identity and behavior

[eirias]

If you, like me, follow the debates about gays and civil rights, you have probably heard the following argument:

Gay rights supporter: This is just like the civil rights struggle for blacks!
Member of the black community: No it isn't -- your identity is a behavior and one you can hide -- we can't stop being black!

I think both parties are right here, actually. I think the gay rights supporters are right in that the existing structures are obviously unjust and are maintained at least in part because people who got a good spot in the hierarchy don't like people trying to butt in line. This is where they are similar.

But I think the black community is right in that there is some fuzzy space between being a thing and doing a thing. The simplistic way it's often put, between unchanging identity (on the black hand) and a chosen lifestyle (on the gay hand), is misleading. "Being black" isn't just about skin color: like any community, there are ways-of-behaving that carry meaning for group membership, too. And conversely, "the gay lifestyle" isn't something most people choose at random out of a catalog, but falls out of inclinations that are themselves very difficult to change. (Witness the relatively low success rates of reparative therapy even among the extremely motivated.) Nevertheless, I'm not convinced that blackness is the neatest parallel to gayness.

So lately I have been pondering a different parallel: fatness. Here's what I think they have in common.

Both fatness and gayness result from a very deep biological urge that is calibrated to make you want something different from what is considered normative. In the case of gayness, you want to have sex with people of the same sex; in the case of fatness, you want more calories than you will actually burn. While it is popular to talk about self-control, I think most people who are not fat probably don't have to exercise much self-control to eat the amount that they do: their satiety mechanisms very likely kick in at an earlier point and make the idea of more food unappealing. I think this compares rather well with gay sex, a behavior most people avoid chiefly by not being very interested in it in the first place.

This leads well to the next point: moral panics. Both fatness and gayness have inspired an awful lot of tsk-tsking in their day, sometimes at fever-pitch. Sometimes it is couched in moral terms, sometimes in public health terms -- but in both cases I am pretty convinced it is not actually about health. Not that you don't see different health risks faced by (some) gay individuals and (some) fat individuals. It's just that that's not what the conversation is really about. Underneath the moralizing, it's really about class; and disgust; and sex. And I don't have a lot of patience for that.

Finally, the most important commonality here: Even if there were solid scientific consensus that These People Must Change And Here's Why, solid science doesn't have a hell of a lot to offer either group. Reparative therapy, as I note above, has pretty low success rates... but in my understanding, dieting is even worse, if getting to "normal" is the goal. Yeah, in the short term you can abstain from sex or follow a calorie-limiting diet, and maybe you'll be "less gay" in some sense, and you'll probably lose some weight. We know the behaviors to target, in other words. But we don't know how to change the thing beneath the behaviors, the thing that made you gay or fat in the first place, some mix of genes and experiences and the choice landscape you live in. And without changing that, after the intervention is over, you're likely to revert to doing what comes naturally. So in both cases, the question emerges: Even if you're convinced that change is a good thing here (and, I should note, I'm not), are such modest changes worth the cost of shaming people on purpose?

I'm sure there are also a lot of ways that the two things are not parallel. (Feel free to point them out to me.) Still, the next time I hear someone bemoaning Fat America, I'm going to listen through my new gay filter and see what the conversation sounds like. It might be instructive.

Comments

[leora.livejournal.com]

Also, even if you maintain the diet that keeps you thinner, you are probably exerting more effort and undergoing more stress to maintain that weight than someone who simply is thin. This means that you are going to be adding health risks from the stress that a naturally thin person doesn't have. Plus, if you're just a bit overweight, you are almost certainly going to have the best odds on your life span if you live that way and not stress about it. (Being slightly overweight is actually the best category for long lifespan. Being slightly underweight is both good and bad, the people who are slightly underweight will be the category that has people living the longest, but on average they'll die younger because they have less resistance if any major health problem hits them. Being slightly underweight is basically a bit like a double or nothing gamble on your lifespan).

Not that any of that really matters. I think your point is fairly accurate. I usually think about it in terms of visible versus invisible disabilities. Both make you a minority. Both face problems and issues of discrimination, but they face different ones.

