that he deduced this was her concern. He notes that homosexuality is not a condition of concern. The doctor is more concerned for the woman’s reticence to frankly discuss the matter.

Since sexuality is something that all people of the world have in common in one way or another, the question of how one person came to realize their sexual desires is not really a topic of polite inquiry. Realizing that other people have individual stories, and that those stories are theirs to share or not share as they wish, is part of respectful dialogue with those who are perceived as “different” from a perceived norm.

A Great Injustice to Persecute Homosexuality as a Crime

Freud responded to the mother who had concerns about her son: “Homosexuality is assuredly no advantage, but it is nothing to be ashamed of, no vice, no degradation; it cannot be classified as an illness; we consider it to be a variation of the sexual function,” Freud said. Freud counsels acceptance in all who sought his opinion regarding gay people.

The doctor was ahead of his time in many ways regarding human personality and tolerance. He saw gender preference as a social development that occurred in all human lives at some point, after beginning as bisexual in infancy. As such, LGBT identity is not a condition that needs “treatment” in Freud’s view. He did offer to help the son with analysis, if he would come to Vienna. Dr. Freud noted that “if he is unhappy, neurotic, torn by conflicts, inhibited in his social life, analysis may bring him harmony, peace of mind, full efficiency,” regardless of whether he remains a homosexual.

He counsels the mother to not be concerned about her son’s sexuality. “Many highly respectable individuals of ancient and modern times have been homosexuals, several of the greatest of men among them” (such as Plato, Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, etc.). In another example of thinking far ahead of his time, he notes, “it is a great injustice to persecute homosexuality as a crime, and a cruelty too.”

Don’t Bother to Ask: “When Did You Know?”

It is not uncommon for straight people to ask a gay person that they have just met, “When did you first know that you were gay?” While the inquiry may seem like a simple “getting to know you” subject, on reflection it is a demeaning and overly intrusive probing into private matters that are unique to the individual.

Pervasive heteronormativity in society leads many people to the misguided belief that LGBT identity develops in an odd or unusual way, and that there is a story to be told in the discovery. Whether true or not, it is really none of anyone’s business. Some people clearly know their sexual preference and identity at an early ago; others face confusion regarding feelings and emotions mixed with social mores and family matters. Either way, it is not a public matter unless the individual chooses to make it public.

More Alike Than Different

As people mature and learn more about other people, many come to realize that the similarities between people are greater than the differences. All people are born in the same basic way, and while people’s lives take very different paths depending on circumstances, all remain connected as children of this Earth and the universe that is home.