Imp

Owner of the Howl website

Nickname: Dreamer

4/10/01: Hey, I've been largely inactive (actually that's a lie—I've been totally inactive) on this list since I joined a couple months or so ago. Anyway, since I met a few of you this weekend in Gayle's chatroom party I figured it's about time I introduce myself to everyone else I haven’t encountered yet. I'm 16, female, and Gayle sent in to the list a sort of structure for introduction ages ago which I saved, so I'm going to work through that now, for lack of any better ideas.

Why did you join this list?

I stumbled across queerbychoice.com after I read a message Gayle left on a newsgroup criticising the owner of the website for assuming one couldn't choose to be queer. I was actually fascinated by the site, I don't think I've ever heard anyone saying they chose to be queer before but the idea seemed to make a lot of sense.

Did you consciously choose to be queer?

I don't think so

Or did you choose it indirectly as in, for example, maybe you didn't really think of queerness as something that could be chosen but you were making choices about your individual actions and now in retrospect you think that those choices also add up to choosing to be queer?

I've thought about this and there's some truth in it. I mean, I've known for ages that I liked women but I always thought, "Nah, I'm not gay". This seemed to make sense at the time.

Was there ever a time when you weren't queer? If so, would you say you were hetero at that time? Or just sort of "not yet oriented," prepubescent, et cetera?

I don't know . . . I wasn't always attracted to the same sex, but I was never crazy over the opposite sex so maybe the alternative never really occurred to me in a serious way.

Do you believe there's such a thing as a "gay gene"?

I don't know a whole lot about this, but I think there probably is . . . in some form. But I don't believe all queers are determined at birth.

Do you believe you personally have the "gay gene"?

I have absolutely no idea. Although my sister does claim that she knew I was gay when I was six or something, years before I had the slightest idea. I should point out that my sister is remarkably perceptive, so maybe I do. I don’t know to be honest.

Anything else interesting you feel like telling us about yourself?

I hate that—now I feel pressure to make myself sound interesting. Nah, I'll just shut up before this e-mail reaches epic proportions.

-Dreamer

5/15/01: For my own part I honestly couldn't tell you if I was always gay. I had feelings for the same sex for about two years (as far as I can remember, maybe it was more :p) but for some reason it never really occurred to me that I was gay. That sounds so dumb but it literally never really occurred to me, I thought it was just a personality quirk. Ok, that does sound stupid. Anyway, my point was that it wasn't a choice, so I'm interested to know how other people's "conversions" went, or if anyone else is having trouble with the word "choice".

11/14/01: There was a show on Channel 4 tonight (British TV), just a five-minute one, about these identical twins who were both lesbians. The show was demonstrating that these women believed they had been born gay and that it was in their genes since they both turned out the same. I was thinking, surely if your identical twin announces she's gay...I mean mightn't it rub off on you somehow? That sounds a bit lame, but there are so many other ways in which identical twins are similar which are not due to genes...but I really don't know that much about it. I just thought I'd share it with you all.

_Imp

11/25/01: I think Ellen DeGeneres made me gay, I used to be so hooked on Ellen when I was like 12. I remember Channel 4 did this big Coming Out night when Ellen came out and I remember lying on the couch in my uncle's second living room watching it while everyone else played poker in the first living room (my uncle has a lot of money) and thinking, "Hey that looks like fun."

Imp

http://www.livejournal.com/users/aliendreamer/

http://howl.envy.nu/

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