Born This Way: Thinking Sociologically about Essentialism
Title
Born This Way: Thinking Sociologically about Essentialism
Author
Schilt, Kristen
Research Area
Culture
Topic
Culture and Society
Abstract
“Born this way” has become a rallying cry for many LGBTQ people, and a succinct slogan for the political logic behind mainstream US‐based gay and lesbian equality activism in the late 2000s. This short phrase—“born this way”—invokes the idea that sexual orientation is an innate, essential part of a person that cannot be changed or acted upon by others. Following this logic, homosexual people and their relationships must be incorporated as a valid part of the social fabric and be afforded the same state‐based rights and benefits as heterosexual people and their relationships. Such an understanding of homosexuality as an innate essence stands in contrast to much sociological theorizing that situates sexual identity categories—as with all identity categories—as social constructs that emerge and shift across particular political, historical, and geographical contexts. In this essay, I argue that sociologists need to find ways to think empirically about this essentialist logic. I pose the question, what cultural work does “born this way” logic perform in everyday interactions around social difference, and how does it shape popular, academic, and legislative ideas about such differences? I offer a comparative analysis of the use of essentialism as an explanatory framework for social difference in four cases—race, gender, sexual orientation, and weight. I unpack the ways in which invoking “born this way” as a frame or strategy can be used both to discount the possibility of social interventions into inequality and to make a claim that inequality can only be alleviated through social interventions. Within this analysis, I further explore how social constructionist critiques of biological determinism are taken up or dismissed. I end with ideas for an empirical agenda that highlights the variations in social reactions to different identity‐based claims of biological essentialism and illustrates the importance of using an intersectional lens when examining the social outcomes of such logic.