Creativity and Mental Health

On a related topic to my current "Ability Bouquet" drawing (which includes differences in physical, emotional, and mental ability) is the correlation between creative people (painters, sculptors, musicians, performers, composers, fiction writers, poets) and mental health issues. As Lord Byron remarked about himself and his fellow poets, "We of the craft are all crazy. Some affected by gaiety, others by melancholy, but all are more or less touched."

This is a correlation that I've always found rather interesting - both on a personal note (as someone working in creative professions and with mental health issues running in her family) and on a broader scale - and is therefore a topic I've thought a lot about over the years. I even wrote a paper on this topic for an Art History class in college, listing famous 19th & 20th century artists who suffered (or probably suffered) from mental illnesses including depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, personality disorders, and substance abuse problems.

There are a lot of similar lists out there, linking famous (dead) people to probable mental disorders. For example, Kay Redfield Jamison's book, Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament - a fantastic book, by the way, and well worth the read if this is a subject you're interested in - includes in Appendix B a list of writers, artists and composers with probable cyclothymia (a form of mild bipolar), major depression, or manic-depressive illness. The famous names include writers F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, William Blake, Edgar Allen Poe, Victor Hugo, Emily Dickinson, John Keats, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Sylvia Plath, Walt Whitman, Joseph Conrad, Ralph Waldo Emerson, William Faulkner, Mary Shelley, and Virginia Woolf; musicians Peter Tchaikovsky, Robert Schumann, and Irving Berlin; and artists Paul Gauguin, Vincent Van Gogh, Michelangelo, Edvard Munch, Georgia O'Keeffe, Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko.

I find understanding people's psychology really fascinating, and it can be a fun (though not necessarily truthful) exercise to speculate on the inner turmoil of historical figures. I also find it interesting (and problematic) how eager our society is to latch onto this creativity-mental health correlation, to the point where we have this prevailing archetype of the crazy, boozy, moody, unstable artist. By putting so much weight on this correlation, we end up stereotyping, exaggerating, and misunderstanding it, to the detriment of living artists and contemporary sufferers of mental health issues. I want to clear up some of these misconceptions in this blog post.

First of all, it is important to remember that correlation does not imply causation. Having a mental illness does not make someone an artist - nor does being an artist necessarily give someone a mental illness.

It is possible that certain mental illnesses (especially mood disorders or substance abuse problems that include addiction to mood/mind altering substances) might inspire creative ideas or ideas with emotional resonance. But having thoughts or feelings and being able to turn those thoughts and feelings into a moving piece of art, music, theater, or writing is not the same thing. Thinking or feeling something does not always (nor often) translate into being able to work as a functioning artist.

For that matter, not everyone struggling with mental disorders wants to be an artist, and saying that there is or should be "a creative upside" to a manic episode, to seeing hallucinations, to overcoming pain, or to using mind-altering substances is a dangerous suggestion. It alienates or shames those who don't get anything "productive" out of these things, making them believe that they aren't processing or dealing with their emotional or mental health problems in an acceptable, affirming way.

It is also possible that trying to work as a professional artist - with the erratic hours, variable paycheck, and exposure to potentially dangerous art supplies (lead paints, fumes, aerosol sprays, sharp carving tools, exacto knives, etc) - might trigger or exacerbate an episode of a mental disorder in some people. But this type of work environment does not affect everyone in the same way, and usually when it comes to mental illnesses, nature and nurture work concurrently. Someone's environment alone won't cause mental illness - they also often have to have a genetic predisposition that makes mental health issues more likely to cause them problems.

What's more likely, then, is that instead of it being one OR the other, it's one AND the other. They each feed off each other in people who are both artistic and deal with mental health issues: their chosen profession will sometimes impact their mental health and their mental health with sometimes impact their professional life.

In addition, other outside factors might cause, inspire, or impact both. Maybe thinking creatively is a personality trait that both makes someone more likely to consider a career in the arts and to suffer from mental health issue; maybe genetic strengths in senses like vision, hearing, or touch (or in the parts of the brain that regulate those functions) make someone more likely to develop talents in visual, auditory, or tactile fields which are also creative, as well as making them predisposed to certain mental illnesses.

It has also been suggested that it is not actually true that more writers and artists suffer mental illness compared to the general population - just that they are perhaps more sensitive to their own mood states, and therefore more able or willing to articulate and report on them.

