10 Anti-Gay Myths Debunked | Southern Poverty Law Center

Contents:

• THERE’S (STILL) NO GAY GENE
• CAN SOMEONE BE HOMOSEXUAL AND NOT GAY?
• NO GAY WAY
• NO ‘GAY GENE’: MASSIVE STUDY HOM ON GEIC BASIS OF HUMAN SEXUALY
• HOW DO I KNOW IF I AM GAY? SIGNS YOU ARE GAY
• 10 ANTI-GAY MYTHS DEBUNKED
• THERE IS NO ‘GAY GENE.’ THERE IS NO ‘STRAIGHT GENE.’ SEXUALY IS JT PLEX, STUDY NFIRMS
• HOW TO KNOW IF YOU ARE GAY

THERE’S (STILL) NO GAY GENE

There is no one gene for beg gay, and though gen seem to play a role termg sexual orientatn and same-sex behavr, ’s small, plex, and anythg but termistic.

CAN SOMEONE BE HOMOSEXUAL AND NOT GAY?

“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.

NO GAY WAY

Conservative opponents of the movement claimed that “homosexual acts are a choice, people choose to m them, or people are sced to the gay liftyle, ” he explas. ’77, then a rearcher at the Natnal Instut of Health, published rults showg a rrelatn between male homosexual behavr and a clter of gen, lled Xq28, at the tip of the X chromosome. 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.

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

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.

HOW DO I KNOW IF I AM GAY? SIGNS YOU ARE GAY

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.

10 ANTI-GAY MYTHS DEBUNKED

So when we therapists are nonted wh male clients, often married on, who e to wh ep nflicts about their sexual attractn to other men, we often fd that they are willg to e the word “homosexual, ” but chew the “gay” label. Unfortunately, much of our natn’s polics have long exacerbated the problem as well, shamg and vilifyg homosexualy, leadg legns of men stgglg wh sexual inty to ternalize their homophobia. I warned them of the pfalls of keepg their sexual orientatn secret: a life of creased prsn, pursug a secret life the gay unrground wh the danger of beg ught, how attemptg to supprs urg n often e them to bee even more obssed wh them.

They may need, om time to time, to seek further therapy, but wh the right therapist, one who has thoroughly unrstood the dangers of such practic of “reparative therapy” which the therapist seeks to change the client’s sexual inty om gay to straight.

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

Bee the labels “homosexual” or “gay” rry such a stigma, some of the men seek help for their “sex addictn” and see their homosexualy as an actg out of same-sex urg. Exclamatn ed gamg which exprs disbelief what has jt happened, that only a world where everythg is ed, as Kurt Coba once said, gay, uld what has jt happened actually happen. Straight up, ev jt sawby treezboi March 2, 2009FlagGet the the gay way a gay waySayg somethg then addg not a gay way so as not to seem gayMan one to man two: you look good today, jt not a gay way.

By CentIIX November 24, 2016FlagGet the not a gay way wayA ndy bar for a homosexual guy is so queer he eats gay ways every queersucks April 18, 2011FlagGet the Gay way gay person who ni their gayns or pretends they are not gay.

HOW TO KNOW IF YOU ARE GAY

They asked more than 477, 000 participants whether they had ever had sex wh someone of the same sex, and also qutns about sexual fantasi and the gree to which they intified as gay or straight. “A lot of people want to unrstand the blogy of homosexualy, and science has lagged behd that human tert, ” says William Rice, an evolutnary geicist at the Universy of California, Santa Barbara, who also was not volved the work.

“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. When down to , there is no reliable "Am I Gay tt", so the only way to know that you are gay (fn of gay) is to look wh yourself to terme your own thoughts and feelgs towards others of the same sex. Ever sce born-aga sger and orange juice pchwoman Ana Bryant helped kick off the ntemporary anti-gay movement some 40 years ago, hard-le elements of the relig right have been searchg for ways to monize gay people — or, at a mimum, to fd arguments that will prevent their normalizatn society.