Passing is interesting. Having a choice to pass is interesting.

However, there is one other huge difference between being gay and being black. Being black will almost never get you kicked out of your own family. It will almost never have you rejected by your own parents or tossed out as a teenager. Being black runs in the family, so while the rest of the world may be against you, your family will likely be on your side. At worst, if your parents are still alive, if they are mixed race then maybe the rest of your family hates you, but they should accept you.

Gay people can't count on that. Gay people are one of the few minorities that face a real risk of being cast out of their own families, even before adulthood. Gay people are one of the few groups that face a real risk of being abused by their family because they are gay (sure some people are abused for no reason at all, but that's a different issue).

That's a pretty major downside that goes with the ability to pass.

But then, it's not a competition of who faces the worst discrimination. I just wish people wouldn't try to minimize the discrimination just because a gay person might be able to pass. Nor do I wish to minimize the discrimination a black person may face, just because his/her parents probably will not be the source.

[eirias.livejournal.com]

That is a really excellent point. Aspirational comparisons are very important indeed.

I understand your annoyance at hearing things like "don't let teh gayz touch my history" and sympathize with it. I have mostly tried to stay out of it because it isn't ~my~ history on either count, except as I'm an American and care about things like rights. But that isn't usually what those conversations are about....

[eirias.livejournal.com]

However, there is one other huge difference between being gay and being black. Being black will almost never get you kicked out of your own family.

Excellent point. What it buys you depends on what sort of family structure you're born into, but it is unquestionably better to have it than not to.

[leora.livejournal.com]

*nods* Although it's really variable. Because being Black doesn't ensure you won't face discrimination from your family, especially if your family is mixed race. You just probably won't have it from your parents. (Although if you're mixed race and your mother was raped or had consensual sex and then the father abandoned her I wouldn't give you happy odds on the racial aspect not becoming an issue). And some homosexuals will be born into families that don't consider it an issue or a problem.

But this is part of why you can't make comparisons. We know bigotry exists, but each individual's experience of bigotry will vary a lot.

Certainly the extent to which I and other females have experienced sexism and the problems it has caused or not caused in our lives varies widely.

I think one problem that comes up is people tend to think of a major case of bigotry of one form and compare it to a minor case of bigotry of another form. You can have major or minor examples of bigotry for any group. And you can have members of any group who don't view bigotry against their group as a big deal because it never was for them and other members with horrifying stories.

But I do think you have a point with the way people view it as a moral issue and have a degree of disgust for both homosexuals and overweight people. Whereas most people (in the US at least) will not try to blame or show disgust at a black person or a disabled person for being black or disabled. (Although that didn't used to be the case for disability and still likely isn't in many places, since it is often seen as offensive to allow others to see you if you are disabled and many people have had the attitude that people with disabilities should hide themselves away from "normal" people.) I do wonder if it's more a matter of where along the line of progress toward acceptance the society is. If perhaps Black people were treated this way and now they are more accepted, so they are not viewed with disgust. There were stories of things like not letting Black people use a cup of a white person's because it would somehow magically contaminate the cup even after you washed it.

[marcusmarcusrc.livejournal.com]

One difference: I'd be willing to support policies designed to decrease obesity rates where I wouldn't be okay with policies designed to decrease gayness rates (if such a thing were even possible). The kind of policies I'm thinking of include things like healthy school lunches, eliminating subsidies that encourage production of high-fructose corn syrup and other cheap unhealthy food, encouraging the production and easy availability of healthy food that would be less expensive, and, of course, my favorite, a creating a less car-dependent society where walking is more encouraged.

I wonder how many separated twin studies have been done on obesity rates. My uneducated guess is that obesity results from a combination of genetics and environment, such that some people won't gain weight regardless, some will gain weight as long as food is present, but a decent proportion are in the category where early-childhood experiences will determine their adult body type. My only evidence is a) the fact that obesity rates (and associated issues like diabetes) used to be lower in the US, and I don't believe it is just due to people being able to afford less food, and b) the difference in obesity rates between different industrialized nations.

