In 1993, researchers at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario found that 69% of lesbians and 45% of gay men interviewed were left-handed in "at least one of 12 simple manual tasks." Sandra Witelson, a co-author of the McMaster study, speculated that the higher incidence of left-handedness may be because "brain organization may be different than in others" resulting from differing hormonal levels while in the mother's womb.
Coincidentally, that study appeared at the same time as another study, this one by the University of British Columbia (Canadians seem to be fascinated with the subject) that concluded that lefties are more accident prone and have "noticeably, and significantly shorter" life expectancies.
As a left-handed, gay man, I am interested in all possible links and similarities between my dexterity and my sexual orientation. Though it is tempting to presume a common, prenatal origin for both left-handedness and homosexuality, the fact remains that both conditions are not necessarily linked. There are, after all, many straight "lefties" and many gay "righties".
Still, gays and lefties have a lot in common, if not in origins then in numbers, conditions and consequences. For one thing, it is estimated that one out of ten people is left-handed; precisely the same percentage of the population that many of us believe is lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender.
Making comparisons between being gay and being left-handed are nothing new. In their 1988 book, Looking at Gay and Lesbian Life, authors Warren J. Blumenfeld and Diane Raymond devoted a whole chapter, "A Discussion About Differences: The Left-Handed Analogy, " to the topic.
Blumenfeld and Raymond reminded us that lefties, like LGBT people, are discriminated against just for being who we are in a world where most people are different from us. "Though you might not think your friend or mother or classmate is all weird because she or he is left-handed, such tolerance has not always been the case, " they wrote. "In fact, for centuries, left-handed people have been viewed with scorn and even, at times, with fear. . . . [I]n the Middle Ages, left-handed people were sometimes accused of being witches or sorcerers", just like gay people - the Devil himself was thought to be left-handed.
Language reflects prejudice: while righties are "dextrous" (right), lefties are "sinister" (left); and those words have become part of our vocabulary as synonyms for good and evil, respectively. Until recently parents of left-handed children would force them to write with their right hands, just as parents of lesbian and gay children would force them to behave heterosexually.
Even today, according to Jack Fincher in Lefties, "Left-handers are one of the last surviving minorities in our society with no organization, no collective power or goals, and no real sense of common identity." Fifty years ago, this statement could have applied to lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgendered people.
In practical terms, I probably suffered more from being left-handed than I have for being gay. Like other lefties, I have had to deal with the complexities of being left-handed in a right-handed world, and learn to manage tools and machinery that were built for righties.
According to Fincher, "the left-hander's lot must have taken a quantum leap for the worse with the Industrial Revolution. Machine-made tools meant that he had better learn to make his maladroit (not dextrous; hence not right, as opposed to adroit, or dextrous) best of a bad arrangement."
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