# Gay and lesbian NTs



## Kelvin (May 30, 2012)

I'll ask the questions first, because this is my first post and I'm kind of nervous... 

_Are you a fellow LGBT NT? Or do you know someone who is one? 
How does being NT and LGBT at the same time influence you (or the person)? Do you feel more accepted in society or less? 
Do you think NTs or NFs are generally more accepting towards homosexuality? 
__Do you think there's a correlation between sexual orientation and personality? (i.e. the stereotypical view that gay men are more likely to be feelers and lesbian women are more likely to be thinkers)_


Hey there!

I've been surfing and lurking around this site a lot and reading threads from all the sub-forums. I notice quite a large amount of LGBT people in the NF forum, discussing about relationships, life and such. So I'm going to make one about gays and lesbians here too!

I realized my attraction to the same sex at quite a young age, but never fully recognized it until later. The main reason being that I was taught at a young age that the stereotypical gay man is flamboyant, emotional and dramatic. Being an NT, I didn't fully supported that idea, but since I have never really felt comfortable being so open about my feelings (I'm working on it) and this mindset is generally seen as "masculine" by others, I was silenced for quite a while. 

While this can be viewed as an "advantage" to blend myself into society, I did not see it that way. As it was obvious (to myself) that I'm attracted to the same-sex, so I can't be "normal"- but then I could never ever see myself working in the field of fashion design, caring for others as a male nurse or whatever. And this is what my family and friends associate gay man to when they talk about the LGBT community. (Spare me, I was young and didn't know much!)

This leaves me feeling like a complete outcast for a very long time in my life (I still do at times). It doesn't help when 
the first few gay guys I knew were mainly feelers and I can often be very drained when I'm around them for excessive amounts of time (working on that too). I mean, it's hard enough someone in the same temperament, let alone someone who is also a fellow gay in an asian culture. 

I mean, I have since then found quite a few NT gays that I really connect with and became friends with. My romantic interest currently is an ENTJ, he's so intelligent and actionable at the same time it stimulates me!

Personally, I think there is a slight correlation between sexual orientation, gender and personality. But not to an extreme extent because there are a large number of cases which would prove otherwise (I'm aware of that, yes). And certainly to sterotype anyone just because of their gender, sexual orientation etc is just illogical and stupid. I know I'm making a controversial statement here and I'm no expert in the field of neuroscience and biology, but I learnt that hormones play a huge role in determining one's personality, gender identity and sexual orientation, especially when the brain of the fetus is still undeveloped. (Let's discuss about this too!) 

For the ladies: The society can be very cruel and unaccepting to both NT females and lesbians, do you think this adds to the already-heavy burden?


----------



## EllieBear (Nov 8, 2012)

Kelvatoré said:


> I'll ask the questions first, because this is my first post and I'm kind of nervous...
> 
> _Are you a fellow LGBT NT? Or do you know someone who is one?
> How does being NT and LGBT at the same time influence you (or the person)? Do you feel more accepted in society or less?
> ...



I am indeed a LGBT NT. I don't know anyone else who is though. However I do have a rather small group of friends.

Less, I guess. I'm more interested in law and engineering than teaching and having babies. That's something I feel women are seen to supposed to want. And then being a lesbian on top of that you get the "lesbian's want to be men" stereotype and that's frustrating. 

I certainly think that NT's are more accepting, I cannot talk for NF's though. I think that due to our ability to analyse and look deeper we look past what society has decided we should think and feel and we form our own opinions. 

There is no logical reason in being homophobic, or denying people their rights based on sexuality (along with many other things such as class, sex, gender or race). I find it unbelievable that people actually think "God" would have an issue with this. But then, NT's are the least likely to believe in imagined higher powers... so maybe there's more of a correlation there.

No, I don't think so. No one knows I'm a lesbian unless I tell them because I present as straight. My NT-ness makes no difference. Stereotypes are rubbish. I know far more femme lesbians than I do butch. And I know heartbreakingly good looking "man's man" men that are gay. 

As for neuroscience - the books I've read on this subject smash the idea of gender into dust. So, if gender is simply a societal construct then we are all gay, or none of us are. 