[ragnvaeig.livejournal.com]

Does the analogy fit with those who are committed to a lifestyle that encourages fitness, even when they'd otherwise be overweight? I'm very conscientious of the web of choices I make about what I eat and how many kcal I burn so I don't follow the body type on my mother's side of the family. I really can't say I make a conscious set of lifestyle choices about the gender to whom I'm attracted.

Part I

[smarriveurr.livejournal.com]

I think it's still a bit off to talk about "being a thing" vs "doing a thing." While it's the behavior associated with homosexuality that people notice, it's the attraction that defines being homosexual - and that's something I don't believe you can really change, thus I tend to think of sexuality as something you are. It may evolve in your lifetime, and you may discover more about it, but it's intrinsic to your nature when all is said and done. The differences between the two civil rights struggles, to me, are in visibility and recognition and safe spaces.

(Note up front: I've had this same discussion with pagans talking about their minority status/otherness, which is where most of my thought on the topic originates. I don't have the experience of being queer, but I do have the experience of being part of an invisible minority while still being an assumed a member of the privileged class.)

If you're black (or any other racial minority, for that matter), everyone who sees you knows it. You don't have the privilege of "playing down" that part of your identity for acceptance - you are black 24/7 (except perhaps over the internet), and you can't avoid the reactions. If you're queer, and not a stereotype of the lifestyle, you don't have to "wear your otherness" (so to speak) in every encounter. It informs your decisions, but not the decisions others make about you.

That's simultaneously good and bad. It means that you can try to "pass" in a homophobic atmosphere, you can just deal with passive as opposed to active prejudice, which can be beneficial. It also means that there's no sense of your prevalence in the population unless you choose to wear your otherness on your sleeve, which opens you up to accusations of "flaunting". The public image of that part of your identity is informed primarily by those who already fit the stereotypical mold, because they are the visible aspect of the minority. Unless you make an issue of it, most of the people you meet will never know you're "like that", and if you do make an issue of it, you're seen as over-aggressive.

Likewise, if you're black, latino, or otherwise part of a racial minority, you can immediately see when you're in the company of fellow members of your group. You can be fairly sure that you can approach X person in a relative safe zone, because you have a shared experience, and you won't be rebuffed or attacked. You can take comfort in seeing other members of your group regularly, and occasionally have the solidarity of knowing you're not alone even in a crowd of strangers.

Not so when you're gay. Again, with the visibility issue, you might never know who around you is "safe" to talk with openly, without a lot of careful and exhausting verbal probing, etc. You don't know that if someone starts pulling homophobic prick bullshit and getting aggressive, there are witnesses who might stand up for you, or to whom, you can look for protection. You don't have that solidarity on the same level.

Likewise, as mentioned above, if you're black, you were born black, and probably raised by black parents, who have no objection to your being black. You don't have to worry about explaining to your parents that, after a lot of soul searching, you've decided you're black, and you don't have to worry about their reaction to your black friends and/or lovers who act as your circle of support. You don't have to worry about how to break it to a long-time friend that you're black, or how they'll react. You don't have to worry that someone you've known a long time will "find out" you're black and explode. That factor of your relationship is right up-front, generally can't be missed, and the dynamic isn't going to change, so you're not under any pressure to hide that part of who you are, or get it into the open early, etc. If someone is uncomfortable with black people, they're most likely just not going to be very involved in your life. There's immediate recognition of your status as an ethnic minority in a way there isn't for homosexuality.

(cont. on reply to this comment.)

Part II

[smarriveurr.livejournal.com]

(continued from above)

Further, if you're straight and black, you know you can approach another black person, at least, and let them know you're interested in them, and they're not going to react in fear or aggression. Again, there's still interracial complications, and hitting on a white woman as a black man still has risks, but in general, you need little more than quick visual confirmation to say "We're both [race], so I won't risk getting beat up, run out, or shunned just for offering to buy him/her a drink." The only way to have that kind of safety, if you're queer, is to only approach people in settings with clear "queer markers", where you know that, even if they're not interested, they're not homophobic. You need a safe zone, you can't (as easily) just chat someone up at the grocery store or a random party.

