News: There’s no one ‘gay gene,’ but... (The Washgton Post) - Behd the headl - NLM

Contents:

• THE SEARCH FOR THE GAY GENE
• NO 'GAY GENE': MASSIVE STUDY HOM ON GEIC BASIS OF HUMAN SEXUALY
• SEARCH FOR 'GAY GEN' COM UP SHORT IN LARGE NEW STUDY
• WHAT DO THE NEW ‘GAY GEN’ TELL ABOUT SEXUAL ORIENTATN?
• NEW STUDY: THERE IS NO GAY GENE THAT HOMOSEXUALY
• 'GAY GEN': SCIENCE IS ON THE RIGHT TRACK, WE'RE BORN THIS WAY. LET’S AL WH .
• THE 'GAY GENE' IS A MYTH BUT BEG GAY IS 'NATURAL,' SAY SCIENTISTS
• NEWS: 'GAY GEN': SCIENCE IS ON THE RIGHT... (THE GUARDIAN) - BEHD THE HEADL
• LARGT STUDY OF GAY BROTHERS HOM ON 'GAY GEN'
• NEWS: THERE’S NO ONE ‘GAY GENE,’ BUT... (THE WASHGTON POST) - BEHD THE HEADL
• SCIENCENO SGLE 'GAY GENE', REVEALS THE LARGT-EVER STUDY OF THE GEICS OF SAME-SEX SEXUAL BEHAVUR

THE SEARCH FOR THE GAY GENE

Social opn the back-ground of this rearch remas divid about s meang and mentators worry that fdg geic aspects to sexual orientatn will make thgs worse for gay men and women around the world. Geic rearch might further normalise homosexualyFor all the ncern that sexual orientatn rearch provok, there is no sgle master narrative about what fdg a “gay gene” would mean. On the ntrary, many gay men and women wele the ia that their orientatn is rooted the 19th century, Karl Herich Ulrichs, history's first pneerg gay rights activist, believed that homosexual people had a unique blogil make up, and he lled on society to acmodate this difference.

As some people see , blogil explanatns of sexual orientatn overri hostile views that homosexualy is a reversible choice or a psychologil maladaptatn.

For example, the Uned Stat the Catholic Medil Associatn and the Natnal Associatn for Rearch and Therapy of Homosexualy have taken pas to cricise the rearch lkg sexual orientatn and blogy.

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

The groups seem to believe that they lose the right to object to homosexualy on moral and psychologil grounds if sexual orientatn is hardwired human blogy. That's the same tt that appli to all sexual one sense, though, crics of homosexualy have right when they worry that geic studi unrcut their thory.

If this trend ntu, geic rearch might further normalise homosexualy by enfoldg more and more people unr s narrative, effect creatg a muny of shared blogil inty.

And bee the rearchers didn't fd gene variants that rrelated wh a gradient of sexual behavr, she says, unrcuts Aled Ksey's s-old sle, which ranked people on a spectm of sexualy, om exclively heterosexual to exclively homosexual.

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

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.

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. The thors say their fdgs, published on 23 Augt Nature Human Behavur1, uld help to expla why gen that predispose people to homosexualy ntue to be passed down.

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

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.

NEW STUDY: THERE IS NO GAY GENE THAT HOMOSEXUALY

Instead, he thks the rearchers have found geic markers associated wh openns to new experienc, which uld expla the overlap between people who have had a homosexual partner and heterosexual people who have had many partners.

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

And he adms that g a sgle homosexual experience as an ditn of sexual orientatn isn’t ial, but says that the UK Bbank didn’t provi data on attractn. 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.

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

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.

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.

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. 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).

NEWS: 'GAY GEN': SCIENCE IS ON THE RIGHT... (THE GUARDIAN) - BEHD THE HEADL

In an effort to affect public policy and ga acceptance, the assertn often is ma that homosexuals serve equal rights jt as other mory groups—and should not be punished for, or forbidn om, exprsg their homosexualy. E., full and equal cizenship of racial mori), social liberals, femists, and homosexual activists were provid wh the perfect “at tail” to ri to advance their agenda. If we were to assume momentarily that homosexualy was geic, then the most one uld nclu is that those dividuals were not morally rponsible for beg homosexual.

LARGT STUDY OF GAY BROTHERS HOM ON 'GAY GEN'

In fact, a prri, one would expect the role of a major gene male homosexual orientatn to be limed bee of the strong selective prsur agast such a gene. Anyone who has tuned to prime-time televisn wh the past few years has observed an creasg trend of shows featurg characters who are homosexual—and proud of .

The perceptn is that the dividuals share the same apartment buildgs, offic, clubs, etc., wh heterosexual people, and that we need to realize jt how prevalent homosexualy is.

: Answers to 300 of the Most Frequently Asked Qutns About Gays and Lbians, Eric Marc ed the Ksey studi to monstrate that one ten people is homosexual (1993). The Ksey Report clearly stated that: “Only about 4 percent of the men [evaluated] were exclively homosexual throughout their entire liv.... If we were to start a new televisn s, and wanted to accurately portray homosexual rats society, we would need 199 heterosexual actors before we fally troduced one homosexual actor.

NEWS: THERE’S NO ONE ‘GAY GENE,’ BUT... (THE WASHGTON POST) - BEHD THE HEADL

The were cens data that were refully llected om the entire Uned Stat populatn, ntrary to the limed spe of studi signed to show a geic e for homosexualy.

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

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. Today, there is no mentn of homosexualy the DSM-IV (asi om a sectn scribg genr inty disorr), ditg that dividuals wh this ndn are not suable ndidat for therapy (see Amerin Psychiatric Associatn, 2000). Physicians treatg patients for homosexualy (to brg about a change sexual orientatn) equently are reported to ethics mte an attempt to have them cease.

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). The first “signifint” published study that dited a possible blogil role for homosexualy me om Simon LeVay, who was then at the Salk Instute for Blogil Studi San Diego, California.