Are We Born Gay? | Psychology Today

Contents:

• IS ANYONE BORN GAY?
• ARE WE BORN GAY?
• IS A PERSON ‘BORN GAY’, OR IS BEG GAY A LEARNED BEHAVR?
• ARE YOU BORN GAY OR IS A CHOICE? SCIENTISTS MIGHT HAVE FOUND THE ANSWER
• WHAT DO THE BIBLE SAY ABOUT BEG BORN GAY?
• BORN GAY?
• CAN A PERSON BE BORN GAY?
• CLIL STUDY CONFIRMS PEOPLE ARE NOT BLOGILLY “BORN GAY”
• REVIEWBORN GAY? THE PSYCHOBLOGY OF HUMAN SEXUAL ORIENTATN
• ‘I AM GAY – BUT I WASN’T BORN THIS WAY’
• 'GAY GEN': SCIENCE IS ON THE RIGHT TRACK, WE'RE BORN THIS WAY. LET’S AL WH .

IS ANYONE BORN GAY?

But on the other, he totally wrtl wh the image produced by the ia that one might be "born gay, " of a ltle male neonate appearg wh illy pk diapers and graspg a Barbie doll. Maybe we n agree that the image evoked by "born gay"—that ltle girl neonate appearg wearg overalls and graspg a toy tck—do not help thk through qutns of sexual sire and inty.

The largt ever study to the existence of a so-lled ‘gay gene’, nducted by NorthShore Rearch Instute, looked at 409 sets of gay brothers an effort to fally put the bate to rt. Lead scientist Alan Sanrs said that the work “eros the notn that sexual orientatn is a choice” – but said the study also did not intify a sgle gene which was the direct e of homosexualy. “Y, we have a choice life, to be ourselv or to nform to someone else’s ia of normaly, but beg straight, bisexual or gay, or none of the, is a central part of who we are, thanks part to the DNA we were born wh.

Richard Lane of Stonewall told the Inpennt: “While some people may choose to foc on the ntug bate of whether people are born gay or not, we’ll ntue to foc on makg sure everyone has the same rights and opportuni regardls of who they love. To many orthodox behavrists, homosexualy is a rult of a misguid upbrgg, a tour om a straight path to maral adulthood; ed, until 1974 the Amerin Psychiatric Associatn listed as a mental disorr. The origs of homosexualy may never be fully unrstood, and the phenomenon is so plex and varied -- as is every other kd of love -- that no sgle neat explanatn is likely to suffice to expla any one man or woman, let alone multus.

ARE WE BORN GAY?

But the search for unrstandg advanced nsirably last week wh the release of new studi that make the most pellg se yet that homosexual orientatn is at least partly geic. A team at the Natnal Cancer Instute's Laboratory of Bchemistry reported the journal Science that fai of 76 gay men clud a much higher proportn of homosexual male relativ than found the general populatn. Sure enough, a separate study of the DNA om 40 pairs of homosexual brothers found that 33 pairs shared five different patch of geic material grouped around a particular area on the X chromosome.

IS A PERSON ‘BORN GAY’, OR IS BEG GAY A LEARNED BEHAVR?

The fact that 33 out of 40 pairs of gay brothers were found to share the same sequenc of DNA a particular part of the chromosome suggts that at least one gene related to homosexualy is loted that regn. The lk to mothers may help expla a nundm: If homosexualy is heredary, why don't the tra gradually disappear, as gays and lbians are probably ls likely than others to have children?

The answer suggted by the new rearch is that gen for male homosexualy n be rried and passed to children by heterosexual women, and those gen do not e the women to be homosexual. Moreover, the tight foc on pairs of openly homosexual brothers, who are only a subset of the total gay populatn, leav many qutns about other tegori of gay men, lbians and bisexuals. Simon LeVay, who won wi publicy for an analysis of differenc bra anatomi between straight and gay men, acknowledg that the bras he studied were of AIDS victims, and th he nnot be sure that what he saw was.

ARE YOU BORN GAY OR IS A CHOICE? SCIENTISTS MIGHT HAVE FOUND THE ANSWER

Richard Pillard, profsor of psychiatry at Boston Universy School of Medice and -thor of some tw studi -- showg that intil tws of gay men have a 50% chance of beg gay -- is almost as ldatory.

WHAT DO THE BIBLE SAY ABOUT BEG BORN GAY?

Kg of the Human Rights Campaign Fund, one of the largt gay-rights lobbyg groups: "This is a landmark study that n be very helpful creasg public support for civil rights for lbian and gay Amerins. Parents might be more relaxed about allowg children to have gay teachers, Boy Sut lears and other role mols, on the assumptn that the child's future is wrten his or her geic makp.

