Is There a “Gay Gene"? | Psychology Today

Contents:

• THERE IS NO ‘GAY GENE.’ THERE IS NO ‘STRAIGHT GENE.’ SEXUALY IS JT PLEX, STUDY NFIRMS
• NO ‘GAY GENE’: MASSIVE STUDY HOM ON GEIC BASIS OF HUMAN SEXUALY
• WHAT DO THE NEW ‘GAY GEN’ TELL ABOUT SEXUAL ORIENTATN?
• SEARCH FOR 'GAY GEN' COM UP SHORT IN LARGE NEW STUDY
• THERE’S (STILL) NO GAY GENE
• THERE’S NO ONE ‘GAY GENE,’ BUT GEICS ARE LKED TO SAME-SEX BEHAVR, NEW STUDY SAYS
• WHY ARE PEOPLE GAY? GAY BY CHOICE OR IS BEG GAY GEIC?
• THE LIFE OF THE GAY GENE: OM HYPOTHETIL GEIC MARKER TO SOCIAL REALY
• THE 'GAY GENE' IS A TOTAL MYTH, MASSIVE STUDY CONCLUS
• MANY GEN INFLUENCE SAME-SEX SEXUALY, NOT A SGLE ‘GAY GENE’
• THE 'GAY GENE' IS A MYTH BUT BEG GAY IS 'NATURAL,' SAY SCIENTISTS
• SCIENTISTS QUASH IA OF SGLE 'GAY GENE'
• NO SGLE GENE ASSOCIATED WH BEG GAY
• THE REAL STORY ON GAY GEN
• IS THERE A “GAY GENE"?
• GENE HERMAN GAY OBUARY
• GENE GAY FOUND 68 PEOPLE FLORIDA, GEIA AND 29 OTHER STAT
• FET THE ‘GAY GENE,’ BEE SCIENCE HAS ANOTHER EXPLANATN FOR HOMOSEXUALY
• NEW STUDY FDS GEICS INFLUENCE LGBTQ SEXUALY, BUT STILL NO 'GAY GENE'
• HOMOSEXUALY AS POPULATN CONTROL? WHY GAYS & LBIANS ARE ESSENTIAL TO THE BALANCE OF NATURE.
• WHO WAS GAY IN THE ORIGAL "DARK SHADOWS" TV SERI?

THERE IS NO ‘GAY GENE.’ THERE IS NO ‘STRAIGHT GENE.’ SEXUALY IS JT PLEX, STUDY NFIRMS

“As a teenager tryg to unrstand myself and unrstand my sexualy, I looked at the ter for “the gay gene” and obvly me across Xq28, ” said Fah Sathirapongsasuti, a study -thor and senr scientist at 23andMe, which he joked once led him to believe he hered his gayns om his mother. “[Our study] unrsr an important role for the environment shapg human sexual behavr and perhaps most importantly there is no sgle gay gene but rather the ntributn of many small geic effects sttered across the genome, ” Neale said.

NO ‘GAY GENE’: MASSIVE STUDY HOM ON GEIC BASIS OF HUMAN SEXUALY

“There is no ‘gay gene’, ” says lead study thor Andrea Ganna, a geicist at the Broad Instute of MIT and Harvard Cambridge, and his lleagu also ed the analysis to timate that up to 25% of sexual behavur n be explaed by geics, wh the rt fluenced by environmental and cultural factors — a figure siar to the fdgs of smaller studi. Those who nsir beg gay a disadvantage life (which still is, certa societi), might regard gay people differently if they knew that beg gay was an hered tra, rather than a nsequence of life events, such as a particular type of upbrgg, or mixg wh certa sorts of iends or even a liberate cisn.

“We know that smell has a strong tie to sexual attractn, but s lks to sexual behavrs are not clear, ” said -thor Andrea Ganna, an stctor at HMS and Massachetts General Hospal om the Instute for Molecular Medice study is part a rponse to gay, lbian, and bisexual people’s cursy about themselv, said Fah Sathirapongsasuti, a senr scientist at 23andMe and -thor on the study, who is himself gay. Michael Bronski, profsor of the practice media and activism wh the mtee on studi of women, genr, and sexualy, and thor of A Queer History of the Uned Stat, says the allure of a “gay gene” grew om the flourishg gay-rights movement the after the Stonewall rts 1969.

WHAT DO THE NEW ‘GAY GEN’ TELL ABOUT SEXUAL ORIENTATN?

