In Praise of wikiHow's 'Am I Gay?' Quiz
It all started with a question. During my junior year of college, I went on a school-sponsored mission trip to South Africa to learn about apartheid. It was called a Global Outreach Retreat—“iGo” for short—and based on the brochures, I expected a camp-like experience: half learning, half bonding. Turns out, it was a gay awakening.
The admission process was fairly simple. I submitted a written application for the program, explaining my desire to “broaden my horizons,” and was promptly called in for an interview. Shortly after, they let me know that I’d been accepted on the Cape Town trip, and five months later, I was on a plane to Africa. To my surprise, I—a "straight" woman with an affinity for Hailey Kiyoko music videos—had landed myself on the queerest mission group on campus. Nearly half of my peers hailed from the LGBTQIA moniker. (“The alphabet mafia,” they joked.) They were out and proud, and I was proud of them, so I didn’t think anything of it. Back then, I thought the A stood for Ally, so I assumed I was in the right place.
We spent each day of the trip embedded with a native tour guide who brought us to historical landmarks and introduced us to community leaders. When 6 p.m. hit? We could do whatever we wanted. One night, after our mission leaders fell asleep, my new friends and I played a game that I like to call, "Who Are You Really?" It goes like this: At night (it has to be at night), a group of teenage pseudo-strangers ask each other intrusive questions like, Did you have a happy childhood? and What’s your biggest fear? It’s the type of slumber-party game you’d only play when you're young, and don’t know how to have an honest conversation.
When it was my turn, I blurted out a question—to the entire group, mind you—that had been on my mind for the entirety of our trip: “How did you know you were gay?” Silence. Blank stares. Clearly an overstep. Erinn, the most confident of the bunch, looked me dead in the eyes, and sneered, “How did you know you were straight?”
Shit, I thought. Got me there.
I didn't have an answer. We sat in silence for a while, until someone politely chimed in with a new question. The night went on, and while others revealed their late-night confessions, I focused on lowering my heart rate. Meanwhile, Erinn and her unflinching gaze tracked my every move.
At this point, you should know something: I’m stubborn, diligent, and a little bit petty. There was no way I was going to let some girl on a mission trip question my sexuality. I could do that on my own. Actually, I’d been doing that on my own. At the time, I was about 87 percent sure I was straight. Sure, there’d been a lingering thought or two. I knew girls were hot—but in an appreciative, women-are-art, type of way. My romantic history was slim, but purely hetero. But that wasn’t enough proof. If I wanted to prove I was straight, I needed evidence! Empirical data, if you will.
So, I Googled it.
A couple weeks later, after we returned from Cape Town—how did you know you were straight? still ringing in my head—I played another round of "Who Are You Really?" Late one night, I grabbed my phone and typed those three words:
Am I gay???
The first thing that popped up? A wikiHow quiz. Actually, the wikiHow quiz. Headline: "Am I Gay? Take this quiz to find out!" It's right here. It's the very one that thousands of other “straight” people likely took before coming out. Over the past 18 (yes, 18!) years, the "Am I Gay?" quiz has become a queer right of passage. At the time, of course, it was complete nonsense. (The quiz has evolved over the years, with its current version authored by a LGBTQ+ counselor.) Not even the most advanced A.I., or questionnaire writer, can tell you something you already know.
Nevertheless, the "Am I Gay?" quiz offers the gift of perspective, which I so desperately needed. When I arrived at the homepage, I was greeted with a cheery message. "How do you know if you’re gay?” the introduction asks. “There’s a whole spectrum of romantic and sexual orientation, and ultimately, you get to choose whatever label feels right. But It can be tough to figure it all out, so we’ve created a quiz to help you explore how you feel about your sexuality and start to find some answers within yourself.” Thanks, wikiHow!
Then, I was instructed to click through 12 prompts. Questions like, “Have you ever had feelings for a same-gender close friend?” and “Have you ever kissed or wanted to kiss someone of the same gender?” bounced across the screen. I lied on each and every answer.
(By the way: A few weeks ago, I asked a few of my friends to see if they’d taken the "Am I Gay?" quiz—and better yet, if they were honest. “I definitely lied,” one friend told me. “I took it multiple times,” wrote another. Even my girlfriend tried to trick the system at least once. “We’ve all been there,” she said. “I lied on it too.”)
Back then, I got the answer I hoped for. According to the wikiHow gods, I was... “probably straight!” Nothing to worry about. Looking back, I appreciate the quiz’s ambiguity. wikiHow knows why you’re there—and they know you know, too. Though structured to produce a real result, relying on the quiz is about as foolproof as asking a Magic 8 Ball to tell you the future. You can change your answers, and play it again, and again, to yield whatever result you want—until you’re comfortable enough to come to a decision on your own. It took me about three years to get there.
Eventually, Erinn and I became close friends. She never asked another question about my sexuality, and was one of my loudest cheerleaders when I came out. We haven’t traveled together since Cape Town—I set up shop in New York, while she opted for a nomadic journey after graduation—but to this day, she sends postcards about her queer escapades around the globe.
Oh, and she is absolutely familiar with the "Am I Gay" quiz, too. When I asked my friends if they had ever turned to wikiHow, she was the first to respond.
Taking that is a classic red flag to know if you’re gay.
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