Science is still searching for the answers to these questions - and may never find them. Rarely is there just one cause; usually it is a whole plethora of possibilities, all working together - and yet also all working differently in each person.

The second important point I want to make is this: just because some artists suffer from very serious mental illnesses doesn't mean that all artists do - or should. It doesn't mean that a healthy, functional, well-adjusted artist is "less of an artist" for not struggling with inner demons. It also doesn't mean that mental illness makes someone a better artist.

In fact, the opposite is often true. Though periods of depression or mania might seem to give someone deep access to human emotions or spark artistic inspiration, an artist suffering from those mood disorders is often unable to actually function as an artist (that is, produce creatively) during those periods. It is only after they have somewhat recovered that they will have the motivation, focus, and ability to produce quality work or follow through on their projects to completion.

And yet we have this prevailing stereotype of the emotional artist, which romanticizes damaging and dysfunctional behaviors as something vital and required for anyone wishing to create serious art. As Jamison writes, "The assumption that within artistic circles madness, melancholy and suicide are somehow normal is prevalent, making it difficult at times to ferret out truth from expectation."

When people believe that their mental disorders are an integral part of who they are - the part that makes them special, gives them creative inspiration, or improves their work - they sometimes purposefully suffer them, even when other options are available. They might refuse treatment, deny medications, or choose to self-medicate instead (with harmful substances like alcohol or drugs), all in the spirit of retaining the core of their personality, being "true" to who they are, or tapping into a mythical artistic well of deep emotions/real creative inspiration.

Like any job, there will be times when it's easier or harder, when ideas come faster or slower, and when it seems like you've been waiting years for inspiration or recognition. But artists, writers, musicians, and performers are also sometimes expected to put themselves in dangerous positions or situations that others wouldn't, just for the sake of the story; suffer mental illnesses that others would not put up with, in an effort to carry the emotional weight of the world and see/understand universal truths about the human condition; or even purposefully self-harm with destructive behaviors in a misguided attempt to "become a true artist" - all expectations that are grossly unjust for anyone to endure. When it's such a prevelent idea in society, it's hard to shake - but the truth is, artists do not have to suffer for their art, and I resent the implication that they do.

Mental disorders are serious things. I personally know several people (most of whom are NOT artist-types) who suffer from depression, anxiety, OCD, bipolar disorder, and others; I see how it impacts their lives. It's not something to joke about, minimize, ignore, stigmatize, or fetishize. Suffering isn't romantic. It doesn't automatically make people stronger or more creative, and it doesn't open imaginative doors to them that would otherwise remain closed. People can find inspiration in a lot of places - their suffering included - but no one has to suffer to find inspiration. There are always other ways.

The Ability Umbrella

For my final colored pencil drawing in this "Stronger Together" series, I will be focusing on ability. Before I start getting into the actual step-by-step process of creating the drawing, however, I want to take a minute to describe what I mean when I use the term "ability."

We all have different physical, mental, and emotional/psychological abilities (and limitations), which are impacted by our age, health, genetics, and life experiences.

Let's start with the physical - the one that most people would think of first when considering differences in ability. There are people who we might call physically disabled, because they are not "as able" as fit, healthy individuals - whether permanently or temporarily, or whether due to genetics, age, disease, or injury. Their physical disabilities might make it more difficult for them to interact with their environments - and in fact, many communities do a lot to accommodate these people with physical handicaps, to make their public spaces equally accessible to everyone. Elevators and ramps might be utilized, as well as push-button and automatic doors, for those lacking the ability to climb stairs or open doors. Signs might be written in words and in Braille, or crosswalks equipped with visual and auditory cues, to accommodate those with visual impairments. Where audible communication is integral to the use of a space, assistive listening devices might be provided for the deaf or hearing impaired - like individual headphones, written subtitles, or lectures or speeches that are simultaneously spoken and signed with American Sign Language.

These differences in physical ability don't have to be as "serious" as the above examples, of course. For example, there are minor differences in physical ability that will change as children grow older, taller and stronger. A perfectly healthy child still won't have the same abilities as an adult, due to their size and physical maturity. We accommodate children who are too short to reach the bathroom sink by lifting them up or supplying them with a step stool. We also protect them from systems designed for adult use, such as front seat airbags in automobiles, and require them to sit in the back and use appropriate child-sized car seats until they can safely sit in the front.

