Is There a “Gay Gene"? | Psychology Today

Contents:

• THERE IS NO ‘GAY GENE.’ THERE IS NO ‘STRAIGHT GENE.’ SEXUALY IS JT PLEX, STUDY NFIRMS
• THERE’S NO ONE ‘GAY GENE,’ BUT GEICS ARE LKED TO SAME-SEX BEHAVR, NEW STUDY SAYS
• NO ‘GAY GENE’: MASSIVE STUDY HOM ON GEIC BASIS OF HUMAN SEXUALY
• SEARCH FOR 'GAY GEN' COM UP SHORT IN LARGE NEW STUDY
• THE LIFE OF THE GAY GENE: OM HYPOTHETIL GEIC MARKER TO SOCIAL REALY
• THE 'GAY GENE' IS A MYTH BUT BEG GAY IS 'NATURAL,' SAY SCIENTISTS
• THE REAL STORY ON GAY GEN
• WHAT DO THE NEW ‘GAY GEN’ TELL ABOUT SEXUAL ORIENTATN?
• MANY GEN INFLUENCE SAME-SEX SEXUALY, NOT A SGLE ‘GAY GENE’
• IS THERE A "GAY GENE"? MAJOR NEW STUDY SAYS NO
• THERE’S (STILL) NO GAY GENE
• SCIENTISTS QUASH IA OF SGLE 'GAY GENE'
• FET THE ‘GAY GENE,’ BEE SCIENCE HAS ANOTHER EXPLANATN FOR HOMOSEXUALY
• NO SGLE GENE ASSOCIATED WH BEG GAY
• THE 'GAY GENE' IS A TOTAL MYTH, MASSIVE STUDY CONCLUS
• WHY ARE PEOPLE GAY? GAY BY CHOICE OR IS BEG GAY GEIC?
• NEW STUDY: THERE IS NO GAY GENE THAT HOMOSEXUALY
• IS THERE ARE GAY GENE? ARE YOU BORN GAY OR IS BEG GAY A CHOICE?
• HOW SCIENCE TRIED, AND FAILED, TO FD A “GAY GENE”
• BORN THIS WAY? SOCIETY, SEXUALY AND THE SEARCH FOR THE 'GAY GENE'
• DO A ‘GAY GENE’ EXIST? NEW STUDY SAYS ‘XQ28’ MAY INFLUENCE MALE SEXUAL ORIENTATN
• THERE’S NO EVINCE THAT A SGLE ‘GAY GENE’ EXISTS
• IS THERE A “GAY GENE"?
• HOW OUR GEN ULD MAKE GAY OR STRAIGHT
• SCIENCENO SGLE 'GAY GENE', REVEALS THE LARGT-EVER STUDY OF THE GEICS OF SAME-SEX SEXUAL BEHAVUR
• SOME RANDOM THOUGHTS ON ‘GAY GENE’ STUDI
• THE SHOCKG WAY NEWSPAPERS WROTE ABOUT THE NOW-BUNKED ‘GAY GENE’ 1993
• NO, SCIENTISTS HAVE NOT FOUND THE ‘GAY GENE’
• MANY GEN INFLUENCE SAME-SEX ACTIVY, NOT ONE ‘GAY GENE,’ STUDY FDS

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. 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. 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

“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. 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.

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). ”) 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.

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).

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

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). 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.

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

"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. 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.

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.

"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. 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.

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

“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. “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. 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.

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

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. 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. Prev studi had hted that geic factors were plex, but their relatively small sl ma hard to draw reliable the new study, rearchers ed data om over 470, 000 people, over a 100 tim more than prev nfirmed that homosexualy stems om both environmental and geic than their beg one sgle 'gay gene', however, the team found thoands of plac - or loci - the genome that seem to play a role five of the had a 'signifint' impact — and, bed, all the factors acunted for only 8–25% of the variatn sexual attractn between different factors at play are so plex that is impossible to predict om a person's DNA whether they are attracted to members of the same-sex or not.

THE REAL STORY ON GAY GEN

This means that there is no such thg as a sgle 'gay gene' that term your sexual preferenc — jt like many other human tras (stock image)The team also termed that the geic fluence on same-sex behavur is slightly different between men and women, wh the overlap between the sex beg lower for sexual preferenc that for other behavural tras.

