There’s (Still) No Gay Gene | Harvard Magaze

Contents:

• WHAT DO THE NEW ‘GAY GEN’ TELL ABOUT SEXUAL ORIENTATN?
• NO ‘GAY GENE’: MASSIVE STUDY HOM ON GEIC BASIS OF HUMAN SEXUALY
• SCIENTISTS FD DNA DIFFERENC BETWEEN GAY MEN AND THEIR STRAIGHT TW BROTHERS
• ABOUT THE CENTERSCE 1983 THE CENTER HAS BEEN SUPPORTG, FOSTERG AND CELEBRATG THE LGBT MUNY OF NEW YORK CY. FD MORE RMATN ON AND OUR WORK ABOUT THE CENTER. VIS ABOUT THE CENTEROUR MISSNCYBER CENTERCENTER HISTORYRACE EQUYMEDIA CENTERLEARSHIP & STAFFEMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNICORPORATE PARTNERSHIPSANNUAL REPORTS & FANCIAL INFORMATNCONTACT USHOURS & LOTNSEMAPSUPPORT THE CENTER
• THERE’S (STILL) NO GAY GENE
• GAY GEICSMOST OF BELIEVE THAT WE WERE BORN THAT WAY, BUT IS SEXUAL ORIENTATN OUR DNA? JV CHAMARY GO SEARCH OF THE GAY GENEJV CHAMARYPUBLISHED: MAY 31, 2009 AT 11:00 PMGAY GEICS

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

We have known for s that sexual orientatn is partly herable men, thanks to studi of fai which some people are straight and some people are gay. In 1993, geic variatns a regn on the X chromosome men were lked to whether they were heterosexual or homosexual, and 1995, a regn on chromosome 8 was intified. Alan Sanrs at North Shore Universy, Illois, and his team ppoted the gen by parg DNA om 1077 gay and 1231 straight men.

Intertgly, this bra regn ntas the hypothalam, which was intified 1991 as differg size between gay and straight men. Grave’s disease is more mon gay than straight men, and some rearch suggts that gay men tend to be thner – which might possibly be a rult of thyroid overdrive.

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

“There will be men who have the form of gene that creas the chance of beg gay, but they won’t be gay. There have been studi suggtg that there is a geic element to homosexualy women, but more rearch has been done men, says Sanrs. The latt fdgs open the prospect to intifyg the whole pathway of gen volved both homosexual and heterosexual orientatn, says Dean Hamer at the US Natnal Instut of Health, who led the study that ppoted chromosome X back 1993.

However, blogists have documented homosexual behavr more than 450 speci, argug that same-sex behavr is not an unnatural choice, and may fact play a val role wh populatns.

The 2019 study is the latt a hunt for “gay gen” that began 1993, when Dean Hamer lked male homosexualy to a sectn of the X chromosome. As the ease and affordabily of genome sequencg creased, addnal gene ndidat have emerged wh potential lks to homosexual behavr.

SCIENTISTS FD DNA DIFFERENC BETWEEN GAY MEN AND THEIR STRAIGHT TW BROTHERS

So-lled genome-wi associatn studi intified a gene lled SLITRK6, which is active a bra regn lled the diencephalon that differs size between people who are homosexual or heterosexual. Wh multiple gene ndidat beg lked to homosexualy, seemed highly unlikely that a sgle “gay” gene exists. Several hypoth have been advanced to expla how homosexualy n be beneficial perpetuatg faial gen.

Gay uncl and nts, for example, are “helpers the nt” that help raise other fay members’ children to nurture the fay tree. ” For example, certa gen women help crease their fertily, but if the gen are exprsed a male, they predispose him toward homosexualy.

While there is no sgle “gay gene, ” there is overwhelmg evince of a blogil basis for sexual orientatn that is programmed to the bra before birth based on a mix of geics and prenatal ndns, none of which the fet choos. It wouldn't be right if we didn't mentn this new rearch supportg the hypothis that sexual orientatn has got a geic rearch adds a twist to the bate on the origs of sexual orientatn, suggtg that the geics of mothers of multiple gay sons act differently than those of other women.