Naturally, I'm coming at all of this from the outside, and my queer friends can and should correct me, but those are the major splits I see. The black community is right, in that the struggle isn't the same - but the queer community is right, in that they're fighting the same fundamental iniquities. There are plenty of parallels, and to say they're not at all the same is as disingenuous as saying they're exactly the same.

Speaking as a fat person, I'd say the black parallel is at least as fair as the one you're drawing. The simple fact is, I've been losing weight accidentally since I moved last year, without making any conscious choice to do so, and I could lose more with minor alterations. It's not nearly as significant a part of my identity as the gender to which I'm attracted, and changing it wouldn't impact my life nearly so severely. To add a further complication - overweight is something I happen to be, not so much something I am. I don't "own" it, as an identifier, so to speak.

[eirias.livejournal.com]

The thing is, you don't actually know what kind of body you'd have if you didn't make those choices. I strongly suspect that your natural satiety point is somewhere near what you choose to do. You might not look the way you do now, but I doubt you'd have a BMI of 40.

I mean -- to get what I'm saying, think about how much you would have to eat to get to that BMI anytime soon. Does it really sound tempting? It doesn't to me and that's where I think the analogy comes in. We make our choices out of a set of possibilities that is limited by what sounds appealing in the first place.

[ragnvaeig.livejournal.com]

I might be more motivated by negative consequences, i.e. "I don't want to look like my mother."

[cognative.livejournal.com]

No, it's not exactly the same. There are some similarities, some differences. Most that I can think of off hand have been noted. Another thing is that, IMO, black people are sensitive about ownership. Given the long history of things being "stolen" from them by the dominate group (read: white people). Not saying it's a good response, but I think that's part of what's going on.


"the gay lifestyle" isn't something most people choose at random out of a catalog

They have a great spread on page 6.

[ukelele.livejournal.com]

My mom and her identical twin -- of course not separated at birth, although in very different environments for the last 40+ years -- will both tell you that the other twin is the thinner one ;). I, personally, can't detect a whole lot of difference in weight, although it is slightly differently distributed -- but I think only because my mom had a kid, and my aunt did not.

Their metabolic genes, by the way? Clearly did not get passed on to me :P. Harrumph.

I have nothing useful to contribute

[cynic51.livejournal.com]

so here is a random crude joke, courtesy of my fabulous gay former roommate:

Q: Why is it harder to be gay than it is to be black?
A: If you're black, you don't have to tell your parents.

Something at the back end of my end says there's a problem with the fat analogy. That's speaking as a fat guy (45+ too much, depending on the chart). But it's eluding me at the moment.

[rms10.livejournal.com]

I strongly suspect that your natural satiety point is somewhere near what you choose to do. You might not look the way you do now, but I doubt you'd have a BMI of 40.

I think this is probably true for most people. My anecdotal experience is that prior to pregnancy, my weight was stable for about six or seven years, with no effort from me. There were some periods in there where I was extremely fit and exercising frequently, and others where I was a total sloth and embarrassingly out of shape. My clothing size even slightly changed, as my level of toning changed. But my weight stayed the same throughout all that, because the more I exercised the more I ate.

Re: Part II

[eirias.livejournal.com]

I think you're on target with exploring the similarities and differences between gayness and blackness.

WRT my own comparison, two things:

1. In my understanding, until fairly recently in history, "gay" wasn't a thing you could be, either.

2. You might have a pretty different orientation to weight-and-identity if you were female. Which is to say, other people might have a pretty different orientation to your weight and your identity, if you were female.

[eirias.livejournal.com]

and, of course, my favorite, a creating a less car-dependent society where walking is more encouraged.

My personal predilections being what they are, one could make up virtually any justification for this and I would support it :).

About the variance in obesity rates, yeah, for sure something is going on and it'd be nice to know what that is. But I think there is still an annoying and important question: is it really possible, in the long run, to turn fat people into thin people? If it is I don't think we've found the way, or else we'd see a lot fewer fat people. It doesn't *benefit* anyone here to be fat. It's just very, very hard to act counter to one's biological imperatives over a span of years. (And by biological, I don't only mean genetic. Ingrained experience is biology too!)

