I chose to be gay and so did you. Don't think so? Who forced you? Nature?

There may be some way in which being attracted to certain things is not a choice, but attraction is massively complicated and can't be simplified to one cause. Attraction is part of being gay, but not the same.

The lack of choice in sexual orientation is a certain sort of political rhetoric, and if it was ever useful it has now outlived its usefulness.

Being gay is something you choose to be, but this doesn't mean you don't have good reason for the choice, just that not everybody has the same one(s).

When I was little I was attracted to men, but I didn't even hear about the concept of being gay for years, I could not have been gay until then and even after that I was not gay for years and years, though I felt a twinge of relief mixed with fear when I learned of the concept.

One thing being gay is is a way to organize your understanding of yourself in relation to society. A vague feeling of being entirely out of place is replaced with an understanding of where you stand in relation to everything else, even if in many ways it's not enviable.

No wonder choosing to be gay can feel like no choice at all! But you could as easily choose a different way of understanding your relationship to society if one was available to you.

This sort of understanding is not arbitrary, it takes work and time and it requires a community. It helps people live their lives and advocate for their rights. It's wonderful! It is just a tether to society though, and equally important is that original vague displacement.