Sexual Diversity: So What?

The eye colors of human beings range from the lightest blue to the darkest brown, and every color in between. Our natural hair colors span from platinum blonde to jet black. Our skin colors vary in such fine degrees to defy precise distinctions. The bacteria feeding on the feasts we send to our guts each day vary in type and amount from one person to another. Our muscle tone, fat cell distribution, intellectual styles, personality tendencies, and every imaginable aspect of our humanity sit on a sliding scale of spectacular spectrumness–including, of course–our sexuality. The shapes and sizes of our genitalia, the amount and expression of our testosterone and estrogen, and the preferences we make obvious in our clothes closets, our bathrooms, and our bedrooms all vary widely from person to person.  

In a recent global survey, 3% of the adult population identified as gay, and 1% as “transgender, non-binary, non-conforming, gender-fluid or ‘in another way’ rather than as male or female” (Masterson). 

So what? 

Where is the threat in sexual diversity? Singing drag queens don’t tote semi-automatics to their Broadway brunches. Hand-holding lesbians don’t block sidewalks with signs that shout “Straights go to hell.” 

Is the concern that gay people do not procreate? They are not alone on that front. Teenage gang members killed by a bullet do not procreate. Haitian children who starve to death on the streets do not procreate. Homeless drug addicts who overdose in their tents do not procreate. Youth die of disease, disasters, accidents, poverty, and violence before they have a chance to procreate. We send some of these young people into regions of armed conflict with eyes wide open to the fact that they may come home in a body bag before ever getting the chance to welcome a child of their own into this world.

If we are concerned about the continuation of the human species, it would serve us better to celebrate same-sex adoptions, transgender suicide hotlines, and men in dresses who are willing to read books to our children; and then we could turn our attention toward ending the poverty, disease, and violence that cut short the lives of potential gene-spreaders who are taken out of the game before they even have a chance to decide if they are interested in making a small contribution to the continuation of the human race by procreating or other equally valuable means. 

Masterson, Victoria. “1% of Adults Identify as Neither Male nor Female – Ipsos Poll.” World 

Economic Forum, 21 June 2021, www.weforum.org/stories/2021/06/lgbt-gender-identity-ipsos-2021-survey/.