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.

” which wonred, skeptilly: If the study prov that homosexualy is related to the environment, above all, and not to heredy – why isn’t right and proper, scientific terms, to allow those who so sire to unrgo treatment orr to rce their same-sex sir, which have now been shown not to be geic? An article published two years ago (about a study which all the subjects had taken part a gay pri para Toronto) found a nnectn between that hand and the gay person’s “role bed”: that is, the proportn of left-hand gays who fed their sexual behavr as passive or versatile (i.

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

“In 1991, ” LeVay told Haaretz a phone nversatn, “I published a study that got a lot of media attentn, related to my observatn that there was a regn si the hypothalam that was different size between men and women, and also between gay and straight men… My addnal fdg was the difference size between gay and straight men this regn si the hypothalam that is volved the regulatn of sexual behavr. Ksey had nducted a survey of men, which found that 37 percent of his subjects said they had unrgone a homosexual experience of some kd, and 10 percent said they had been exclively gay for three years of their adult life – a statistic which to this day is generally said to reprent the proportn of people engagg same-sex behavr.

”One of the lsons, and one of the most tertg pots arisg om the study has to do, says Ganna, wh the mo of measurement that had been e sce 1948, when Ksey’s sle ranked dividuals as beg between 0 (totally heterosexual) and 6 (totally homosexual) “Basilly, the tenncy is to lote dividuals on a ntuum.

”In recent years, “there have been many studi showg that people’s attus toward homosexualy are closely tied to their beliefs about what mak people gay, ” says LeVay, cg a survey that showed there was a high probabily that people who thk homosexualy is a choice will object to a gay person beg their children’s teacher – which a way might make sense, he adds: “If you thk beg gay is somethg fect, socially ntag, and you didn’t want your kid to be gay, then you wouldn’t want their teacher to be gay...

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

One of the parameters nsirs are geic rrelatns between gen that are ascribed to homosexualy, and certa psychologil, the psychologist: “One thg that was perceived as ntroversial, was to look for – and fd – a geic overlap between homosexual sex gen and gen associated wh prsn.

Even though the program achieved relatively imprsive rults, the study as such drew wispread cricism – not unual for rearchers engaged such Stanford “gays intifitn” program may be an extreme example, this rpect, but ’s also a byproduct of the nsirable surge studi this field, a trend that began the early 1990s. The latt survey, om the end of last year, showed this trend ntug: More than half of the Amerin public believ that gay people are born wh their sexual orientatn, whereas only 30 percent attribute to environmental factors (10 percent said both factors play a part, 4 percent ced other factors and 6 percent said they weren’t sure). Male sexual orientatn may be fluenced by geics, a new study fdgs, shared at the annual meetg of the Amerin Associatn for the Advancement of Science Chigo, revealed that a study that tted the DNA of 409 gay men, at least two chromosom may affect a man’s sexual orientatn.

IS THERE A "GAY GENE"? MAJOR NEW STUDY SAYS NO

Our fdgs suggt there may be gen at play, and we found evince for two sets that affect whether a man is gay or straight, " said Michael Bailey of Northwtern Universy, who rried out the study volved drawg blood om 409 gay brothers and heterosexual members of their fai.