Exactly which gene this clter may be volved has proven elive—the current study found no signifint associatn between the X chromosome and same-sex sexual behavr—but the ia that a “gay gene” might lie somewhere Xq28—or elsewhere—was ptivatg.

SEARCH FOR 'GAY GEN' COM UP SHORT IN LARGE NEW STUDY

Zeke Stok, chief programs officer of the LGBTQ advocy anizatn GLAAD, ncurred an emailed statement: “This new study provis even more evince that beg gay or lbian is a natural part of human life, a ncln that has been drawn by rearchers and scientists time and aga.

Others have warned that the search for a geic e would pathologize homosexualy the same way psychology did the twentieth century: efforts by psychoanalysts such as Irvg Bieber led to the cln of homosexualy the Amerin Psychiatric Associatn’s Diagnostic and Statistil Manual of Mental Disorrs until 1972. As noted above, the gen that rrelated wh same-sex sexual behavr also rrelated wh willgns to take risks, a nnectn that might not hold up cultur where homosexualy is ls stigmatized and those who are ls risk tolerant would therefore feel more able to act openly.

THERE’S (STILL) NO GAY GENE

The rearchers say that, although variatns the gen nnot predict whether a person is gay, the variants may partly fluence sexual Ganna, lead thor and European Molecular Blogy Laboratory group lear at the Instute of Molecular Medice Fland, said the rearch rerc the unrstandg that same-sex sexual behavr is simply “a natural part of our diversy as a speci. Some of the variants were rrelated wh same-sex sexual behavr men, others women, and some Vila, director of the Center for Geic Medice Rearch at Children’s Natnal Health System, said the study marks the end of “the simplistic ncept of the ‘gay gene. Environmental effects may be a factor for some people; for stance, havg olr brothers creas the odds that younger brothers will be gay, which rearchers spect may have to do wh chang to the mother’s immune system rponse to the earlier Stok, chief programs officer for GLAAD, said a statement that the new rearch on the geics “provis even more evince that beg gay or lbian is a natural part of human life, a ncln that has been drawn by rearchers and scientists time and aga.

THERE’S NO ONE ‘GAY GENE,’ BUT GEICS ARE LKED TO SAME-SEX BEHAVR, NEW STUDY SAYS

In theory, humans and other animals who are exclively attracted to others of the same sex should be unlikely to produce many blogil children, so any gen that predispose people to homosexualy would rarely be passed on to future generatns. Yet same-sex attractn is wispread humans, and rearch suggts that is partly a study of data om hundreds of thoands of people, rearchers have now intified geic patterns that uld be associated wh homosexual behavur, and showed how the might also help people to fd different-sex mat, and reproduce. Most of the participants were born durg a time when homosexualy was eher illegal or culturally taboo their untri, so many people who were attracted to others of the same sex might never have actually acted on their attractn, and uld therefore have end up the wrong group the Monk, an elogist and evolutnary blogist at Yale Universy New Haven, Connecticut, thks that the veats are so important that the paper n’t draw any real nclns about geics and sexual orientatn.

No dividual gene alone mak a person gay, lbian or bisexual; stead, thoands of gen likely fluence sexual orientatn, a massive new study of the genom of nearly half a ln people human societi and both sex, between 2% and 10% of people report engagg sex wh a member of the same sex, eher exclively or addn to sex wh a member of the oppose sex, the rearchers said. Related: 5 Myths About Gay People Debunked"Bee is a ntroversial topic, fundg has historilly been limed and recment of participants was difficult, " study -thor Fah Sathirapongsasuti, a senr scientist and putatnal blogist at the geic ttg pany 23andMe, told Live Science. Muny there said they were worried the fdgs uld give ammunn to people who seek to e science to bolster bias and discrimatn agast gay ncern is that evince that gen fluence same-sex behavr uld e anti-gay activists to ll for gene edg or embryo selectn, even if that would be technilly impossible.

“That right there is the big issue wh lookg for the geics of sexual orientatn — social ntext uld be a big part of the exprsn of the tra, ” said Jeremy Yor, an assistant profsor of blogy at California State Universy, Northridge, who is gay and follows geic rearch the field. He and others noted that olr participants me of age when homosexual behavr was crimalized Bra and that for much of their life homosexualy was classified as a psychiatric Reilly and others said such stark differenc between olr and younger participants show the tricks of tryg to draw reprentative blogil rmatn om a study populatn so strongly fluenced by society’s changg attus.

WHY ARE PEOPLE GAY? GAY BY CHOICE OR IS BEG GAY GEIC?