But more than all this, physical ability goes beyond the obvious signs we can see from the outside. There are countless diseases and genetic predispositions that wreak havoc only inwardly, with no visible outward symptoms. Many people suffer from these "invisible" illnesses, which include diabetes, IBS, Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis, infertility, ADD/ADHD, sleep disorders, allergies and food intolerances, asthma, lupus, endometriosis, fibromyalgia, migraines, arthritis, and other chronic pain disorders. These might affect someone's physical ability to work a full day, do something significant they may want to do (like have children, travel, or train for a marathon), or even get out of bed in the morning. Some of the symptoms can be treated or managed - but not always with 100% effectiveness, or for 100% of the time.

I start with this list of physical limitations that might impact our abilities because I think most of us can agree that people are still people, regardless of health or injury. Some people might need more assistance than others, some might rely on eyeglasses or walkers or hearing aids to get them through the day, and some may rely on a combination of understanding, compassion, and several different medications to manage invisible symptoms - but regardless of what life has thrown us in the way of physical health, we are all people who still deserve to be respected and treated with dignity, people who deserve to have their voices heard and their physical limitations accommodated for as much as possible, and people who have a lot to offer the world back in return.

The same holds true for those suffering from mental illnesses, emotional/psychological disorders, or neuro-atypicalness. These include autism/Aspergers syndrome, depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety disorders and phobias, schizophrenia, personality disorders, eating disorders, substance abuse, and PTSD. Like "invisible" physical diseases, these are not usually obvious to outsiders, and are often stigmatized. People are often told that their suffering is all in their head, or their fault, or their responsibility to fix all by themselves, without outside assistance like medication, therapy, or strong support systems.

In addition to these diagnosable disorders, we also have differences in our mental and emotional abilities based on our experiences, how we were raised, any traumas we've lived through, our cognitive habits, genetics, or proclivities. We don't all process the world in the same way, and we all employ a variety of coping mechanisms (to various degrees of helpfulness or healthfulness) to help us through our day-to-day lives.

These differences in physical, emotional, and mental ability in turn impact what skills and talents we're drawn to or cultivate. Someone on the autism spectrum who finds emotional connection difficult or impossible might thrive on intense focus and in-depth research, while someone who is plagued by bipolar disorder might be able to tap into parallel wells of creativity and emotion and produce a beautiful piece of art. Someone with a hearing impairment might steer away from career opportunities that rely on their ears - or might attempt a career as a musician anyway, just for the challenge. Someone without arms might face having to learn how to do everyday tasks with their feet or teeth, and end up having better balance and control and of their muscles than someone without the same physical limitations.

We are stronger when we work together. We all have at least one limitation or another, and we all have something (or more than one something) that we can do well. We have different abilities and different ways of approaching the same problem. When we help each other out, we can accomplish great things.

Our physical, emotional, and mental abilities comprise part of who we are, and we do what we do because of who we are. But, we are also not only our physical, emotional, and mental abilities. We transcend these characteristics, just like we can transcend our race, our gender, our sexuality, our religion, and our class. I am a straight, white, atheist, middle-class female, with the beginnings of latent autoimmune diabetes in adults, using therapy to work on her emotional/mental health - and yet, I am also more than just the sum of those individual parts. I am first and foremost a human, just like everyone else. And we all deserve to be treated as such. To repeat - regardless of how we live our lives, we are all people who still deserve to be respected and treated with dignity, people who deserve to have their voices heard, and people who have a lot to offer the world back in return.

Creative Legacy

I often feel like I'm part of (or trying to be a part of) a long-standing creative legacy. This isn't always a good or easy legacy; there are stereotypes of the "starving artist" and well-known connections between artists and mental health problems, which I'm definitely aware of, often fascinated by, and occasionally worry about (with regards to how such traditions might impact me, how others label me, or the work I create).

But besides the broad legacy of all creative people throughout time and the Western tradition of art and writing, there's also a more personal creative legacy - that of my family.

Like many things, it's hard to tell if it's nature or nurture that might encourage traits like creativity to run in families. Do we like art and writing because of some genetic programing passed down through our families? Or do we like such things because these activities were modeled for us (consciously or not), or because our families encouraged us to read or explore art?