I think that being an outcast twice over can be hard. I'm a raging nerd, and society has decided I shouldn't be. Society has also decided I shouldn't like other females. However, I think my tendency to over analyse has made my life more confusing - such as my ongoing battle to decide what gender actually is. I have female genitals but how on earth do I know if I have a female brain? I'm not this fairy-cake baking, house wife that seems to be the gold-standard for women; but neither am I remotely butch: I most certainly present as female. And if gender doesn't exist, how can people be gay?


----------



## surgery (Apr 16, 2010)

@_EllieBear_

I'm not an NT, but there are definitely other NT gay and lesbian members on this forum. Here's a link to a thread where you can meet some as well as talk about your experiences: http://personalitycafe.com/sex-relationships/128876-lgbt-chat.html


I think that sexual attraction in relation to concepts of physical fertility and virility, on the most primitive levels, has shaped our image of a gender binary. Like since prehistoric times, humans have been segregating each other (or at least assigning each other differentiated roles) based on genitalia and reproductive capacities. You could actually relate this phenomena to Jung's ideas about the objective versus the subjective. Since differences in genitalia exist in material reality, the can be considered "objective", which is the same basis for the concept of Extraversion. People expect each other to use their genitalia in a certain way in order to reproduce regardless of how that individual feels about their gentiles (a subjective, thus "Introverted", perspective). So, I think in a way, gender exists irrespective to human thought, yet it's more complicated than a binary (heterosexual male v. heterosexual female) because you have people born with ambiguous genitalia and people who consistently experience strong sexual attraction to other people with: the same genitalia (gay/lesbian), both types of genitalia (bisexuality) or any type of genitalia (pansexual/demisexual). 

Despite this, the gender binary is reinforced by the idea that reproductive potency will lead to certain behaviors and signals. For example, broad shoulders, significant muscle tone, a large penis and aggressiveness are both biological and social indicators of masculinity because the suggest virility. While broad hips, fatty despots, mammaries and nurturing behaviors indicate fertility, thus giving rise to our concept of femininity. Also, because during the sex act, the man penetrates while the women is penetrated, people began to conceptualize that "active" and "passive" roles were appropriate (objective) standards of behavior in daily life. These objective "signs" of gender become part of our social expectations because they are consistent/predictable, common place and easy to implement in order to manage a society (those who work, hunt, fight versus those who tend to the home). If people ignored these things too often, it could be too detrimental for daily life in a family/tribe/commune/city-state, etc because people would be too interested in their subjective experience (Females who are attracted to females and can't produce children; or males who don't want to hunt, etc).

I also think people eventually started to use religion (or God, ie a source of information that can't be disproved, thus "objective") in order to force people to bypass their subjective experiences of gender and do what is expected (reproduce and raise many children). 

So, basically, I think there's no way to say that you have "female" brain from a truly scientific standpoint. But you may have what society considers a "masculine/virile" way of thinking or a way of thinking that is too analytical, thus destructive to existing social assumptions (Ti v. Fe). 

Despite this, I think most people probably experience sexual attraction towards visual cues that denote virility or fertility *regardless of a concept of gender*. Thus, we can identify ourselves as "straight", "gay", etc.

So, I consider myself gay despite there not being a truly scientific consensus on gender as part of our psychology. I feel like if I had been born in prehistoric times, I probably still would have been exclusively sexually attracted to humans with penises (males) that display significant musculature, broad shoulders, deep voices, etc (but not a "hermaphrodite/intersex individual" who also has penis, but also has breasts, wide hips, etc) *even if I had no words for "male" or "female"*. That being said, I probably would have been forced to have sex with a female in order to procreate for the sake of the clan


----------



## Jennywocky (Aug 7, 2009)

To answer the OP:
　
There are social perils to being NT (and especially female, in conjunction); there are social perils to being LGBT. They all overlap on each other, sometimes a double whammy.
　
I think N's are more apt to look past social convention and look for other frameworks and relationships. And N correlates to "Openness" in the Big Five. So yes, there's a tendency towards being more accepting, but it is no guarantee. I've seen NFs dig in if their values are in conflict with LGBT being legitimate (especially those who are religious-minded in doctrines that are critical of LGBT issues); and I've seen NTs dig in when their understanding of the world seems to run counter to the thought of LGBT being part of natural diversity.
　
As far as correlation between sexual orientation and personality, it's hard to separate what is what, honestly. Homosexual guys sometimes are observably gender-variant as children (for example), while lesbians are allowed to be tomboys and not really called gender-variant; and we have certainly T/F expectations based on people's gender, so it can become a muddled mess as to what is T, F, male, female, and the like.

