From ‘Born This Way’ to ‘Born in the Wrong Body’

The difference between gay and queer activism.

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“I’m beautiful in my way, ‘cause God makes no mistakes. I’m on the right track, baby. I was born this way.”

– Lady Gaga

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Next to “love is love,” “born this way” ranks as one of the most iconic and recognizable slogans of the gay rights movement. It formed the basis of transformative cultural and political change that have advanced the acceptance of gay and lesbian people. It served as a bulwark against the idea that gay people “chose” to be that way and could therefore simply choose not to be that way. If being gay or lesbian is an innate trait, how can you hate us for it? How could you ask us to “convert” to heterosexuality and stop us from living in a way that comes naturally to us? We are born gay, it was argued, in the same way that people are born with any other immutable trait, and so it is wrong to discriminate against us because of it.

Before I go further, let me note that I think “born this way” is an oversimplification. I certainly feel like I popped out of the womb as a gender non-conforming baby girl destined to grow up to be a lesbian (as I have previously written). However, as with many human traits, the idea that there is one single cause behind something like homosexuality is far too reductive. My purpose here is not to debate the origins of homosexuality. Rather, I want to highlight that the core message of the gay rights movement was, essentially: “We are fine the way we are, and we do not need to change.” Being gay doesn’t make us lesser men or women.

“Born this way,” though perhaps overstretched in its zeal to foster acceptance, can be understood as a strategic move to advance the movement’s cultural and political goals. It’s important to remember that the earliest gay rights groups formed at a time when homosexuality was still classified as a mental illness, believed to be caused by poor family dynamics. These organizations sought to offer a different view: that homosexuality was not a defect but an innate and natural aspect of human variation.

One of the earliest examples of this advocacy occurred in 1963 during the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association in Philadelphia. Four gay and lesbian rights organizations—the New York and Washington chapters of the Mattachine Society, the New York chapter of the Daughters of Bilitis, and the Janis Society of Philadelphia and Delaware Valley—joined forces and held a concurrent conference. They called themselves ECHO, for East Coast Homophile Organizations, and sought to facilitate an “enlightened discussion” on the topic of homosexuality.

In 1973, the American Psychiatric Association stopped classifying homosexuality as a mental illness, laying the groundwork for the legal argument that homosexuality is innate and that people could not be denied civil rights for being homosexual. This also prompted research to shift its focus from environmental to biological causes of homosexuality. Was it genetic, or perhaps influenced by hormone exposure in the womb?

Some interesting social sciences research came out of this. For instance, having multiple older brothers increases the likelihood of a man being gay; lesbians often have finger length ratios similar to those of men; and gay men may play pivotal roles as supportive uncles, which allows them to contribute positively to the genetic fitness of their families. Of course, these ideas are still debated, and despite extensive research, no “gay gene” or single, definitive cause of homosexuality has been identified. And I would bet it never will.

Nonetheless, the idea stuck, and the phrase “born this way” was introduced into the culture in 1977 with the song “I Was Born This Way” by AIDs activist and gospel singer Carl Bean. The lyrics proclaim, “I’m happy, I’m carefree, and I’m gay, I was born this way.” The song went on to inspire Lady Gaga’s 2011 hit, helping solidify a critical cultural message: Gay people are fine just the way we are.

This message extended beyond mere sexual attraction. People attracted to the same sex also exhibit greater gender non-conforming on average. The cultural message embraced this reality too, affirming that it was okay for men to be more feminine and for women to be more butch. Furthermore—and this point bears repeating—neither homosexuality nor gender non-conformity made someone any less a man or a woman. It became offensive to ask same-sex couples who the “man” or the “woman” in the relationship was, as each partner was equally and completely a man or woman.

For a blissful moment, it seemed like this was the mainstream understanding. We knew what men and women were, even if a minority of those men and women didn’t fit stereotypes and were attracted to their own sex.

But then the narrative started to shift.

In 2019, Slate ran a piece that discussed “how the ‘born this way’ narrative of identity is holding the queer community back.” The author argued that “Many queer people’s queerness does comport with a ‘born this way’ narrative.” Maybe that’s because the slogan was originally created by and for gay people, not “queer” people.