In the case of my family, there isn't a clear person I looked to. None of my relatives have made a living off creating art or writing stories; those who are creative pursued such interests as hobbies rather than their professions. Still, I feel like there are enough people in my family who have such interests that it's worth noting.

My dad currently works as a manager at a print center for DTE Energy in Detroit, but has also held jobs in computer networking. He likes computer hardware and has been known to build computers from scratch. Growing up, he loved photography (this was before the age of digital photography, so we're talking film and darkroom techniques), and did some drawing in his spare time. My grandma tells stories of him holed up in his bedroom listening to The Beatles and practicing drawing portraits. And he also enjoys making videos - photography slide shows and training videos conveying information, both for work and at home.

My mom also had some creative hobbies growing up. She did a lot of sewing and embroidering and has shown me samples of some of the things she made as a teenager.

Perhaps the most obvious example is my grandma (on my dad's side), who over the years has found hobbies in writing poetry, coloring books, sewing, and painting. She has also kept handwritten journals for years (as I do), writing daily.

I also have crafty aunts - one who learned guitar and sings songs and puts on puppet shows for the kids at her church (and who did many craft projects with me and my cousins over the years, including a memorable "Egyptian pharaoh" costume that we created with metallic fabric and painted pistachio shells), and another who is into stamping and paper work, designing and stamping her own Christmas cards every year. These are not blood relatives, but are further examples of how I was encouraged to be creative when I was growing up.

Continuing to look toward relatives not related to me by blood, my husband's family also has some artists. His late great-uncle was a painter (we have a few of his paintings hanging in our house). Even my husband himself is creative - in college, we often spent time writing song parodies, funny Harry Potter-inspired rap lyrics, and exchanging short stories we'd written.

Looking at these examples often does two things for me -

First, it makes me pretty proud that I get to be a part of this creative tradition in my family - and also validates my experience. Theoretically I would be happy acknowledging my artistic or writing inclinations even if no one in my family ever shared similar interests, but because they do I feel like it's okay that I do, too - that indeed I'm meant to like such things, or perhaps have a natural talent for them.

Secondly, it makes me wonder if I'm putting too much significance on my creativity. If it's so common that several of my family members have pursued creative projects as hobbies, then why do I think I'm special? None of them have felt compelled to make their creative interests into a viable career. Am I only kidding myself in thinking that I could actually make money as an artist or a writer? Am I better off keeping my art and writing to myself, as most of my other relatives have done? Or do I just have such doubts because none of my relatives have tried to cultivate their hobbies into careers - and thus have no example to follow, no person to model myself after or pick her or his brain for advice?

I feel like I am often torn between such seemingly contradictory feelings. High self-esteem and low self-esteem. Which one is truer to my real feelings? Am I not so deep or despairing as I think, and only "activate" my low self-esteem so that I feel like I belong with all the artists and writers before me who have suffered with issues in confidence - or because, as a woman, I've been conditioned to downplay success, put others first, and think of certain aspirations as outside of my talents or outside of my reach? Or am I actually more inclined to my anxieties and doubts, and only developed what little (or well-hidden) belief in myself that I do have as a way to compensate for the not-so-great feelings of constantly questioning if I'm "good enough"?

Does it matter which came first? I suspect everyone goes through such fluctuations at different times in their lives - thinking, for example, that they're good enough at art or writing that they might make a career out of it and that such a goal is worth pursuing while also wondering if they're insane for even trying. Perhaps creative people have such fluctuations more often - or anyone else who works in a professional field where so much rides on what critics say and who you can convince to like and purchase your work. Actors. Writers. Musicians. Chefs. Entrepreneurs. There are a lot of unstable jobs out there where you don't always know when your next paycheck is coming - and without that immediate, predictable, and stable monetary validation, it can be hard to balance confidence levels. You have to believe in yourself and your projects - so that you work on them and make it to the next paycheck - but such continual efforts to prove yourself and the worth of your work is also bound to take its toll on self-esteem.

In any case, I am very lucky that I have a family who supports me while I try to figure this creativity thing out. I don't take their support lightly, and am immensely grateful. :) 

Why Are We Wasting Time Talking About the "Gay Gene"?