The news this week that the largt study of s kd failed to nfirm the existence of a "gay gene" is not so much a disappotment for those lookg to unrstand the LGBTQ muny, as is an acknowledgement that science do not need to tell what should be plaly obv: gays, lbians, bisexuals and pansexuals are who they are. A vast new study has quashed the ia that a sgle “gay gene” exists, scientists say, stead fdg homosexual behavur is fluenced by a multu of geic variants which each have a ty rearchers pare the suatn to factors termg a person’s height, which multiple geic and environmental factors play rol.

It also relied on self-reported ia that geics might play a role same-sex attractn was propelled to the spotlight 1993 when Dean Hamer, a scientist at the US Natnal Cancer Instute, and his team found lks between DNA markers on the X chromosome and male sexual fdgs ed nsirable ntroversy, wh the media dubbg the disvery the “gay gene”. Image source, Getty ImagA geic analysis of almost half a ln people has nclud there is no sgle "gay gene" study, published Science, ed data om the UK Bbank and 23andMe, and found some geic variants associated wh same-sex geic factors acunted for, at most, 25% of same-sex behavur.

Even if social prsur through the ag led some gay men to have some children, the signifintly lower rate of reproductn would eventually lead to the disappearance of the gene (as Hamer do note his book, The Science of Dire: The Search for the Gay Gene and the Blogy of Behavr).

THE LIFE OF THE GAY GENE: OM HYPOTHETIL GEIC MARKER TO SOCIAL REALY

To put the kibosh on the ia that the evolutn of a gay gene prents an unsolvable nundm, Sergey Gavrilets, a theoretil evolutnary blogist at the Universy of Tennsee, veloped a mathematil mol of how a set of what he lls “sexually antagonistic” gen might evolve. ”) But he did clu Camper-Ciani’s rults and also assumed that gay gen would be passed down on the mother’s si, on the X chromosome, as dited by mol shows that over centuri an effect you might ll the homophobe’s paradox has been at work on the human genome: The more tolerant the society, the more likely is to mata gay gen. Ivanka Savic Berglund, a nroscientist at the Karolska Instute Stockholm, put gay men, straight men, and women a PET snner (not all at the same time) and watched how their anterr hypothalam l up when prented wh an odor siar to one found men’s sweat and one siar to a scent found women’s ure.

"Here are five stori that scratch the surface of the Fox Ci' LGBTQ muny and Lambda Lounge: Appleton's first gay barThroughout the late 20th century, gay people primarily found muny through the bar scene, often seen as a safe space for LGBTQ people to socialize.

THE 'GAY GENE' IS A TOTAL MYTH, MASSIVE STUDY CONCLUS

Appleton's first gay bar, the Lambda Lounge, opened downtown 1977 by partners Pl DeB and Gene DeB, Pl's sister, said the two bought the bar om Claire Kempky who ran Doris' Super Bar, a bs wh a reputatn as a hangout spot for gay people. Rearcher for the Universy of Wisns-Green Bay's "Our Voic: LGBTQ+ Stori of Northeastern Wisns" Dennis Jab said bar patrons often experienced backlash om Appleton rints who believed homosexualy was wrong and didn't like havg a gay bar patrons were safe to be themselv si the bar, Jabs said people knew to not enter or leave the bar alone as they faced vlence om straight people and many fights took place outsi the bar. However, the Lambda Lounge's prence Appleton paved the way for other LGBTQ bars, such as The ReMixx Neenah, Rasls Appleton and the now-closed Pivot A Neenah LGBTQ club is creatg a growg love for drag shows the Fox CiMore: Rasls has long been a gay refuge AppletonBook clubs allow gay people to fd munyBook clubs have often been a place for people wh shared inti to fd muny while discsg lerature pertag to their liv and provi a safe space for gays and lbians to socialize, Appleton Public Library llectns ordator Michael Nz and Lawrence Universy Profsor Dick Wslow found a book club named the Lavenr Salon 15 years, the group met each Sunday members' hom wh potluck meals and discsns on books and club was exclive to gay people, so members — whether they were openly gay or not — were able to be themselv and safely meet other people the LGBTQ muny.

MANY GEN INFLUENCE SAME-SEX SEXUALY, NOT A SGLE ‘GAY GENE’

Participatn the club grew om seven members to over 60 at a time, brgg people om Marette and Sheboygan for the weekly stunts' fight for gay-straight alliance clubDurg the turn of the century, stunts Madison and Milwkee high schools started creatg gay-straight allianc, or GSA clubs, to provi supportive environments for LGBTQ word about the clubs grew, a number of stunts at Neenah High School 2001, cludg Nick Ross — a current Appleton School Board member — wanted to create an official club for LGBTQ stunts to discs experienc and issu they were gog of the stunts were already LGBTQ support groups at the school and the muny, but Ross said was important for them to create an official group to give visibily to LGBTQ stunts and let other stunts know there was a safe space the school to discs their, when the stunts applied for club regnn, Neenah High School Prcipal Mark Duerwaechter nied them, sayg a GSA has polil goals and would go agast district policy, acrdg to Post-Crcent archiv.