@_surgery_: Yes, thank you for describing some of the complications and nuances involved in any discussion of gender. It's not as simplistic as just saying "nurture" or "nature" as some try to do. It isn't helped that so many social expectations have evolved from some basic natural physical gender differentiations either, it just confuses the issue even further.


----------



## EllieBear (Nov 8, 2012)

surgery said:


> @_EllieBear_
> 
> I'm not an NT, but there are definitely other NT gay and lesbian members on this forum. Here's a link to a thread where you can meet some as well as talk about your experiences: http://personalitycafe.com/sex-relationships/128876-lgbt-chat.html


Thank you, I will check that out. The rest of your post was really interesting and sparked a lovely train of thought:


I come to this from the point of view of someone who sees gender as salient and sex as "iffy" at best. I have no issues with people having a sex. Male/female/intersex, for example. These are biological and physical differences. Obviously we are designed for different things, and in times gone by have had strict roles to play - probably for the best. In a modern society though? I would be inclined to disagree with the notion that sex is an important identifying aspect.

There are some anthropologists who believe that, during this prehistoric/Neanderthal time, it was a matriarchal society rather than patriarchal. The men collected food for the women, who ran the tribes/clans/groups as elders, and women were highly respected due to their ability to bring forth new life for their group/clan/tribe. The men were the hunters because that was what their bodies lent themselves to, and the women lower in the hierarchy would gather foods because that's something you can do while pregnant.

I more than understand why men are better suited to fighting hand-to-hand due to their muscle mass, heavy work, protecting, building etc. However, aside from child birth there doesn't seem to be anything that female physiology actually is seen as a benefit in.

However, the way stereotypes are attached to gender is difficult for me to understand. Having a larger muscle mass does not make you a better scientist. Being able to give birth does not make you into a teacher or nurse. Many of these stereotypes were founded in Biblical times when women were seen as lesser and subservient, and right through to the Victorian era when it was thought impossible to teach a woman to read. I find it confusing to see people cling to them so strongly when they actually offer little to no benefit to 95% of the populations - and actually harm many women like myself (and I would assume many men, also).
We have scientific proof that the brain is malleable and the more we teach people the better they become regardless of gender, and often priming people with gender stereotypes before testing affects their results. Such as woman being bad at maths - women who are told this are more likely to do badly than those who are told nothing. In fact, women who are told they are genetically better than men at these tests outshine the men who are told that men are better! (C.M Steele, S.J Spencer, & J Aronson. "Contending with group image: The psychology of the stereotype and social identity threat.)

My problem with gender is that we don't really know what it is. Gender is not always aligned with your sex, gender has many facets and sub-groups and differences. The female sex is the same across the board - two X chromosomes. However, female gender is something totally different - it's an identity.

I am not personally comfortable with having a gender identity attached to me purely because of my genitalia and/or breasts. Having said breasts and genitalia is not remotely upsetting or distressing for me, I have no wish to change them, but I do have issues when certain expectations and thoughts surround me just because I have them.

Some of the ones that I find most difficult to deal with:

The idea that I must be bad at mathematics/engineering/science.
The idea I should be placid and agreeable.
The idea that I should want children.
The idea that I am, somehow, less intelligent than my male identified counterpart.
And the one that grates me most of all, is that I should magically know how people feel, and how to comfort them.

Stereotypes permeate society at every level. I'm also a blonde - I've heard every dumb blonde joke there is (and I've enjoyed smashing and ridiculing every single one of them), and that stereotype annoys me. However, I, as of yet, have not met someone who would treat me differently because of my hair colour! Yet I have experienced this because of my perceived gender.

In today's modern/westernised societies the idea that these stereotypes hold any truth should be laughable. Yet we cling to them, desperate to keep that illogic. And THAT is what frustrates me the most. That is why I find gender so hard to pin down - I am female, but I identify with the male attributes far more: why can't I do that, even while wearing a dress and high heels and not be considered weird?


