I-CBT Topics: How cis/heteronormative, queerphobic rhetoric, and LGBTQIA+ stereotypes can affect OCD

Queerphobic rhetoric and the denial of existence of certain groups of people is harmful in and of itself - and doubly so when you are already struggling with obsessions about who you really are. What this means for people who are navigating obsessional doubts about their identity is that the OCD will pull in harmful stereotypes, queerphobic rhetoric and use this information to make us really believe that we could be someone that we’re not. 

When I, as a bisexual person, was struggling with obsessional doubts about my sexual orientation, my OCD loved to pull in bi erasure as definitive proof that I was indeed a lesbian and should leave my husband. “Bisexual people don’t exist,” it said. “You are just confused. You have to be one or the other.” Similarly, when I was exploring my gender identity outside of being a cisgender woman, it piped up again with this cis-normative piece of information, “you liked pink when you were little, and only girls can like pink, therefore you’re not really non-binary.” These are all irrelevant associations - pieces of information that the OCD uses to justify why an obsession could be true.

What are irrelevant associations?

First, we can’t talk about any presentation of OCD without discussing reasoning. There is a reasoning process happening in the mind of someone with OCD called inferential confusion, or obsessional reasoning. This reasoning process will lead someone with OCD to treat what is only an abstract hypothetical as a valid probability in the here and now. Through this process, the imagination gets superimposed over reality, and the person with OCD will treat the imagined threat - what we call obsessional doubts - as reality. It does this unwittingly, too, making it a very tricky disorder, since this reasoning process will make the obsessional doubts seem very real and compelling indeed. 

One of the ingredients of this reasoning process is irrelevant associations. We know that OCD loves to use information to make an obsessional doubt seem credible: societal and cultural rules, things we’ve heard from other people’s experiences, as well as things that are objectively true, and even our own experiences. OCD uses these little pieces of information to build a compelling and often frightening narrative about why an obsession might be true. OCD does this regardless of the theme of an obsession, whether it be contamination, harm, or identity obsessions. We call these irrelevant associations because they’re just that, associations we make that are not relevant to the here and now because they lack direct evidence.

This is what irrelevant associations might sound like in different obsessional stories: I heard this story on a podcast about a victim of a home invasion leaving their doors unlocked, so my door might be unlocked, or germs exist on surfaces, so there might be germs on my hand, or lots of people get cancer, I might have cancer too.

Here is a small, un-exhaustive list of harmful rhetoric that might be wrapped up into the reasoning that OCD uses to convince someone that they aren’t who they think they are:

• bisexuality doesn’t exist, you’re either heterosexual or homosexual.

• being gay is just a phase.

• you’ll grow out of being trans.

• there’s no such thing as asexual people. They’re just in denial.

• being queer means you were sexually abused as a child.

• any expression of gender outside of the gender binary is mental illness.

• men who are effeminate must be gay

• women who are masculine must be lesbian

• You’re married to the opposite sex, so you’re not really bi/pan.

• Being queer is evil.

• If you don’t plan on medically transitioning, you’re not valid.

• Anyone who drives a Subaru must be a lesbian.

• Non-binary people are just trying to be special.

• You don’t look LGBTQIA+.

• You can’t ever really know what your gender identity/sexual orientation is.

• Queer people are perverts.

• Gay people are pedophiles.

  
  

It’s statements like these that can get pulled into the obsessional reasoning in the form of an irrelevant association, and cause someone to consider that maybe they really aren’t who they thought they were. This is how these statements might show up in someone’s obsessional reasoning.

• I heard others say that bi people don’t exist, so maybe I’m not actually bi.

• I saw a thread on reddit that said that asexuality isn’t real, it’s possible that I’m not actually ace.

• A family member told me that being queer isn’t natural, and that I must have been sexually abused at some point in my life. Maybe that happened and I just don’t remember.

• My mom said that lots of people regret their transition, maybe I’ll regret my transition too.

• The news says that being trans is a mental illness, maybe I’m not trans and I just have a mental illness.

• I’ve heard others say that you can’t possibly know your gender identity or sexual orientation, so I might not know mine.

• My religion says that my identity is evil, therefore I could be a bad person.

• This facebook group says that gay men want to harm children, so I might harm a child.

• There’s a stereotype that Subarus are a lesbian car, and I drive a Subaru, so I might be a lesbian (this one comes straight from my brain - see how ridiculous these can get?)

• My dad said I “wear the pants” in my relationship, maybe I’m actually supposed to be a man.

• When I was a kid, my coach said I ran very effeminately, maybe I’m actually supposed to be a woman.

You may be thinking, but people really do say these things, how are they irrelevant?

The argument here is not that others don’t say these things. The last thing I want to do in writing this article is invalidate anyone’s experience - there is no question that queerphobia exists and rhetoric like this is harmful whether someone has OCD or not. Alongside larger cultural attitudes, the problem is that OCD will capture this rhetoric and pull it into the obsessional story about who someone might be, not who they actually are. It can contribute to the reasons that they doubt who they are - whether they are struggling with obsessional doubts about being gay, straight, trans, cis, etc. 

What makes something an ir-relevant association is the way that it is used by the OCD. An irrelevant association is information used to justify an obsession without direct evidence in the here and now. The OCD will use the fact that germs exist to justify the obsession that there could be dangerous microbes on someone’s hands, or a news story talking about a bridge collapse means that a bridge could collapse the next time someone drives over one. What is missing in both is direct evidence that there really is a problem.

Imagine you are trying to cross the street. You look left and right and see no cars, but your mind brings up an irrelevant association: people get hit by cars all the time. There is evidence right in front of you that there are no cars coming, yet you give the irrelevant association precedence and decide not to cross the street.

It is the same with obsessions about identity. A cultural narrative that bisexual people don’t exist is ignoring the direct evidence that bisexual people do exist. Additionally, someone saying that other people regret their transition doesn’t mean that someone else will as well. 

Resolving OCD won’t resolve larger cultural issues of queerphobia, but learning to identify when OCD is tricking us with irrelevant associations can bring folks one step closer to living the truth of who they actually are, rather than believing that they couldn’t possibly do just that. It can help remove one more barrier in their daily life.