This theme resurfaced again in a 2021 article in Shape, “What the ‘Born This Way’ Narrative Gets Wrong About Being Queer,” which claimed the narrative “privileges those who experience their sexuality or gender as a fixed, non-changing thing, while invalidating those who experience their sexuality or gender as fluctuating, fluid, ever-evolving things.” Maybe that’s because the slogan was created before queer theory inundated the culture with ideas that boundaries and definitions are not only meaningless, but oppressive.

Furthermore, in 2022, the Advocate posed the question, “Has ‘Born This Way’ Outlived Its Usefulness?” The article begins: “‘Born this way’ has been an effective argument for our rights, but not every LGBTQ+ person feels it speaks their truth.” But what is an “LGBTQ+ person,” exactly? It should come as no surprise that a slogan that worked for gay, lesbian, and bisexual people for decades doesn’t work when applied to wholly different things like “trans” and “queer.” The former are innate sexualities, while the latter are subjective identities.

A conversation about the truth and utility of the “born this way” slogan could have gone in a positive direction. After achieving widespread acceptance of homosexuality, we could have acknowledged that the search for a purely biological basis for it didn’t yield anything conclusive. We could have entertained the idea that, even though sexual orientation appears to solidify at some point during development, many factors may play a causal role. It didn’t have to mean that there was something wrong with gay people, that we should try to change, or that we shouldn’t have rights. Instead, it could have opened the door to refreshing dialogue and exploration of the topic.

Unfortunately, discourse took a different route. Instead, the culture was overtaken by the idea that the reason “born this way” didn’t work was that people could be “born in the wrong body.”

“Born in the wrong body” was a phrase used by the trans community for decades to articulate their experience. While some have used the phrase metaphorically, others have embraced it as a profound truth. There are varying interpretations: some suggest a soul of a particular gender has somehow come to reside in the body of the wrong sex, while others offer a more scientific—or rather, pseudoscientific—explanation of a mismatch between brain and body. Regardless of the explanation, the conclusion is the same: the body is wrong and needs to be altered.

In my opinion, a significant catalyst for the widespread acceptance of the “born in the wrong body” narrative is Jazz Jennings.

Jazz was first introduced to the public as a six-year-old in the 2007 documentary My Secret Self, presented by Barbara Walters. Throughout the documentary, Jazz’s mother, Jeanette, repeatedly asserts that Jazz was “born this way.” By that, she doesn’t mean that he was born displaying the traits of a rambunctious, energetic, flamboyant, and quite effeminate boy that he was. Rather, she means that Jazz, despite being biologically male, was actually somehow a “girl” on the inside. This notion represents a marked departure from the original meaning of “born this way” as used by the gay community.

Jeanette goes even further and describes how Jazz, at just two years old, asked her when a fairy would change his penis into a vagina. She also recounts how she assured her son, “Don’t you worry, mommy will make sure that you never have a beard or a mustache.” But Jazz was biologically male, meaning that he had a penis and would naturally grow facial hair as he matured into a man—a fact that Jeanette’s promise contradicts by vowing to alter his natural development rather than accepting him how he was born.

Barbara Walters revisited Jazz’s story in 2011 in a segment titled “Transgender at 11,” where she introduced him as “a child born in the wrong body.” Her matter-of-fact tone indicating that viewers were now simply supposed to unquestioningly accept this claim at face value. The segment also includes a clip of a young Jazz explaining, “I have a girl brain in a boy body.”

This notion is repeated in the 2014 children’s book I Am Jazz, which features an illustration of Jazz stating, “I have a girl brain but a boy body. This is called transgender. I was born this way!”

Suddenly, “born this way” meant that someone, even a child, was born in a way that needed to be changed—not for physical health reasons, but for psychological ones. And this is the crux of the difference. “Born this way” boiled down to the idea that gay people could possess any personality, regardless of our sex. “Born in the wrong body” instead conveys the troubling notion your body might be fundamentally wrong for your personality.

In the years following the debut of the television show I Am Jazz in 2015, audiences witnessed the real-life ramifications of this “born in the wrong body” narrative play out right before their eyes. From the age of 11, Jazz’s puberty was medically blocked, and he has undergone a series of increasingly drastic hormonal and surgical interventions to fix his supposed brain and body mismatch by altering his body.

This change in messaging reflects a wider shift that occurred between gay and trans/queer activism. The change marked a movement from themes of self-acceptance to those of self-hate, and from an atmosphere of positivity and hope to one of negativity and despair.

