Born This Way

Music, 1975

Supernatural personal understanding of one’s own biological state 2-3 minutes after birth.

Although the spirit behind the term goes back decades into the nature/nurture debate around homosexuality, the contemporary phrase is associated with the single and album of the same name released by Lady Gaga in 2010, which arch-Queen Elton John declared the “New Gay Anthem”. However, the original gay anthem was actually released in 1975. To which Gaga so insightfully commented, “It’s almost like a sermon. I heard this song, and I just said, ‘Man, does that answer every question.’”. The LA Times made reference to Robert Alan Brookey’s “Reinventing the Male Homosexual: The Rhetoric and Power of the Gay Gene” with its key quote “this belief in a predetermined sexual orientation is most visible in the emerging conservatism in the gay rights movement”.

• https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?&year_start=1950&year_end=2019&content=born+this+way
• https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=%22born+this+way%22
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Born_This_Way_(album)
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VroOVN9ReY
• https://books.google.com/books?id=bZrXrqaDfwoC&pg=PT130#v=onepage&q&f=false