----------



## surgery (Apr 16, 2010)

@EllieBear

To be honest, I can't personally say that I've met anyone who holds those stereotypes to be true, although I am aware that they exist. And I've never personally received slack for being a male who is terrible at math (I've even had a female tutor who asked me if I was remedial :/) but who excels in art and foreign language. If in your experience you have had people treat you differently for being female who is not particularly nurturing, but is very intelligent and independent, I think there is probably some animosity related to women _displaying_ masculine traits, rather than discomfort about the nature of your skills.

Like I said, no one has criticized me (to my face) for saying that my favorite subject in school was French or for stating that I want to become a social worker. But, I do often feel out of place when I display emotions (excluding anger), display sympathy or anything else to looks remotely tender or nurturing.

If anything, I think this probably has to do with the idea masculinity includes being an "active", dominant, bread-winner while femininity includes being a "passive", supportive, caregiver, regardless of _what_ they are doing. To me that suggests that people are probably just evaluating each other based on perceived sexual potency. For example, I can imagine that a woman wouldn't mind dating a male social worker, unless he's more sensitive than she is and/or she makes more money, thus leaving her feeling too sexually dominant. Likewise, a man wouldn't mind dating a female engineer so long as she isn't more assertive than he is and/or she makes more money, thus leaving him feeling sexually submissive and impotent.

So, if you feel that "society" considers you "weird" for forsaking children for a career in law or science, it could perhaps be because that it's considered--somewhat unconsciously--unattractive or unsexy for a women to be aggressive (infertile). Legally, it would be ludicrous for a woman to be denied a professional position because of her gender, but socially, which is the realm of things like sex and marriage, it's still _less_ unacceptable because it's so rooted in our biology. 

Things do seem to be changing slowly, though. It's not unheard of for for men to be "stay-at-home dads" while his wife could have a very high paying position.

Also, this kind of thinking still seems prevalent in the LGBTQI community. For example, we can define people as "butch" in contrast to "femme" because of how masculine they look. The qualities that make one look masculine being: (potentially) less hair, loose fitting clothes that minimize curves as well as a demeanor that sometimes seems aloof or unnurturing, which makes me wonder if there's a lot of separation between "femmes" and "butches" because they former are seems as more typically "sexy", _especially_ by conventional standards, than the latter. I know among gay men at least, there's sometimes a lot of animosity between "straight-acting" versus feminine "gays".


----------



## BelovedDay (Feb 7, 2013)

Kelvatoré said:


> Personally, I think there is a slight correlation between sexual orientation, gender and personality. But not to an extreme extent because there are a large number of cases which would prove otherwise (I'm aware of that, yes). And certainly to sterotype anyone just because of their gender, sexual orientation etc is just illogical and stupid. I know I'm making a controversial statement here and I'm no expert in the field of neuroscience and biology, but I learnt that hormones play a huge role in determining one's personality, gender identity and sexual orientation, especially when the brain of the fetus is still undeveloped.


I've read topics of this in the internet, and it's quite a possibility.



> _Are you a fellow LGBT NT? Or do you know someone who is one? _


I'm a demi-sexual and lately I've been infatuated by this guy who I observed to be a IxxJ, so that makes me gay now. I also happen to know quite a few lesbian and gay friends._




How does being NT and LGBT at the same time influence you (or the person)? Do you feel more accepted in society or less?

Click to expand...

_Neither of the options apply to me, it feels actually being lost in a forest looking for possible explanations if this is really being quite a joyride to have freedom, or a curse you're forced to carry._




Do you think NTs or NFs are generally more accepting towards homosexuality?

Click to expand...

_My peers are actually NTs and NFs and when I told them that I've been crushing on "this" guy they were all excited to know who could stimulate such emotions from me.



> _Do you think there's a correlation between sexual orientation and personality? (i.e. the stereotypical view that gay men are more likely to be feelers and lesbian women are more likely to be thinkers)_


Here in my country that stereotypical view is widely said, but my lesbian friend is actually an INFP, so maybe that the stereotypical view is still debatable. Men are usually accepted as rationals, and women are defined as emotional. If a woman chooses to acquire male traits, it is a high possibility she will get a rational mind, but then again she will also get the aggressiveness that the male has, probably even worse.



