Born gay? The psychoblogy of human sexual orientatn - ScienceDirect

Contents:

• 'GAY GEN': SCIENCE IS ON THE RIGHT TRACK, WE'RE BORN THIS WAY. LET’S AL WH .
• THERE IS NO ‘GAY GENE.’ THERE IS NO ‘STRAIGHT GENE.’ SEXUALY IS JT PLEX, STUDY NFIRMS
• CLIL STUDY CONFIRMS PEOPLE ARE NOT BLOGILLY “BORN GAY”
• JOHNS HOPKS REARCH: NO EVINCE PEOPLE ARE BORN GAY OR TRANSGENR
• ARE WE BORN GAY?
• SCIENTISTS MAY HAVE FALLY UNLOCKED PUZZLE OF WHY PEOPLE ARE GAY
• REVIEWBORN GAY? THE PSYCHOBLOGY OF HUMAN SEXUAL ORIENTATN
• THE 'GAY GENE' IS A MYTH BUT BEG GAY IS 'NATURAL,' SAY SCIENTISTS
• WHY ARE PEOPLE GAY? GAY BY CHOICE OR IS BEG GAY GEIC?
• WHAT SCIENCE KNOWS ABOUT WHY PEOPLE ARE GAY
• NEWS: 'GAY GEN': SCIENCE IS ON THE RIGHT... (THE GUARDIAN) - BEHD THE HEADL
• IS A PERSON ‘BORN GAY’, OR IS BEG GAY A LEARNED BEHAVR?
• NO ‘GAY GENE’: MASSIVE STUDY HOM ON GEIC BASIS OF HUMAN SEXUALY

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

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.

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

“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.

Fdg evince for a blogil basis should not sre or unrme gay, lbian and bisexual (LGB) rights (the studi I refer to do not clu transgenred dividuals, so I’ll nfe my ments to lbian, gay and bisexual people). Evince om pennt rearch groups who studied tws shows that geic factors expla about 25-30% of the differenc between people sexual orientatn (heterosexual, gay, lbian, and bisexual). Gen uld themselv nudge one towards a particular sexual orientatn or gen may simply teract wh other environmental factors (such as sex hormon the womb environment) to fluence later sexual bras of gay and heterosexual people also appear to be anised differently.

CLIL STUDY CONFIRMS PEOPLE ARE NOT BLOGILLY “BORN GAY”

The fluence of blogy ns throughout our sexual and genred liv and those differenc, that diversy, is surely to be wrers tend to wave off the scientific evince by urgg to look to the history of sexualy or claim that homosexualy is a social nstctn (cue Michel Fouult and the like).

Surely our choic are the rult of thgs we didn’t choose (our gen, personali, upbrgg, and culture) worry that scientific rearch will lead to “cur” for homosexualy (which is an odd worry to have if you don’t believe the “born this way” argument).

We are who we are, and our sexuali are part of human worry about the claims of social nstctn, choice and such like is that plays to the hands of homophobic iology, to the hands of the “aversn therapists”, and to the hands of a growg culture which seeks to mimise gay differenc. Humans have tried to unrstand human sexualy for centuri — and geics rearchers joed the ay the early 1990s after a seri of studi on tws suggted homosexualy ran fai.

JOHNS HOPKS REARCH: NO EVINCE PEOPLE ARE BORN GAY OR TRANSGENR

“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 had members of the same-sex muny review the study’s sign and language, and they adm that their termology and fns for gay, lbian and heterosexual do not reflect the full nature of the sexualy ntuum. “[Our study] unrsr an important role for the environment shapg human sexual behavr and perhaps most importantly there is no sgle gay gene but rather the ntributn of many small geic effects sttered across the genome, ” Neale said.

ARE WE BORN GAY?

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.

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. 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. The study, which was based on an examatn of the geic material of almost half a ln dividuals, fively refut the ia that beg gay is an nate ndn that is ntrolled or largely pelled by one’s geic makp.

Send, rebuttg s of wispread belief, the study tablished that “there is certaly no sgle geic termant (sometim referred to as the ‘gay gene’ the media)” that same-sex sexual behavr. The logic of the two rults—low herabily and high polygenicy—clearly monstrate that the domant cultural narrative about sexual orientatn—which se homosexual persons as a distctly bound blogil class of people who were “born that way”—simply nnot be te.

SCIENTISTS MAY HAVE FALLY UNLOCKED PUZZLE OF WHY PEOPLE ARE GAY

” Other scientists volved the study, who are themselv gay, publicly opposed s publitn, voicg ncern that the fdgs would be “misnsted” to “advance agendas of hate. In many such plac, the stggle for eedom today is not primarily for people who want to intify themselv as gay or lbian, but for people who want to avoid or rist such an intifitn for themselv.

” The termist logic of this cisn has empowered those who formerly advoted that homosexual persons may marry someone of the same sex to now advote that, if they marry, homosexual persons mt marry someone of the same sex. Numero legislative and judicial efforts are currently unrway to outlaw voluntary therapy or to ny the legimacy of adults who experience some level of same-sex attractn but choose not to engage same-sex relatns or intify themselv as gay or lbian, on the grounds that such actns ny their immutable nature. Yet many now seek to ny the same people the eedom to cle to intify as gay and to marry someone of the oppose sex, if they so choose, on the premise that they would thereby be dog vlence to who they “really” are.

