Friday, February 17, 2012

Immutable

I have spent the last two months using my non-dominant left hand to perform typically dominant-handed tasks (see Born Sinister for details). It has proven neither as easy as I hoped, nor as difficult as I feared. I am not by any means ambidextrous, and even if long practice makes me proficient in using my left hand, science says I cannot change my chirality.

At least not yet! Perhaps someday a procedure will exist that can make me left-handed, or ambidextrous. Would I seek out such a procedure? It depends on a lot of factors, but though I find the idea of ambidexterity appealing, it is not likely to be a high priority for me. I would probably do it if the expense (to finance and health) were not prohibitive.

If I were left-handed, the inconvenience of operating in a world designed for right-handed people might make the prospect of changing handedness more compelling. If I were a left-handed person living a century ago in a predominantly Christian society, I would probably feel a great deal of pressure to cease relying on the 'devil's hand'.

We might argue until we turned blue which of the above are 'good' reasons for wanting to change handedness, but I suspect we can mostly agree that such a (hypothetical) procedure is not unethical in and of itself. At various points in history, left-handed people have been pressured by society to change; that was wrong, regardless of whether it was possible.  However, there is nothing wrong with a left-hander wanting to be right-handed, or vice versa, or with either wanting to become ambidextrous.

Ah-ha! Now the ring's on the other hand! Or something...
Some of you have already figured out what I am getting at, especially if you know I like to use handedness as an analogy for sexual orientation.

I consider 'reparative therapy' and other pseudo-scientific 'cures' for homosexuality comparable to shaming or forcing a left-handed person to use his right hand. My aunt and countless other left-handed children of her generation have demonstrated the ineffectiveness of such measures. No sound medical procedure exists for changing either chirality or sexual orientation.

However, that does not mean it is not possible. If a safe and effective procedure existed to change sexual orientation, I would not deem a voluntary application of it any more unethical in and of itself than hypothetically changing handedness. Note the key parts of that statement: 'voluntary' and 'in and of itself'. Also note that I am not, in fact, advocating the pursuit of such a procedure. I just want honest discourse about the issue, which has been politicized very nearly beyond the reach of science and reason.

We still live in a society that denigrates sexual minorities, though that attitude has changed much over the last few decades. Because of the LGBT community's harrowing experiences with forced conversion efforts, the immutability of sexual orientation has become a central theme in the modern gay rights movement. The slogan 'born this way' and its corollaries stem from the conceit that sexual minorities' rights should be respected because they 'cannot help it'. Logical problems aside, I feel that this is a flawed argument because we do not actually know that sexual orientation is immutable.

Even if we banned research into changing sexual orientation, our expanding knowledge of human sexuality in general may someday put such procedures within reach of those willing to perform them illegally. If we are lucky, none of that will come to pass (and it may never come to pass, for that matter) until sexual orientation has become as much of a non-issue as handedness is now.

I hope to see a future where sexual orientation, like handedness, is considered a value-neutral variation. If, in that future, methods exist to alter sexual orientation and/or handedness, I can imagine any number of practical reasons why people would seek out such procedures. I do not mean to start saving up for ambidexterity just yet--but maybe someday.

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