THE 'GAY GENE' IS A MYTH BUT BEG GAY IS 'NATURAL,' SAY SCIENTISTS

"It was extremely terrifyg and sry for all the reasons of beg out public as LGBTQ, but also super excg bee we put ourselv out there and ma thgs happen, " Ross Neenah stunts' ph for a GSA and the attentn gathered the Fox Ci spired other stunts to create the club their own schools and a year later all three Appleton high schools had a High School Gay Straight Alliance club om an Oct.

"In the last 15 years wh the cy of Appleton, we were dog some pretty active support of LGBTQ folks bee we were tired of seeg teens harmed and havg hate crim our parks, " Flor, who also prevly served as Appleton's diversy ordator, told The first time Appleton got volved LGBTQ issu was 2012 when the cy passed domtic partnership protectn for gay cy employe and their a time when same-sex marriage wasn't legal, domtic partnership benefs allowed cy employe and their partners the same benefs as spo, such as health surance and sick next time the cy got volved LGBTQ issu was Augt 2013 when the cy passed fair hog based on genr inty and exprsn, beg the third cy the state to ban hog discrimatn for transgenr people. Rears would do well to discern and distst every variety of psdo-science, whether voked to jtify a relig philosophy (as evolutn for philosophil humanism), a polil iology (as evolutn for both Nazism and Socialism), or a qutnable human behavr (as the ‘gay gene’ myth for homosexual nduct). Prr to 1973, homosexualy appeared the Diagnostic and Statistil Manual of Mental Disorrs (DSM), the official reference book ed by the Amerin Psychiatric Associatn for diagnosg mental disorrs Ameri and throughout much of the rt of the world.

SCIENTISTS QUASH IA OF SGLE 'GAY GENE'

Several thors have argued that clicians who attempt to help their clients change their homosexual orientatn are vlatg profsnal ethil s by providg a “treatment” that is effective, often harmful, and rerc their clients the false belief that homosexualy is a disorr and needs treatment (2003, 32:403). Though, on average, the size of the hypothalamic nucls LeVay nsired signifint was ed smaller the men he intified as homosexual, his published data show that the range of siz of the dividual sampl was virtually the same as for the heterosexual men. ”] Ironilly, however, the removal of homosexualy as a signatn om the Diagnostic and Statistil Manual of Psychiatric Disorrs by the Amerin Psychiatric Associatn has kept many physicians om attemptg to provi reparative therapy to homosexuals.

But even given the ser shortgs om behavral studi such as the, there are sufficient data to dite that an dividual n change his or her sexual orientatn om homosexual to heterosexual—somethg that would be an impossibily if homosexualy were ed by geics. The sger/actor ma a triumphant return to Broadway 1983, starrg as a wealthy gay sociale the mil versn of the popular French film La Cage x Foll (1978), earng him a Tony nomatn - but he lost the award to his more flamboyant -star Gee Hearn. Even after his ath, took another 28 years for the first gay character to appear Star Trek’s televisn seri (although y, novel tie-s, ics, fan works, and other non-nonil media featured a markedly improved number of LGBT Starfleet officers).

Given that the first openly gay recurrg character on televisn wouldn’t appear until the edy Soap 1977 (and played by Billy Crystal, so not exactly a nuanced character portrayal), pictg one the ‘60s when Star Trek first aired would have been unthkable to most people.

NO SGLE GENE ASSOCIATED WH BEG GAY

Durg a 20th anniversary nventn 1986, show creator Gene Rodnberry was asked by a foundg member of a Boston LGBT science fictn group (lled, charmgly, the Gaylaxian Network) whether or not the recently announced The Next Generatn would troduce gay characters to Starfleet. That same year, Gerrold (who’s bt known for wrg the TOS episo “The Trouble Wh Tribbl”) began workg on a script which revolved around two gay characters beg afflicted by an curable, tergalactic blood disease that mirrored the spread of HIV.

THE REAL STORY ON GAY GEN

In a letter to The Advote, Rodnberry wrote that " the fifth season of Star Trek: The Next Generatn, viewers will see more of shipboard life some episos, which will, among other thgs, clu gay crew members day-to-day circumstanc.