Followg Polrman’s study, a team of proment sexualy rearchers terpreted the replited low level of herabily to suggt that, while ternal sexual attractn may not be socially malleable, the adoptn of a sexual inty unnstraed by ternal attractn—homosexual, heterosexual, or somethg else—is well wh the range of velopment for most people. ” The kds of choic and therapy to support them, they note, are most mon among the religly observant, and “likely expla claims by ex-gays and ex-lbians that they are no longer leadg a ‘homosexual liftyle. ” We uld also add the books Jephthah’s Dghters and Changed: #Oncegay Stori, each of which prents dozens of acunts of persons who have transned away om homosexual inty and behavr.

REVIEWBORN GAY? THE PSYCHOBLOGY OF HUMAN SEXUAL ORIENTATN

On the General Social Survey (a biennial statistil profile of the US populatn fund by the Natnal Science Foundatn), 57 percent of people who intify as gay (40 percent of gay men and 78 percent of lbian women) report havg had one or more oppose-sex sex partners sce age eighteen.

In 100, 300 terviews that asked about sexual orientatn on the 2013-2015 Natnal Health Interview Survey, 13 percent of currently partnered gay persons reported beg an oppose-sex, not same-sex, sexual partnership. As the studi have both found, most persons wh a genotype parable to that of gay or lbian persons end up, for var reasons of social environment or velopment or personal prciple, not engagg same-sex relatns.

If ever did make sense on the premise that gay persons were geilly termed, the absence of a pellg geic difference, is impossible reasonably to mata that tolerance of homosexual behavr requir tolerance of heterosexual behavr. 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.

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

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. Scholars at Johns Hopks Universy released a new report on Monday which argu that there is not sufficient evince to suggt that lbian, gay, or transgenr people are born wh this sexual orientatn or genr inty.

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

The three-part, 143-page report, which appeared the Fall 2016 edn of The New Atlantis, also vtigated other monly accepted ias about homosexualy and transgenrism.

Mayer and his -thor Pl McHugh, a profsor of psychiatry and behavral scienc at Johns Hopks, challenged the claim that discrimatn and social stigma are the only reasons why homosexual and transgenr people suffer higher rat of mental health problems and are more likely to m suici. The study breaks down three parts: First, Mayer and McHugh examed whether homosexualy is an hered tra, and nclud that people are not simply “born that way.

“Studi of the bras of homosexuals and heterosexuals have found some differenc, but have not monstrated that the differenc are born rather than the rult of environmental factors that fluenced both psychologil and nroblogil tras, ” the report explaed. There is virtually no evince that anyone, gay or straight, is ‘born that way’ if means that their sexual orientatn was geilly termed, ” the report explaed (emphasis add).

WHAT SCIENCE KNOWS ABOUT WHY PEOPLE ARE GAY

“But there is some evince om the tw studi that certa geic profil probably crease the likelihood the person later intifi as gay or engag same-sex sexual behavr. The report also found that gay and transgenr people are at elevated risk for a variety of mental health risks, cludg anxiety disorrs, prsn, substance abe, and suici. 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. A group of scientists suggted Tuday that homosexuals get that tra om their oppose-sex parents: A lbian will almost always get the tra om her father, while a gay man will get the tra om his heredary lk of homosexualy has long been tablished, but scientists knew was not a strictly geic lk, bee there are many pairs of intil tws who have differg sexuali. Scientists om the Natnal Instute for Mathematil and Blogil Synthis say homosexualy seems to have an epigeic, not a geic thought to have some sort of heredary lk, a group of scientists suggted Tuday that homosexualy is lked to epi-marks — extra layers of rmatn that ntrol how certa gen are exprsed.

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

In homosexuals, the epi-marks aren't erased — they're passed om father-to-dghter or mother-to-son, explas William Rice, an evolutnary blogist at the Universy of California Santa Barbara and lead thor of the study. "There is pellg evince that epi-marks ntribute to both the siary and dissiary of fay members, and n therefore feasibly ntribute to the observed faial herance of homosexualy and s low nrdance between [intil] tws, " Rice and his team created a mathematil mol that explas why homosexualy is passed through epi-marks, not geics.

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

Evolutnarily speakg, if homosexualy was solely a geic tra, scientists would expect the tra to eventually disappear bee homosexuals wouldn't be expected to reproduce. But bee the epi-marks provi an evolutnary advantage for the parents of homosexuals: They protect fathers of homosexuals om unrexposure to ttosterone and mothers of homosexuals om overexposure to ttosterone while they are gtatn. "The epi-marks protect fathers and mothers om excs or unrexposure to ttosterone — when they rry over to oppose-sex offsprg, n e the masculizatn of femal or the femizatn of mal, " Rice says, which n lead to a child beg gay.

Rice not that the markers are "highly variable" and that only strong epi-marks will rult a homosexual scientists have long spected some sort of geic lk, Rice says studi attemptg to expla why people are gay have been few and far between. " Homosexual behavr has been observed black swans, pengus, sheep, and other animals, he 's mol still needs to be tted on real-life parent-offsprg pairs, but he says this epigeic lk mak more sense than any other explanatn, and that his team has mapped out a way for other scientists to tt their work.

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

If a “e” is found uld pos a “cure, ” potentially openg the door to so-lled reparative therapi siar to those that attempt to turn gay people straight, advot say. 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. 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. 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.