My husband and I were recently talking about the idea that sexual orientation could be genetic. Neither of us are geneticists or scientists, and we aren't saying one way or the other on the validity of that claim. Nor are we saying that it's something that should or shouldn't be studied, that the human genome should or shouldn't be mapped. What we did decide was this:

The question of whether nature or nurture contributes to someone's sexuality, while perhaps interesting from a scientific curiosity standpoint, should have no bearing on the debate of whether or not the LGBTQIA community deserves fundamental human rights.

Because you could use either nature or nurture to argue either for or against LGBTQIA rights. Which makes the entire thing pointless.

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Using Nurture to Argue Against LGBTQIA Rights

You could take the traditional Christian Conservative stance and say that to commit homosexual acts is a sinful choice, not unlike the sinful choice to murder or steal. Accordingly, it should be discouraged, if not outlawed completely.

But this fails to recognize two key things:

1) In America we have the freedom to be who we are as long as that doesn't infringe on others' rights to be who they are, and gay people aren't hurting anybody else by being gay (which makes homosexuality actually very different from murder and theft).

2) We don't make a distinction between the freedom to express who you are biologically (i.e. walking around with the skin color you were born in) and the freedom to express who you are by choice (i.e. using your right to free speech to spout rhetoric, or your right to assembly to choose to assemble).

This stance also suggests that somebody (preachers interpreting the Bible, the president, the Supreme Court, whoever) has the right to decide what are good choices and what are bad choices. And we all know how murky those calls can get.

Even things like murder that we globally agree on as being "bad" choices, we later make exceptions for. What constitutes "murder"? Is it okay to dole out the death penalty to criminals we've collectively decided are irredeemable? Is it okay to kill soldiers in the opposition army in times of war? I won't even get started on the topic of abortion, and what constitutes a "human life." For that matter, why do we make the distinction between different kinds of animals - deciding as a culture which animals can be raised for slaughter and consumed, and which are not to be murdered?

Do you really want to say that we need to be judged and tried on every choice we make - whether collectively as a culture, or individually in our bedrooms? And do we really want to give other people the power to do that kind of judging? What if we can't agree on which people to give that power to?

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Using Nurture to Argue For LGBTQIA Rights

You could argue that there is nothing that makes us who we are more than our choices, and that people should not be kept from exploring their options, or discriminated against for doing so.

You could even bring religion/philosophy into this and say that God gave us free will, or that free will is an important part (perhaps the most important part) of the human condition, and that to strip someone of their free will would be to strip them of their humanity.

One of my favorite quotes from the Harry Potter series is when Dumbledore says, "It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." Of course, the presumption often is that choices expose us for who we are because some choices are "good" and others are "bad" - that in making the choices we do, we face certain consequences, and those consequences shape us and help us find out place in the world. In Harry Potter, Dumbledore is referring to the difference between Tom Riddle (Voldemort) and Harry - that one has chosen the wrong path, the path of evil, while the others has chosen the righteous path, the path of courage and love.

Which brings me back to my earlier point about the subjectivity of "right" and "wrong" and who should get to decide such things.

And it also begs the question - why would someone willingly choose to be gay, knowing that to be gay is to be denied certain rights, to be discriminated against, to be ridiculed, maybe even to be tortured or beaten or murdered? Did a trauma in their past "turn" them gay? Can changing aspects of their current situation "turn" them back to heterosexuality?

We can all try to change (or repress) things about ourselves that we don't want. And with any nurture argument, that's where we end up. If we look at being gay as a choice, that inevitably leads to horrible things like conversion therapy - which is why LGBTQIA activists often reject the influence of nurture on orientation.

When you're looking at nurture, it's too easy to see it as something that can be formed and molded like a sand castle. Once a society decides on those subjective "right" and "wrong" choices, anyone who does something that was deemed "wrong" faces their motives being questioned.

Of course, it's more nuanced than that. (Isn't it always?) How much of our choices are actually our own? A lot of what we do is influenced by the environment we grew up in, and the systems of privilege/oppression we're a part of (regardless of what side we're on). We can try to change our environment and dismantle those systems, but 1) that's a lot of work, and 2) isn't even always possible.

And then, what if we don't actually have free will at all - because something like God, or Fate, or Science has determined our destiny for us?