”Gay men were divid: The fdg vdited the oft-repeated claims that “I was born this way” but also opened ighteng new possibili for tectn and year, a larger study of gay brothers, g the many geic markers now available through the Human Genome Project, nfirmed the origal fdg and also tected another “gay gene” on chromosome 8. Scientists have aga bunked the ia of a sgle "gay gene", the largt study to date of the geics of same-sex sexual pots:Rearchers snned the human genome for geic markers associated wh same-sex sexual behavurMany gen fluence a person's likelihood of havg had same-sex partners, but they have only a small effect on behavurSome people qutn whether the benefs of this type of rearch outweigh the potential dangersRather, their fdgs pat a diverse and plex picture of human sexualy, and the geic factors that fluence half a ln people took part the study, mostly om the Uned Kgdom and the Uned Stat, which was published the journal Science we've known om prev tw and fay studi that our sexual preferenc are fluenced by our gen, 's been difficult for scientists to ppot whether any specific geic markers uld play a most prev studi have volved only a few hundred or a few thoand participants, this ternatnal llaboratn is at least 100 tim larger and more able to draw robt nclns, the rearchers said. "We tly nsir this a team scientific effort tend to help crease our llective unrstandg of the geics of sexual behavur, which is actually a very, very personal topic for me as a scientist, but also as a gay man, " said study -thor Fah Sathirapongsasuti om geic ttg pany the rearchers didThe data ed the study, which was predomantly drawn om the UK Bbank and 23andMe, looked at the male and female participants' DNA and qutns they had answered about their sexual behavur, cludg whether they'd ever had sex wh someone of the same rearchers snned the entire human genome to fd markers that were signifintly associated wh same-sex sexual the past, some studi have poted to a geic marker on the X chromosome, Xq28, that uld fluence male sexual rearchers didn't fd this marker was signifintly associated wh same-sex behavur.

THERE’S (STILL) NO GAY GENE

Heterosexualy as DefltAlthough theorizg origs of both same-sex relatns and other-sex relatns are found Plato’s Symposium, the terms “homosexualy” and “heterosexualy” were first ed 1869— fact, by a journalist—a time when scientific speculatn about same-sex feelgs, behavrs, and attractns flourished.

However, speculatn about homosexualy’s origs persists as a culture wars issue a polil battle over whether society should accept gay relatnships on an equal basis wh heterosexual one si are those who believe people are “born gay” (often synonymo wh geilly termed). Meanwhile, the mood at the nference has been cidly ls plimentary, wh several geicists cricizg the methods prented the talk, the validy of the rults, and the verage the ’s study was based on 37 pairs of intil male tws who were disrdant—that is, one tw each pair was gay, while the other was straight—and 10 pairs who were both gay.

A new study vtigat what role, if any, geics play a person's sexual BAKER/AFP/Getty ImagA number of geic variants play a role the likelihood that a person will engage same-sex sexual activy, but no sgle "gay gene" exists, acrdg to a massive new study published the journal rearch, volvg nearly half a ln people, found that geic fluence is not termative and non-geic factors are also likely to be volved – makg impossible to e geics to predict dividuals' same-sex behavr.

SCIENTISTS QUASH IA OF SGLE 'GAY GENE'

The study also tertgly found differenc between the geics of havg at least one same-sex partner and havg only same-sex partners, a fdg the thors say supports a multidimensnal view of sexual behavr, rather than a ntuum like the one illtrated by the oft-ced Ksey Sle, which rang learly om pletely heterosexual to pletely homosexual.

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

NO SGLE GENE ASSOCIATED WH BEG GAY

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

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

NEW STUDY: THERE IS NO GAY GENE THAT HOMOSEXUALY

IS THERE ARE GAY GENE? ARE YOU BORN GAY OR IS BEG GAY A CHOICE?

HOW SCIENCE TRIED, AND FAILED, TO FD A “GAY GENE”

BORN THIS WAY? SOCIETY, SEXUALY AND THE SEARCH FOR THE 'GAY GENE'

DO A ‘GAY GENE’ EXIST? NEW STUDY SAYS ‘XQ28’ MAY INFLUENCE MALE SEXUAL ORIENTATN

THERE’S NO EVINCE THAT A SGLE ‘GAY GENE’ EXISTS

IS THERE A “GAY GENE"?

HOW OUR GEN ULD MAKE GAY OR STRAIGHT

SCIENCENO SGLE 'GAY GENE', REVEALS THE LARGT-EVER STUDY OF THE GEICS OF SAME-SEX SEXUAL BEHAVUR

SOME RANDOM THOUGHTS ON ‘GAY GENE’ STUDI

THE SHOCKG WAY NEWSPAPERS WROTE ABOUT THE NOW-BUNKED ‘GAY GENE’ 1993

NO, SCIENTISTS HAVE NOT FOUND THE ‘GAY GENE’

MANY GEN INFLUENCE SAME-SEX ACTIVY, NOT ONE ‘GAY GENE,’ STUDY FDS