On Being Left Among the Right People

Years ago, when I was working at another hotel, I got into a conversation with a guest who had been with us for a few days. Previously I had mentioned in another conversation that I was gay, which seemed to bother him a bit. On this particular day, he decided to broach the subject again, and asked me, "So when did you convert to gayism?"

The question just struck me as funny, and I laughed and said, "I've never heard it put that way before." But I never gave him an actual answer.

Over the years, his question has stuck in my mind, and I've come up with several smart-ass answers:

"One day I woke up, looked in the mirror, and said to myself, 'I'm not wasting this on some chick!'"

"Convert to gayism? Why the hell would I want to do that?"

"Well let's see... I know it was before I converted to myopia-ism..."

"I'm not really sure. When did you convert to straightism?"

There were others, and all of them were meant to explain emphatically that I never converted to anything, while at the same time making fun of his question, but none of them conveyed the message as strongly as I would have liked. None of them adequately explained that I could no more convert to being gay or straight than I could convert to being right or left handed-- though one of the answers that I thought of was to hand him a pen and paper, notice which hand he took the pen in and ask, "When did you convert to right/left-handedness?"

The whole idea of comparing being gay to being left-handed intrigues me. After Sally Kern made some of her sillier statements to the press, I started noticing that one could substitute the word 'left-handed' for the word 'gay' into many of her statements just to see how silly they actually were, and the idea for this post started to grow in my brain. I've been thinking about it and discussing it with friends and co-workers (one of whom has started calling me "Lefty" even though I'm right handed.) And then a couple of days ago I found this paragraph in a New York Times article:

Compared with straight men, gay men appear to have a larger suprachiasmatic nucleus, a part of the brain that affects behavior, and some studies show most gay men have a larger isthmus of the corpus callosum -- which may also be true of left-handed people. And that's intriguing because gays are 39 percent more likely to be left-handed than straight people.

I liked reading that because it kind of underlined my idea. Here are some of my thoughts on the subject:

• One doesn't get to decide whether or not one is left-handed. As my co-worker Candy says, "You just have to play the hand you're dealt. (I'm not sure if she intended the pun.)
• Being left-handed is niether contagious nor a result of influence. You won't become left-handed by hanging around with left-handed people, nor will you become left-handed if your teacher is left-handed. If you are left-handed, it was decided long before you met any of these people.


• One starts using one's left hand predominantly long before one knows he is left handed. When I was in the first grade, Mrs Olbert explained how to properly hold a pencil when writing. She also explained that the left-handed students would be holding theirs a bit differently. Up to then I had no idea that there was such a thing as right or left handed, but I do know that I had always held my crayons in my right hand. I also knew nothing about same sex attraction until I was ten and one of the sixth graders said that I was a fag if I kissed my brother, but I had crushes on some of my male classmates, and was expressing curiosity about their bodies, from the age of six.
• Using the other hand doesn't change one's manual orientation. My best friend had a first grade teacher that believed that writing with the left hand was improper, and so he was taught to use his right hand. He still uses his right hand for writing out of habit, but he uses his left for everything else.
• The whole world is built for right handed people, and left-handers usually have to make some effort to adjust or find an item that fits their needs. The ignition switch in the car is on the right side of the steering wheel. The mouse on the computer is made to fit the right hand. The buttons on your digital camera are on the right side. Yes, one can buy left-handed scissors, and even Porsche and BMW are making cars with the ignition on the left side, but left-handed items are frequently hard to find, and usually more expensive. Straight people do not have to drive several states away just to find a valid marriage licence, just as right handers don't have to special order a can opener.

Now, of course there are a lot of differences, too.

• Nobody hates you for being left-handed. There's no one standing outside a military funeral with a sign saying that God hates left-handed people. Bullies at school don't taunt their victims by calling them "lefty."
• Similarly, there is no shame associated with being left-handed. Kids aren't killing themselves because they're afraid their parents might find out that they're left handed. They don't feel they need to hide their manual orientation from their peers.
• It doesn't make the news when some celebrity comes out as left-handed. The tabloids don't talk about left-handed scandals. It doesn't hurt someone's career if the public finds out that he's left-handed. A politician won't use his opponent's manual orientation in a negative campaign.
• There is no need for massive support rallies for left-handed people. There will probably never be a Left-handed Pride Parade. One's parents won't be joining PFL-H.
• Restaurant, hotels, and resorts don't advertize as "left-handed friendly."
  I also have doubts that there are left-handed bars, though I may be wrong. You don't see signs up in businesses saying "Left-handed owned and operated."

But most of all...

• No one complains about "special rights" when a left-hander wants a pair of scissors that work for him.
• No right hander complains that it is a violation of his civil rights to make left-handed scissors available.
• No one complains that providing left-handed scissors would change the definition of scissors.

Did you notice that all the ways in which being left-handed and being gay are different are in the ways other people see them? All the differences are merely social constructs, whereas all the ways they are the same have to do with intrinsic personal qualities.

And now all my answers to questions like the one above will be influenced by this line of thinking.