A Welsh amateur rugby player who says a stroke turned him gay is the subject of a BBC Three documentary being broadcast in the UK this evening. Writes Pink News:
Chris Birch, now 27, was a Welsh bank employee who weighed 19 stone and enjoyed heavy drinking sessions.
Following a stroke in 2011, he is now a Welsh hairdresser with sweeping dyed hair and a male fiancé.
I Woke up Gay will examine how Birch’s personality changed so abruptly.
He tells the BBC: “I was doing a forward roll down a grass bank one day and cut off the blood supply to my brain which caused a stroke to happen. It was from there, while I was recovering, that I realised I’d changed.
“The Chris I knew had gone and a new Chris sort of came along. I came to the realisation that the stroke had turned me gay.”
The show airs at 9pm and will be available for streaming for seven days on BBC iPlayer (UK only).
am speechless. and that never happens.
What sensational exploitation.
I mean….really?
I watched the documentary, and I didn’t think it was exploitative. It was an unusual story, obviously, and it was far from clear whether his homosexuality had been latent or had developed out of the blue following his stroke. He did seem genuinely to believe that the stroke turned him gay. I did feel rather bad for him, as that was the only explanation he could make sense of, and he was desperate to find someone to confirm it for him.
The documentary is on YouTube, by the way, at least for now: I Woke up Gay
thanks, regan. you came closer to being able to say something in the ballpark of what i was thinking. will go watch it, but have to say i’m still skeptical even after dave’s feedback. @Regan DuCasse
I watched it as well, and I cant say I saw anything exploitive about it. The young man (Chris) seems genuinely to believe that the stroke or whatever happened did cause his homosexuality. He traces a complete change in personality, not just attractions, to that time. I don’t know if anyone at this stage of scientific understanding concerning the brain can really say for sure if he had latent homosexual feelings which were brought to the forefront by the brain injury, or if his brain rewired itself significantly, resulting in the “new Chris.” I can only say that he seems quite sincere about his own belief that it happened.
Brain injuries have been the source of a great deal of knowledge about how the brain works over the years. I’m honestly rarely surprised by incredible stories surrounding them. At least there is scientific proof behind these, as opposed to those who claim their orientation changed after prayer or therapy. In the end, who knows about Chris, but he seems happy.
I just watched the documentary. And as for brain injuries and new pathways, from areas of damage: apparently there are some people whose personalities change, but it makes it seem as if the change was SO profound, that the new personality was someone no one could LIVE with and learn to care for just as much.
The older gentleman, had a wife and family and a different profession. The condition of his home with so much painting going on, it looked like someone with OCD and a serious case of it.
Chris, on the other hand, was very very young when all of this happened. He didn’t have the kind of life that would have confirmed his orientation so much. The abandonment by his mother is very telling. She’s rejecting his being gay to that extent is very sad to me.
I can think of how addicts and THEIR personalities change through substance abuse. Their behavior ultimately can become dangerous and the risks they take, even greater.
This young man seems very sweet. He’s handsome, law abiding, has gainful employment and although his family knew him as a different person, he’s not a bad or dangerous person.
What kind of different did he become to make even his mother not stick around?
There is a deeper issue going on here why this documentary was even made. It wasn’t made about the older guy who suddenly became a person so interested in making art.
This is about a person changing from presumably straight to gay. It doesn’t seem to have been a story otherwise.
One of the comments on the thread at YouTube said this was evidence that homosexuality is caused by brain damage.
See how the stupid can come out in people about this?
No, this is evidence that there is a BIOLOGICAL component to homosexuality. That it’s part of the brain’s neural network already.
Chris is otherwise very normal. He can walk and talk normally and only has to modify his physical exertion and diet carefully.
A friend of my family just had a major stroke. He’s unable to speak and can’t walk. He’s only 50 and suffered from high bp.
I agree that stories about the brain injured and their recovery are a source of endless information and mystery.
It’s still sad that Chris’s mother doesn’t appreciate she didn’t have to truly bury him because he’d died.
Without FMRI before and after then this case must lie in the realm of interesting but possibly unique. I watched it last night. If there is any biological neurological link to sexuality (and I I think there is most definitely) then a stroke must be able to affect that sometimes. I’d expect it to be very rare and to be accompanied by other personality changes. The program didn’t go into that but relied on the stereotypes that he is a hairdresser with a smalll dog and a funny haircut. Not exactly convincing evidence. He seemed genuine however.
Something did happen….
I noted that there was very little said about his sex life before the stroke. Maybe it was more embarassing or difficult. But it made me think.
How about this: since every embryo starts off with the female template perhaps the developmental vector in Chris’s embryonic brain didn’t make it as far as the usual equilibrium states (of either gay male, straight male, left handed male, right handed male) but instead left him with an inability to feel a congruence with the underlying pre-existing potential capability for sexual attraction. i.e. that he didn’t have compelling drives before but he would have felt the environmental pressure to have girlfriends etc. The stroke removed that mental inhibition. It literally made him happier. It made him into the self that he was always meant to be.
The nice thing about thinking about it in this way, is that you don’t have to speculate about which part of the brain causes sexual orientation or why another part of his brain didn’t undergo some synaptic reconnectivity, (striving for repair to the original state as happens with speech, motor control etc). There would be no need for other personality changes to be evident. He just realised his true self almost overnight, (which he might have done in very long winded way if he hadn’t had the stroke – no doubt that it would have taken much longer).
Fascinating stuff this program.