> I mean, I have since then found quite a few NT gays that I really connect with and became friends with. My romantic interest currently is an ENTJ, he's so intelligent and actionable at the same time it stimulates me!


Good for you, if he is Gay or Bi and single.


----------



## EllieBear (Nov 8, 2012)

Aeon said:


> If a woman chooses to acquire male traits, it is a high possibility she will get a rational mind, but then again she will also get the aggressiveness that the male has, probably even worse.


Or she could simply have a very rational mind first...


----------



## BelovedDay (Feb 7, 2013)

EllieBear said:


> Or she could simply have a very rational mind first...


Agreed.

But female NT's are very hard to encounter in the real world these days.


----------



## EllieBear (Nov 8, 2012)

Aeon said:


> Agreed.
> 
> But female NT's are very hard to encounter in the real world these days.


I think it's something we try to cover up a little. It's much easier to be accepted if you're what people simply expect you to be. Personally I don't bother covering it up. If you want a girl who will shut up and smile you're not looking at the right girl for you! My preferred idea is along the lines of "If you don't like me and I don't need something from you, then you can sod off, I'm not wasting my time trying to get you to like me."


----------



## azdahak (Mar 2, 2013)

Here are some of my musings from reading the OP and replies:

I think it's clear that people have historically had same-sex attraction, but different societies have just had different expectations from their citizens. I think this has had less to do with so-called constructed gender roles (a blank slate fallacy), but rather reflect more of a filter of the religions and legal systems (which are often the same thing) of a society. In other words, our historical idea of "masculine" and "feminine" are perspectives rather than constructs. 

In the classical world it was acceptable for a man to penetrate a woman or a teenaged boy, but not another man. A Roman would have had no problem with NAMBLA. On the other hand, he would have found a gay male couple a perversion, and a mockery of civic duty. A Roman male could have an arranged marriage -- a "good match", and yet openly have a concubine, or a boy, as his lover. Today, an extramarital affair is grounds for divorce. Yesterday's honored Senator is today's pervert. 

For Romans, religion and law was an aspect of, and subservient to, their civic duty. But the advent of Christianity replaced the primary personal duty toward society, with a primary personal duty toward God. Law now served the Church, and perspectives of what was acceptable behavior shifted. Today we have the influence of essentially modern ideas like privacy and personal liberty effecting the discussion. 

Here's a nice snobby, stereotyped, NT-elitist argument. I will preface it by stating, no matter our "type", we have all biases and stereotyped thinking and I'm not making an argument against any class of people, but rather groups of world views.

The Enlightenment and the Scientific Revolution are again changing our perspectives. I would argue (for the West) that NT objectivity has been chipping away at a strong SJ society of absolutist moral laws, which brook no disagreement, and hence must view any contrarian as an abomination. I think it's happening because NT's are developing technologies which make them powerful and wealthy. For the first time in history, NTs are able to pull the trigger rather than just be used as weapons. We (and NFs) are forcing our viewpoints upon the world, for good or bad. SJs will run on whatever hamster wheel you give them, but they still need that wheel. I think that is why you see that the acceptance of homosexuality and gay marriage inversely correlates with age. Younger SJs are running on a slightly different hamster wheels than their grandparents. It's not that they're more "open" to new possibilities (an NT trait), they've just had their template of acceptible/non-acceptible redefined for them. But this can only be pushed so far. I think many NF egalitarian, utopian ideals are impractical and unimplementable. If everyone defines for themselves their own special hamster wheel, all you get is conflict. 

We can't have a society without SJs. They are the gears of society. But they will always be antagonistic to people who do no fit into current set of social mores. Right now, NAMBLA is pretty much on everyone's shit list. But it wasn't always so. By accepting gay relationships, and rejecting man-boy relationships, are we really becoming a more "open" society? I think NTs are just juggling around the categories of who to find disgusting, putting what we find the most illogical at the bottom. (i.e. a gay couple are mutually consenting adults, but a 12 boy or girl can't make a rational decision about sex)

---------------------------------------------------------------
Here are some more thoughts on constructed genders:

Is our gender really "constructed" out of societal expectations? Allow me to present a sociobiological view.

