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| "I...am not left-handed!" |
As I begin 'practicing' with my left hand, I have noticed just how much the design of everyday products subtly favor the right-handed. Presumably actual left-handed people, who grow up with these inconveniences, adapt to them in time and seek out non-handed/left-handed alternatives. Freshly and artificially left-handed, though, I find myself struggling with scissors and fumbling with can openers constantly.
This will prove another interesting and challenging year (refer to the previous post for a recounting of my E-Prime project for 2011).
It occurred to me, in thinking about handedness, that it makes a decent analogy for sexual orientation--better, in a lot of ways, than the ethnicity parallel that so many LGBT activists prefer.
Humanity contains about the same percentage of non-right-handed people as LGBT people. Chirality, like sexual orientation, appears congenital, but science has not yet explained what determines either of them. One often cannot tell a person's handedness at first glance, and most right-handed people assume everyone else shares their hand dominance. Also, certain religious groups considered both left-handedness and homosexuality inherently evil.
Oh, did I use the past tense there?
Like every analogy, it breaks down at some point, but I had fun playing with the idea. Today, in the West, most people do not actively discriminate against left-handed people, nor assign any real significance to handedness at all. However, I doubt anyone came to the conclusion that left-handed people deserve the same rights as right-hand people because they cannot help it
Why, then do so many LGBT activists and allies cling to the 'born this way' argument? For those not familiar with the conceit, it pretty much explains itself: we should not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity because LGBT people came that way and cannot help it.
A corollary holds that the existence of homosexuality in the rest of the animal kingdom makes it 'natural', therefore we should not condemn it.
I do not take issue with the premises. Sexual orientation and gender identity do seem largely congenital and stable as far as we can tell, and animals do exhibit a great variety of sexual behaviors, including homosexuality. However, I take issue with the reasoning (or lack thereof), and object to the proliferation of such arguments in the societal dialog about LGBT issues.
We do not grant civil liberties to left-handed people because 'God made them that way', nor because variations in chirality exist in other species. We do it because we recognize that handedness (or sexual orientation, or gender identity, et al.) does not violate the rights of others in a free(ish) society, and thus has no bearing on the worthiness of an individual to receive those same rights.
It does not make any difference whether a person can change his homosexuality or his left-handedness. I say this as someone who has arguably chosen both, and I defy anyone to tell me I ought to do otherwise. 'Born this way' might make a catchy refrain in a pop song, but never mistake it for a sound argument against discrimination.
Good luck! Even though I am naturally left handed, I use my right hand for manythings simply because it's easier to deal with tools designed for right handers with my off hand than it is to use a right handed tool with my left hand. Many things which are "right handed" are actually both handed, so I don't get too excited about left handed verions, such as guitars and baseball bats.
ReplyDelete@azmytheconomics Thanks! I think I will need it. If the only tool I can find for a job has a specifically right-handed design, and I cannot use it safely or comfortably with the left, then I will not force it. To the extent that I can, however, I will now try to find non-handed tools.
ReplyDeleteLeft-handed baseball bats. Hah!