BORN GAY?

" Cathere Tuerk, a nurse psychotherapist who is Washgton chapter print of Parents and Friends of Lbians and Gays, regrets sendg her son Joshua to therapy om ag eight to 12 for an "aggrsn problem" -- preference for gam volvg relatnships stead of macho play wh, say, toy tcks.

" His brother David, 32, a public relatns officer, wish he had had a basis for believg a geic e durg his turbulent adolcence: "I was fiant, and to this day I'm probably still that way, bee when you're gay this society you almost have to be. Says Donald Suggs of the New York chapter of the Gay & Lbian Alliance Agast Defamatn: "Homosexualy is not somethg to jtify and expla, but somethg that should be accepted.

CAN A PERSON BE BORN GAY?

" Moreover, gays are worried that precise intifitn of a "gayns gene" might prompt efforts to tker wh the geic of gay adults or to tt durg pregnancy and abort potentially gay fet. Says Thomas Stoddard, director of the Campaign for Milary Service: "One n image the science of the future manipulatg rmatn of this kd to rce the number of gay people beg born. " Reed Irve, whose watchdog group, Accuracy Media, creasgly criciz favorable reportage about gays and gay rights, lled for more verage of studi that he claims show homosexualy n be "cured" -- an assertn that both gays and health profsnals wily dispute.

CLIL STUDY CONFIRMS PEOPLE ARE NOT BLOGILLY “BORN GAY”

In 1996, The Advote, a gay and lbian magaze, asked rears what they believed the potential impact would be to the advancement of gay and lbian rights if a scientific disvery prov a blogil basis for homosexualy.

To that end, gay activists and the liberal media have actively enuraged the ia that homosexualy is hered and unchangeable, and rearchers have diligently sought scientific evince to back up that claim. His team of rearchers began a seri of gene lkage studi, which fai wh several homosexuals unrwent geic analysis to terme if any chromosomal variants uld be found the fay and if the variant rrelated wh those dividuals who displayed the homosexualy. If people were born wh geic dg to practice homosexualy, that geic would soon be erased om human DNA bee would not be passed along to subsequent generatns (bee homosexualy isn’t procreative).

For several s, the prevalence of homosexualy among siblgs and certa fai has led soclogists to prume – whout any scientific backg – that homosexualy mt, therefore, be geic.

REVIEWBORN GAY? THE PSYCHOBLOGY OF HUMAN SEXUAL ORIENTATN

Supreme Court lg that sanctned so-lled “gay marriage, ” ma their lg, part, bee of the claim that homosexualy was blogilly nate to certa dividuals, and therefore to prohib their marriage, was discrimatory. The first als wh the phenotypic pattern of sexual orientatn, the send wh evince for geic fluenc, and the third propos an tegrated scenar for the evolutn of homosexualy.

‘I AM GAY – BUT I WASN’T BORN THIS WAY’

The nsens is that approximately 2–5% of men are exclively homosexual, the figure for women beg about half that: 1–2% (Diamond, 1993, Lmann et al., 1994, Wellgs et al., 1994). Homosexual men have more homosexual brothers than do heterosexual men (around 15% greater; Pillard and Werich, 1986, Bailey and Bell, 1993, Bailey et al., 1999), whilst homosexual women have more homosexualEvolutnary nsiratnsGiven the geic ponent to homosexualy and s nant rced reproductive succs, the qutn aris as to why such gen have not been selected agast durg evolutn.

Any X-lked geic ntributns to sexual orientatn may certaly affect sexual differentiatn, given the profn of gen on the X chromosome for precisely this form of ontogenis (Putative nrovelopmental mechanismsThe profil of sex-atypil featur associated wh homosexualy differentiate early durg velopment and are mimally fluenced by psychosocial factors. Bailey, Barbow, Wolfe, and Mikach (1995) reported that over 90% of sons of gay fathers are heterosexual, whilst Golombok andFuture directnsThere are a number of directns for further quiry ncerng the psychoblogil basis of human sexual orientatn. Of clear importance is the need for large-sle natnal probabily surveys of the prevalence of male and female homosexualy g a range of sensive measur that clu fantasy and attractn ratgs.

'GAY GEN': SCIENCE IS ON THE RIGHT TRACK, WE'RE BORN THIS WAY. LET’S AL WH .

As well as tablishg the distributn of sexual orientatnConclnsHomosexualy seems to e as a “package” of tras nsistg of mostly sex-typil modul, such as aspects of male and female matg psychology, but also signifint sex-atypily others, most notably directn of preferred sex of partner, handns and sex dimorphic nropsychologil functn (see Table 1, Table 3).