Dpe the oddns of a metaphor for gay rights that volv what is ostensibly a heteronormative uple at the center, Soren’s story is still the clost that ‘90s Star Trek ever me to addrsg issu and them specific to the LGBT rights movement, particularly the ia of nversn therapy. Acrdg to fan mors, early drafts of the screenplay for Star Trek: First Contact ma some mentn of a mor character, Litenant Hawk, beg gay, which was quickly nied by producer Rick Berman (a supposed first draft that surfaced onle refers to Hawk as a naive young Ensign, not a Litenant).

IS THERE A “GAY GENE"?

In 1996, a group of science fictn wrers, fans, and activists associated wh the San Francis Bay Area Chapter of the Gay & Lbian Alliance Agast Defamatn lnched an onle petn known as the “Voyager Visibily Project, ” which at s height gathered more than five thoand signatur om fans every U.

As was the se wh Litenant Hawk, the Voyager tie- novels often boldly went where the show would not, albe only wh ancillary characters; Harry Kim’s roommate at Starfleet Amy is portrayed as gay Pathways and there are several same-genr upl picted passg throughout the book.

Of urse, the visible gay reprentatn that “Blood and Fire” episo would have given to TNG was not prent here – stead, the episo, ”Stigma, ” revolved around T’Pol ntractg a generative Vuln illns through a md-meld, which at this pot Star Trek’s timele was nsired taboo. “I liked the approach, which was not to make a big thg out , which is where I hope we are gog as a speci, to not policise one’s personal orientatns, ” actor John Cho told the Herald Sun, notg that director Jt L wanted to nod to Takei’s real-life stggl wh acceptance and gay rights activism.

GENE HERMAN GAY OBUARY

And wh poll after poll now showg that homosoexualy is beg creasgly accepted by mastream populatns mocratic natns, all gay men and lbians need to fully enhance and realize our self imag is a world view that acunts for our reason for beg. Geicists have gone so far as to propose the existence of a gay gene that all humans and animals nta wh them and which is turned on or off like a swch pendg on the circumstanc of the the gay gene has elud disvery spe two s of enthiastic anticipatn. Although the news disappoted some the LGBT muny who sought blogil affirmatn, brought relief to others who had feared a geic marker such as a gay gene would give rise to a ll for the geic engeerg, or "fixg, " of fact, we don't require the disvery of a gay gene to show that homosexualy is ubiquo nature, which uld mean serv some purpose to the speci.

GENE GAY FOUND 68 PEOPLE FLORIDA, GEIA AND 29 OTHER STAT

Given what we know about natural selectn as an emently versatile rponse to environmental endangerment, and what we know about the genome's metabolic adaptabily, follows that humans over generatns would velop a mechanism wh them to check and balance procreative the face of all this theorizg a tly scientific hypothis of homosexualy still elus , nsir that is no small part bee even science is negatively affected by human prejudice.

FET THE ‘GAY GENE,’ BEE SCIENCE HAS ANOTHER EXPLANATN FOR HOMOSEXUALY

As we all know wh regard to stem cell rearch and efforts to bat HIV, the social stigma and relig ndng attached to certa subjects of study still slow scientific for the disvery of a gay gene, this year a group of Korean geicists led by Chankyu Park announced the June 2010 issue of BMC Geics that the sexual preferenc of female mice had been altered by removg a sgle gene.

For even whout a al lk tablished between homosexualy and populatn management, the obv rctn populatn growth attributable to homosexualy by self dubably works to prerve the urse populatn ntrol also provis gays and lbians, and particular gay and lbian youth, the purpose life we seek. Roger Denson is the thor of Voice of Force, a novel that has been lled a microsm of ancient faial fear s chroniclg of the latg trangement and tragedy that ensue as a gay man and straight man search for mutual ground spe the fay, fah, profs, and polics dividg them.

NEW STUDY FDS GEICS INFLUENCE LGBTQ SEXUALY, BUT STILL NO 'GAY GENE'

It is important to note that the same-sex soc-sexual behavr observed the study is distct om homosexual behavr bee s motivatn and purpose are social, said Jean-Baptiste Le, who studi primate behavr at the Universy of Lethbridge Canada and was not volved the new rearch.

HOMOSEXUALY AS POPULATN CONTROL? WHY GAYS & LBIANS ARE ESSENTIAL TO THE BALANCE OF NATURE.

WHO WAS GAY IN THE ORIGAL "DARK SHADOWS" TV SERI?