Did you ever think being gay was a choice?

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I used to think so. It is because I really didn't know what it was. I thought if people dated and had sex with people of the same sex that made them gay and if people dated and had sex with people of the opposite sex that made them straight.

I had some really wrongheaded ideas about homosexuality back in the day but it being a choice was not one of them.

I don't think I realized what being gay actually meant until I was mature enough to realize that people don't typically have a choice about love and related things. Of course, not being straight myself probably helps me understand that. There has been a situation fairly recently where my best friend was in love with me, and I wanted more than anything at the time to love him the same way, but no matter what I did, I just couldn't. That really drove the point home that people don't get to choose who they do or do not love.

Looking back -- actually never.

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Considering that I was brought up in such churches as the Church of the Nazarene , for instance , yes I had . Also , as it turns out , I am asexual , so I had thought that sexual orientation was about whom you choose to have intercourse with , rather than whom you are , or are not erotically attracted to . I hadn't realized at first that not everyone shares my experience of not feeling sexual desire towards those of either sex .

No; I worried I might have been gay because I didn't have an interest in girls for a very, very long time (And still have minimal interest unless I have gotten to know them first and they fit a laundry list of criteria, lol) but didn't think being gay was something people just up and chose. Doesn't make homosexual behavior right, and doesn't make homosexuality normal. But it is certainly not a choice.

(If anyone asks why I don't see it as normal when it is not a choice, well, lots of abnormalities happen without being choices, and they don't make us evil; this is the autism forum anyway.)

I've never seen being gay a choice.

When I was in high school, I thought LGBT people were weird and just gross, but the high school counselor (who was openly gay) helped me accept the fact that LGBT people are no different from straight people.

I'm a straight cisgender male, but I will forever be grateful to the counselor of my school.

I dont think that it can really be a choice as its part of a fundamental preference, drive and need.

There may be a small minority who make a choice in a way that is contrary to their true nature due to psychological problems but the operative word here is 'small'. I wouldn't think that its many.

Another (small perhaps? Im not sure) group may be people who appear in pornography or engage in sex work - perhaps some of them do it for the money despite it being against their nature.

Not really. Why would anyone want to choose to be something that many people still think is an evil sickness that should be wiped out by mass murder?

A lot of people still seem to think it's a choice. I often hear people saying "she had a boyfriend who committed suicide so now she's gone on to dating women" or "she had a bad experience with a man so she's dating girls now" or "he had a poor relationship with his sister so it's probably why he's gay now".

But I didn't think bad experiences would turn you the other way. If I were raped by 10 men it still wouldn't make me decide to start dating girls. I might be put off men for a while but no way in my whole life would I suddenly start dating girls, because I was born heterosexual.

I'm not sure.I do believe most are born gay and really don't have much of a choice,however there are exceptions to the rule.Some people can became gay overtime,espically if they continuiously have bad relations with the opposite Sex.