Voice(s) of Hope

This week in class we talked about gender roles and same-sex attraction.

I know that this is a pretty touchy subject and hope not to offend. I know I have the tendency to talk about homosexuality as an unwanted trait and that is simply due to the fact that the people I have really talked to about it are those who didn’t want to be homosexual and their experiences overcoming it.

There has been a big debate about whether homosexuality can be something you are born with. For our class we read an article that discussed many of the studies done to see if there could be an identifiable gene related to the tendency of having same-sex attraction. Although there were some correlations many of the studies done had multiple variables making it hard to determine how accurate the results were. I imagine it would be frustrating for those who have same sex attraction to be told it was their choice when some truly never wanted it in the first place.

An interesting relationship has been found that those who are homosexual tend to have had experiences being abused, abandoned (typically by a father figure), or bullied. Keeping this in mind and thinking back to lectures on Nature vs. Nurture it makes sense to me that there is an element of both. That we could have genetic tendency that are brought out depending on our circumstances (such as trauma)

I relate it to my anxiety (Although I know they are different). I don’t doubt that there was probably an innate factor in my genetics that made me more susceptible to anxiety. However, I also don’t doubt that my early exposure to death of loved ones increased my anxiety and brought it out as bigger attribute in my personality. I wouldn’t have chosen to live with anxiety. It feels like it is innate. But, just because something is innate doesn’t mean that we have to live with it if we don’t want to.

More than anything the take away for me is that I hope people know the strong relationship between same-sex attraction and traumatic/abusive experiences. It puts a different light on the whole situation when we realize that some of these people have been seriously hurt in their lives. Whether they choose to live out their homosexuality or not I hope we all can treat them with the love deserve.

(I have met a few of these people and many with similar stories to these when I attended the "Reconciling Faith and Feelings Conference in Provo 2013. I have found their experiences to be enlightening and would highly recommend listening to them… http://ldsvoicesofhope.org/voices.php)