Consider, for example, the It Gets Better project. It Gets Better was started in 2010 by journalist, activist, and commentator Dan Savage and his husband, Terry Miller. The goal of the project was to uplift young gay people by reassuring them that despite their current struggles and feelings of isolation, their lives would improve. The project was in response to gay youth suicides in general and to the suicide of a teenager named Billy Lucas in particular. Rather than lashing out at society and focusing on how hateful and bigoted other people were, the project sent a message that it was possible to be gay and lead a happy and fulfilling life.

Contrast this approach with contemporary narratives surrounding “trans kids,” where suicide is depicted as an almost inevitable result unless they are allowed to medically alter their bodies. Just look at what happened when Danielle Smith, the Premier of the Canadian province of Alberta (my home province), announced that she would be restricting medical transition for minors. It resulted in cries that she and her government would directly contribute to the suicides of trans people. “The side effects of not letting trans people be who they are is death. It’s death,” declared one Albertan parent. “Doctors warn new rules on Alberta trans medical care will increase risk of suicide and self-harm,” proclaimed a headline in the Edmonton Journal.

I witnessed some of these histrionics first-hand at a “2SLGBTQQIA+” stakeholder roundtable discussion in Edmonton this past February. Hosted by Minister Tanya Fir, the meeting quickly devolved as critics of the new policies accused both the minister and the Premier of contributing to the suicide of children and demanding that they resign.

This change in tone and messaging is present everywhere one compares the earlier gay rights movement to today’s “queer” activism. A striking example comes from EGALE, Canada’s largest “2SLGBTQI” advocacy organization. In 2005, shortly after Canada legalized same-sex marriage, then-executive director Gilles Marchildon posted an article on the EGALE website titled “Freedom for all means freedom for each.” In it, Marchildon argued that opposing viewpoints must be defended even if they are hurtful. This is shocking by today’s standards.

Even more shocking is that Marchildon was referring to the views of Stephen Boissoin, an anti-gay pastor who called LGBT people “perverse, self-centered and morally deprived.” Boissoin even went as far as to frame the gay rights conflict as a “war” and call on his readers to “take whatever steps are necessary to reverse the wickedness.” And yet, the executive director of Canada’s leading gay rights advocacy organization defended him because he understood that “if Boissoin was no longer able to share his views, then who might be next in also having their freedom of expression limited[?]” “Traditionally,” he continued, “the LGBT community’s freedom has been repressed by society and its laws.”

Today’s EGALE bears no resemblance to the organization that believed gay people could find their place in society while upholding values like freedom of expression. Those days are long gone. Now, EGALE intervenes in court cases, such as one that found the word “groomer” to be a “hurtful” slur against drag performers. EGALE also condemns the “deeply hateful and harmful claims” made by the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, Pierre Poilievre. Poilievre’s hateful claim? That radical gender ideology is being pushed on children.

The situation is no different in the United States, where last year the Human Rights Campaign declared a “State of Emergency” for “LGBTQ+ Americans” for the first time ever. So much for “It Gets Better”—things have apparently never been worse for LGBTQ+ people in America.

This sense of crisis extends beyond the U.S., sweeping through other Western nations, including the United Kingdom. As reported by Metro, the UK has seen a 462 percent increase in sexual orientation hate crime reports and a 1,426 percent surge in reports of transphobia since 2012. Have people suddenly become so much more hateful and bigoted toward sexual and gender minorities?

Not so fast. Consider what some of these “hate crime reports” might actually consist of. In 2023, as reported by Reduxx, police in Leeds arrested an autistic teen girl “on suspicion of a homophobic public order offense.” Her crime? Saying that she thought one of the officers was a lesbian like her nana.

Slogans like “born this way” and projects like It Gets Better aimed to instill resiliency into the gay community. They encouraged us to accept ourselves and not care what other people thought of us. Queer activism does the opposite. It promotes fragility and aims to control people’s thoughts and perceptions.

The problem is that the queer movement is eroding the goodwill that the gay movement has painstakingly built up, and I fear a significant backlash. Those of us under the LGBT umbrella who champion the original values, like free speech, that secured our civil rights need to stand firm and continue to promote those values. We need to separate ourselves from the queer movement and everything it stands for, or we could stand to lose everything we have gained.

I still believe in It Gets Better. I believe that we can continue to make a solid case for our healthy inclusion in society. This inclusion must be guided by freedom and respect for everybody, not by emotional manipulation and demands for special treatment. This is how it used to be, and it’s time to get back on track.

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