Why I hope being queer is a choice

First, I'd like to call attention to Greta Christina's excellent article about whether being queer is a choice, and why "...for any practical, political, social, or moral purposes, it absolutely doesn't matter".

While I devoutly wish it didn't matter, I think it does, for several reasons.

If being queer isn't a choice, then we will "have" to be given rights in the interest of nondiscrimination, but the overall attitude of society won't change, at least not very quickly. Especially if the biological aspect of being queer is highlighted by the queer community and used as a reason why we deserve equal rights, it will be seen as something shameful, and while we will have secured legal rights, I think it could well help uphold the general kyriarchal attitude society has towards sex and relationships.

If the queer community chooses to use "we're born this way" as a rallying point and the foundation of their argument for equal rights, it will leave bisexuals/pansexuals/omnisexuals/whatever-you-want-to-call-them-sexuals in the dust. Again. Because we do have a choice. We can choose to pursue conventionally appropriate relationships with their nice dollop of privilege, or we can choose to pursue queer relationships. So if queers secure rights because we "can't help it", what will happen to all of the people who are somewhere in between? And I'm speaking not only of bisexuals, who have the choice of pursuing socially sanctioned relationships, but also of people who look at tickboxes marked M and F and think it quite silly but don't experience gender dysphoria "good" enough for society to think them anything but confused at best, malicious and attention seeking at worst, or who otherwise are seen as having a choice about their identity.

Perhaps, even if we end up discovering that being queer is a choice, the community will have the foresight to not use it as the reason for deserving to be treated equally, and make it our business to ensure that anyone can love whomever they wish, however they wish, as long as it is done so in a consensual and humane way. But I'm not sure I have that much faith in us. So for now, I'm going to hope that we're forced into it. That we do have a choice in being queer, and therefore assert the right for us to do so regardless of biological imperative.