If nature and nurture work together and I'm genetically predisposed to having a shy personality, I'm never going to make it over to the Super Extroverted side of the scale, no matter how hard I try. I have some say over how much I let my timidity run my life, but I can't vanquish it altogether.

And that's the appeal LGBTQIA activists see in using nature to back up their ideas. If there's a "gay gene," and someone can be predisposed to being gay, how can you fault them for something that's outside of their control? They can try to repress it, or change it, but they'll ultimately be unsuccessful in deviating too far from what has been determined for them.

Which leads me to the nature side of the debate...

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Using Nature to Argue Against LGBTQIA Rights

You could argue that someone's genetics implies that they "deserve" discrimination. It's not a popular opinion - anymore - but it certainly has been popular in the past. Just look at the way "science" was used to historically justify racism.

Phrenology (the study of the shape of the skull, which was believed in the 19th century to reflect a person's character) was used to classify Africans as inferior to white races intellectually, culturally, and morally. Even Darwin's theory of evolution, which suggested that Europeans were related to Africans and that all humans were related to apes, saw the British at the top of the evolutionary scale of civility (source). Many Christian slave-owners argued that black-skinned people were biologically inferior - and that, because God decided our biology, they were merely upholding His will by subjugating these people to work their plantations.

It wasn't until after World War II that this so-called "Scientific Racism" was formally denounced; it undoubtedly still influences racist dogma around the world today. If the Holocaust hadn't happened, if Hitler hadn't been so systematic and obviously evil about the whole thing, this "scientific racism" (or, as the case is here, "scientific sexual orientation-ism") might indeed be the prevalent viewpoint, an undercurrent that impacts modern issues like the rights of gay people to marry or adopt children or live in the neighborhoods they want to live in. After all, gays were targeted by the Nazis and put in the interment camps with the Jews, and Gypsies, and others that were deemed "bad" enough to need weeding out of the genetic pool. If Hitler hadn't done it, would someone else have? Would we still be doing it (on a lesser, more internalized scale) today?

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Using Nature to Argue For LGBTQIA Rights

Finally, you could say that because someone was "born that way" (to use Lady Gaga's phrasing), they are not responsible for their discrimination.

But this does the danger of implying that those who are discriminated against for things that are not biological are responsible for their station.

This logic does a disservice to those who face discrimination for their current economic situation, their religious beliefs, or the kinds of clothes they choose to wear. If there are people who think only things that are biologically ordained need to be tolerated, wouldn't they also have to believe that poor people are the only ones to blame for their poverty? And that if someone should choose not to believe in what they think is the "right" God, they deserve to be judged poorly or even killed for that decision? And that women who wear short skirts - even when they know that doing so marks them as promiscuous - are welcoming that sort of attention and therefore deserving of catcalls or rape?

Never mind that things are never clear-cut about nature vs. nurture, and that they often work in conjunction. Genetics are influenced by the environment (that's the whole idea behind natural selection). And someone's environment is influenced by their genetics. A woman can't help being female, and a black man can't help being black, but because of those biological traits, they're going to struggle with the way society treats them and what society expects of them.

Isn't the whole point of dismantling racism and dismantling the patriarchy the idea that everyone, regardless of their genetics, deserves equal rights and opportunities? Isn't the point to remove genetic's influence on our society as much as possible, to say that we're above all that, to say that we have the power to choose to make a change, to go against ideas that have been ingrained in our cultures for centuries? So why would you fall back on an old historic argument to uphold your case - this idea that science (which is to us what religion often was to our ancestors) can be used to decide who should or shouldn't have privilege (or if there should be systems of privilege at all)?

Is it not possible for us be tolerant of everyone - whether they're formed by their biology, their environments, or a little bit of both?

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Which brings me back to my point. The question of whether nature or nurture contributes to someone's sexuality should have no bearing on the debate of whether or not the LGBTQIA community deserves fundamental human rights.

It is our responsibility (all of us) to respect and protect our fellow humans. Regardless of whether we have similar physical traits, or share a particular gene in our extensive genetic code. Regardless of whether we can understand the environment they grew up in, or whether we agree with their choices and modes of self-expression.

As long as our decisions do not infringe on the ability of others to make their own decisions, everything should be fair game.

LGBTQIA individuals deserve fundamental human rights because they are human. End of story.