ABOUT THE CENTERSCE 1983 THE CENTER HAS BEEN SUPPORTG, FOSTERG AND CELEBRATG THE LGBT MUNY OF NEW YORK CY. FD MORE RMATN ON AND OUR WORK ABOUT THE CENTER. VIS ABOUT THE CENTEROUR MISSNCYBER CENTERCENTER HISTORYRACE EQUYMEDIA CENTERLEARSHIP & STAFFEMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNICORPORATE PARTNERSHIPSANNUAL REPORTS & FANCIAL INFORMATNCONTACT USHOURS & LOTNSEMAPSUPPORT THE CENTER

Scientists found that almost one fourth of the mothers who had more than one gay son procsed X chromosom their bodi the same way. Normally, women randomly procs the chromosom one of two ways -- half go one way, half go the rearch "nfirms that there is a strong geic basis for sexual orientatn, and that for some gay men, gen on the X chromosome are volved, " said study -thor Sven Bocklandt, a postdoctoral rearcher at the Universy of California at Los lk between geics and sexual orientatn has been a hot topic for more than a as a few scientists have tried to fd gen that might make people gay or straight. "In the new study, rearchers looked at 97 mothers of gay sons and 103 mothers whout gay sons to see if there was any difference how they handled their X chromosom.

"When we looked at women who have gay kids, those wh more than one gay son, we saw a quarter of them activate the same X virtually every cell we checked, " Bocklandt said. "Forty-four of the women had more than one gay ntrast, 4 percent of mothers wh no gay sons activated the chromosome and 13 percent of those wh jt one gay son did. Moms' Geics Might Help Produce Gay SonsThe "ex-gay" movement has a favore motto that they chant everywhere they go: There is no gay gene.

THERE’S (STILL) NO GAY GENE

He mt mean the oppose, that the X chromosome "GAT, " which turn would predispose a person to be gay. But the nuts oughta be lookg for somethg to replace "there's no gay gene, " bee time's about to n out on that who clg to the ia that sexual orientatn is a choice will fd themselv backed to a rner, and soon.

They want to be a choice, but already most people, cludg most scientists, don't believe me, this paper didn't get through several rounds of review at a major journal on the basis of s polil implitns:ABSTRACTHuman GeicsIssue: Volume 118, Number 6Date: Febary 2006Pag: 691 - 694Extreme skewg of X chromosome activatn mothers of homosexual menSven Bocklandt, Steve Horvath, Eric Vila and Dean H. Here, we measured X chromosome activatn rats 97 mothers of homosexual men and 103 age-matched ntrol women whout gay sons. The number of women wh extreme skewg of X-activatn was signifintly higher mothers of gay men (13/97=13%) pared to ntrols (4/103=4%) and creased mothers wh two or more gay sons (10/44=23%).

Our fdgs support a role for the X chromosome regulatg sexual orientatn a subgroup of gay men. “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. IntroductnWhile the ual batn of sex chromosom (XX or XY) predicts sexual orientatn and behavr for the vast majory of humans (as heterosexual), variatn exists: a stable mory of men (3~4%) are homosexual1 and male sexual orientatn appears to be bimodally distributed wh most men ratg themselv as predomantly heterosexual (Ksey sle 0–1) or homosexual (Ksey sle 5–6)1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

GAY GEICSMOST OF BELIEVE THAT WE WERE BORN THAT WAY, BUT IS SEXUAL ORIENTATN OUR DNA? JV CHAMARY GO SEARCH OF THE GAY GENEJV CHAMARYPUBLISHED: MAY 31, 2009 AT 11:00 PMGAY GEICS

To extend our gene mappg efforts for the tra, we report here the rults om analyzg 1, 109 homosexual and 1, 231 heterosexual primarily European anctry men the first published GWAS on the tra. Plot of negative log10 of the p-valu for the sgle SNP associatn analysis of 1, 077 homosexual and 1, 231 heterosexual men, orred along the x-axis for each chromosome by chromosomal size image. Members of the SLITRK prote fay are bra-exprsed nronal transmembrane protes that regulate nronal outgrowth, survival, and synapse formatn; SLITRKs have signifint homology to the secreted axonal growth-ntrollg SLIT fay of protes and also homology to the nrotrophic tyrose kase receptor (NTRK) fay32, 33, 34.

The thors49 speculate on the possibily that a geic (or other prenatal) factor might tie together this creased risk for a type of hyperthyroidism (Grav’ disease) wh separate observatns of lower body weight for homosexual vers heterosexual men (pennt of diet or exercise)50, 51, 52.

Femal wh Grav’ disease have been reported to manift biased X chromosome activatn53, 54, 55, and skewed X chromosome activatn has also been reported mothers of homosexual men pared to age-matched mothers of heterosexual men56. Detectable geic variants predisposg to homosexualy would have alternative allel, which would necsarily predispose to heterosexualy, th ntributg to unrstandg of both typil heterosexual and mory homosexual orientatns. Our GWAS analyzed sample of primarily European anctry men clud a total of 1, 077 homosexual and 1, 231 heterosexual men, prised as follows.