My freshman year of college was both great and terrifying. A key part of that was because it was the year I came out as Bi. I was lucky to be met with a ton of acceptance and love from my family and friends both at home and at UW. However, it still wasn’t easy. In the period shortly before and after I came out, I was left with an uneasiness about my sexuality. I went through cycles where I felt I wasn’t gay enough to come out, that I was making it all up for attention or that I didn’t deserve to identify with the LGBT community. That same year though I found comfort in an odd source, a recorded university lecture. The lecture was a talk about the biology of sex and gender. It discussed many things like intersex conditions, and studies on gender expression in very young children. But what stood out most to me was a rather short section about sheep, where the professor said around 8% of sheep exhibit homosexual behavior. In very unscientific sensational terms: 8% of sheep are gay! This fact amazed and fascinated me and I immediately proceeded (as the nerdy person I am) to do more research on this. I found that not only were sheep gay, but so were dolphins, apes, geese, and so many other species. I had always known I wanted to do research studying animals after college, but these facts pointed me to my true passion. I wanted to study this behavior, and more broadly I wanted to examine sex and gender In the animal kingdom.
It is not lost on me that my coming out and desired field of research are connected. A big part of my desire to do that research was the desire to prove that my own sexuality is not the unnatural abomination some claim. How could it be when it existed in several different species across the natural world? If I do this research I thought I could quiet those negative voices in my head, that say I am not gay enough, because I would prove that my sexuality is “correct,” that it’s the natural biological sexuality. But why does that matter? Why does it matter whether my sexuality is natural or not? Why does my legitimacy as a person who identifies as bisexual rely on that? I did not think to ask these questions until I began to study queer theory. This motivation for research is essentially a motivation to prove bisexuality is the “real normal.” A motivation which queer theory challenges.
Michel Foucault would argue that I am faced with this motivation for research because I live in a society that has a normal sexuality. There is an existing narrative in our society that says, there is a correct and normal sexuality. This narrative of their being a normal sexuality is so prevalent, that even when I found myself outside of it I couldn’t remove myself from the concept that there was a normal to begin with. Queer theory rather doing what I was and changing the idea of normal to be more inclusive, tries to erase the concept of normal all together. There is no normal sexuality or gender. We all construct both of these things everyday based on so many factors of our lives, culture, and time we live in.
Studying queer theory hasn’t made me change my mind about what I want to study. I am still fascinated by and what to do research about queerness in the animal kingdom. However, it did make me rethink why I wanted to do this. It brought to my attention that I wasn’t in this for a good reason. I can’t rely on science or anything else to validate my identity, that can only be done by me. I still think this research will be beneficial as it shows how diverse sexuality exists and is important to all life.
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