I didn't "hypnotize" her (whatever that means), but I did explain to her what it's like for me to be sexually attracted to women, and detailed a scenario where I predicted that she would be attracted to a woman. She wanted to be gay because she had an easier time finding women worth having relationships with, but try as she might she couldn't get into them sexually. I have personally helped someone who said she used to wish she was lesbian become bisexual. Short term change is very different and much easier than stable lasting change, but regardless, this is an example of the sharp black/white corner starting to round off to gray. If I'm remembering the story right, Kev Sheldrake has hypnotized a somewhat hobophobic man into behaving a more gay than he was comfortable with. Skipping over the theoretical reasons why this is to be expected, there are some empirical things that point in this direction, of which I'll bring up a few. There is reason to believe these things aren't fundamentally impermeable to change. The average hypnotherapist these days probably isn't much (if any) more capable, and so if you go to a hypnotherapist asking for your orientation to be flipped, there is a very good chance you won't succeed. If you find their methods to be naive and the practitioners "not the cream of the crop", then all it tells you is that it's at least that hard. If you look into the methods and practitioners and find them unsurpassably competent and knowledgeable, then you can call it case closed, not possible. It's been tried, and at least so far, has not brought about great success. The truth is more complicated (as it often is). The exact causes don't matter for your question either, except in so much that we know that neither "There's one gene that hard codes everything, just like the high school picture of eye color" nor "It's all trivially learned, and can be trivially unlearned too!" are true. From twin studies we know that it's in large part genetic (or at least, prenatal), but those twin studies show that "borne this way" isn't entirely true either if one identical twin is gay, it's only about 50/50 that the other is too. With that out of the way, homosexuality isn't some simple thing that science has all figured out. The actual reasons bigotry is bad stand regardless of the cause(s) of homosexuality, and you don't want to inadvertently cede science or truth to the bigots. And this is a shame, since the underlying goals are often noble, and arguing good causes with bad arguments doesn't actually help. Because of the political nature, people often avoid thinking too hard or clearly about the reality, and will give dishonest or ill informed answers. This is a complex and unfortunately controversial topic.
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