Since men by accident of anatomy have a penetrative role, do we construct a dominant role in our societies for them? That seems to be an axiom of constructed gender theories, that sexual roles are somehow essentially independent from the underlying anatomy, and that gender roles are some social reinforcement and exaggeration of an underlying anatomical bias. That is, gender somehow represents a choice (perhaps unconscious) that a society makes, which is then self-reinforced by the created societal structures such as religion and patriarchy. If this is the case, shouldn't we expect to find different "choices" in groups of humans? 

As a scientist, I'm suspicious of any theories that require free will in this manner. It automatically introduces a chicken and egg problem of what came first, gender or gender role, and even artificially suggests a distinction where none may actually exits, e.g., gender roles are separate from gender. But moreover in this case, there doesn't seem to be any evidence of substantially qualitatively different "choices" in human societies, that is, there are no matriarchies. I think much of gender theory is just so much arm-chair philosophizing which tries to build justifications for certain ideologies, for good or bad. But I think we have proper scientific tools to investigate gender roles, like sociobiology and game theory, which attempts to understand animals societies from their reproductive strategies. The general theme is that a reproductive strategy and animal behavior go hand in hand; they co-evolved. It's hubris to automatically exempt ourselves from the same rules that apply to other animals. 

As a side note, I've always found matriarchal/patriarchal distinctions a bit ill-defined. For instance, does the elephant seal beach master fight off lesser males and rule the group of seals, or do the group of females collectively allow the males to self-select for the best with whom they all mate? In this so-called patriarchy, all the females get the Best in Show, and all but one male are genetic losers. In other animals like birds, females are generally far more invested in selecting a mate. There is substantial energy put into courtship by both sexes, and so you find both sexes rearing the chicks and monogamous bonding in many bird species. Ant colonies have one female(queen)/many male(soldier)/many neuter(worker) genders. Many fish have female/male/submissive male distinctions. In clown fish for example, a group of male fish will fight for dominance, with the winner changing sex to female. 

In sociobiology, these societal constructs are explained by the underlying genetics. An ant colony couldn't exist if there was no genetic benefit for the neuter workers.


----------



## st0831 (Jul 13, 2010)

_Are you a fellow LGBT NT? Or do you know someone who is one? 
_
I am. I used to socialize with my LGBT peers in university but acquaintanceships never solidified. This is not a LGBT factor but that just that I do not get along with "mainstream" people, regardless of social status.

_How does being NT and LGBT at the same time influence you (or the person)? Do you feel more accepted in society or less?

_My identity solely lies unique and irreplaceable. Being "NT or LGBT" does not influence my way of thinking. In short, I just think and that is my identity. Think of it this way, I was myself from the day I was born. From that point, I learned MBTI and about the LGBT community. Why would these classifiers hold precedence to my person? The counter argument would be that I could be influenced by my environment. But to answer your question with regards to the counter argument, "no, it does not influence what person I am."

Acceptance is not a choice made by the receiver; Acceptance is a choice made by the perceiver/pursecutor. There are people that do not accept me being gay. Some may even eradicate me because I like men. Nonetheless, it is a choice they (the perceiver/persecutor) does. Never forget LGBT are minorities, to have the majority "accept" you is quite a foreign concept to me and also to them._

Do you think NTs or NFs are generally more accepting towards homosexuality? 

_Generally speaking, the open minded ones are. There are some closed minded, unhealthy NT's and NF's (oh, the irony) too (possibly miss-typed too). My exposure to LGBT NT's in real life is next to zero._Do you think there's a correlation between sexual orientation and personality? (i.e. the stereotypical view that gay men are more likely to be feelers and lesbian women are more likely to be thinkers)
_
The question does not or will ever have an obtainable answer. Humans dwell too much on self-image, especially the covering of one's perceived weakness. In simple terms, do you really think that self-approving muscular, macho man has no feminine characteristics? In fact, it is most probably that this macho man suppresses any action that is perceived feminine. This is an example of the barrier to understanding the correlation between sexual orientation and personality. It also sets the good tone and environment to question what is "masculinity" or "femininity."

As an attempt to answer, I do not think there is any correlation once we all get past through perception barriers.


----------



## Lunietta (May 14, 2013)

I am bisexual. I have a lesbian INTJ friend.


----------