[eirias.livejournal.com]

They have a great spread on page 6.

*snerk* You said... uhh... nevermind.

[razberriswirl.livejournal.com]

My only addition to any of this is that if you are white and fat and/or queer you still have white privilege...which may not buy you familial happiness, but will buy you a whole lot more.

www.case.edu/president/aaction/UnpackingTheKnapsack.pdf

[eirias.livejournal.com]

*lol* I love that you linked to a copy of that hosted by my alma mater! Where, as it happens, I knew of one black person and two gay people in the student body.

[paperkingdoms]

I'd like to see all of those things encouraged because we like everyone to be healthy. I'd also like to see it separated from a weight-loss driven goal. (1) None of these things have been demonstrated to result in sustainable long-term weight loss for a large portion of any population. (2) While there is some degree of correlation for some people, there are plenty of very healthy and active fat people out there and plenty of skinny people who can't climb stairs without wheezing.

And making unattainable goals [sustained long-term weight loss] the *reason* for people to engage in activities doesn't help anyone. Helping to people to find ways to feed themselves and move their bodies that make their bodies feel better is an excellent goal.

[rms10.livejournal.com]

But I think there is still an annoying and important question: is it really possible, in the long run, to turn fat people into thin people? If it is I don't think we've found the way, or else we'd see a lot fewer fat people.

At the same time, obesity rates range vary by geography, and possibly have been varying by time. So it might be possible. (The caveat being that some low obesity rates might just have been due to malnutrition, of course, in which case the overall increase in obesity rates is a good thing.)

[rms10.livejournal.com]

There are definitely parallels between the gay rights movement and the civil rights movement, but that's because there are parallels between all rights movements.

I have been trying to avoid "people don't choose to be gay, so that's why they deserve equal rights" argument. What does it matter what two consenting adults do, and why they do it? (Plus, then there are still counter-arguments that gays shouldn't "act on it", or that bisexuals should stick to the opposite sex, etc.)

And I'm not sure if my thinking is internally consistent, but I've lost what little patience I had for religious objections to homosexuality and/or gay marriage. People don't object to those things because they have a strong religious conviction -- they object because they have chosen a belief system that condemns it.

[leora.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, certainly. And being in multiple minorities can be a lot harder than being in either. Just as many people get incredibly frustrated when supporting one anti-bigotry cause and finding that the members of their own cause don't care about helping with another equality issue.

And the experience of being queer is likely different depending on your race, your sex, and various other factors.

Lots of people are in some minority group and also in some privileged group. In fact, likely most people. It's very hard to fall into an unprivileged status on every aspect.

[leora.livejournal.com]

This!

I support changes for health benefits. I do not want them as weight loss goals.

On a side note, while there are many fairly obvious things that people tend to think of that seem to relate to the increased weight of the population (like increased use of high fructose corn syrup), there is some pretty good evidence that sleep deprivation encourages weight gain. There is pretty strong evidence that Americans have been getting less sleep than they used to. There is tons of evidence that getting good sleep is better for overall health.

I'd really love for us to try to make cultural changes that encourage people sleeping more. It's one of my pet hopes for our culture. Along with the related desire to start high school later in the day since it was discovered that average teenagers are biologically driven to stay up later and go to sleep later and that making school start later seems to lead to, at minimum, fewer teen car accidents. It likely also increases the ability to pay attention to school and may help general health. My ninth grade journal got lost in a cream of broccoli soup accident (no way to salvage paper from that), but I remember re-reading it a bit before that. I had thought I was interesting, but actually a good portion of it was just made up of me talking about how exhausted I was. I know I was an extreme case, but there are lots of exhausted teens out there and that does take a toll on their health.

[eirias.livejournal.com]

At the same time, obesity rates range vary by geography, and possibly have been varying by time. So it might be possible.

I think you're conflating two questions -- "what causes obesity?" and "what can change obesity?" There are likely to be environmental contributors, sure; but just as you can't easily take a typical adult Japanese man and teach him to say "right" and "light" like we do, with people who are already obese, you may not be able to go in the other direction.