Are We Born Gay? | Psychology Today

Contents:

• WHY ARE PEOPLE GAY? GAY BY CHOICE OR IS BEG GAY GEIC?
• IS A PERSON ‘BORN GAY’, OR IS BEG GAY A LEARNED BEHAVR?
• ARE WE BORN GAY?
• THERE IS NO ‘GAY GENE.’ THERE IS NO ‘STRAIGHT GENE.’ SEXUALY IS JT PLEX, STUDY NFIRMS
• ARE YOU BORN GAY OR IS A CHOICE? SCIENTISTS MIGHT HAVE FOUND THE ANSWER
• IS ANYONE BORN GAY?
• CAN A PERSON BE BORN GAY?
• IS THERE ARE GAY GENE? ARE YOU BORN GAY OR IS BEG GAY A CHOICE?
• BEG GAY NOT A CHOICE: SCIENCE CONTRADICTS BEN CARSON
• 'GAY GEN': SCIENCE IS ON THE RIGHT TRACK, WE'RE BORN THIS WAY. LET’S AL WH .

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

In other words, 5-10% of people experience same-sex sexual attractn or behavr; of urse, this don't speak to what mak people gay.

Morn science is workg to show that geics is one of the of beg gay, although some science nflicts this area. Study of fay history reveals that homosexual men have more homosexuals their fay tree than do heterosexuals. While psychologil factors may crease the likelihood that someone is gay, no sgle factor is known to e homosexualy.

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

It very much appears that same-sex sexual attractn is not a choice but actg on is; so if you fe gay as the mere prence of same-sex attractn, then om everythg we unrstand, beg gay is not a choice. If, on the other hand, you nsir someone to be gay only if they act on their same-sex attractn then beg gay n be nsired a choice pendg on an dividual's behavr.

Whether science n ultimately prove the blogy of beg gay or not, 's important to support all adults their choic no matter how they intify. Tw studi of homosexualy have shown that intil tws are about twice as likely to both be gay pared to aternal tws. If the DNA sequence were the only thg termg whether someone is gay or not, we would expect intil tws to match 100% of the time.

Of urse, this isn’t the only environmental explanatn for how people are born gay – there are plenty of men wh olr brothers who are not gay.

ARE WE BORN GAY?

This uld mean that there are some gen that are passed down om the mother’s si that make women more fertile and make men more likely to be gay.

No matter why those gen are still around, we do know that beg gay is partly geic and partly termed before a baby is even born.

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

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. First, by ncentratg on the left si of the graphs, the rear n see that there is a segment of adult gay men who remember beg highly genr non-nformg as kids. But there were a signifint number of genr-nformg men who, nohels, veloped a gay or bisexual inty adulthood.

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. It is worth keepg md that this study only vers some typ of sexualy — gay, lbian and cis-straight — but don’t offer many sights to genr inty.

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. “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. “We worried a lot about volunteer bias, ” said Bailey, whose rearch clus a wily publicized study on Xq28 and gay brothers om 2018.

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

Sanrs llaborated wh Bailey on those earlier studi and said their work had always admted that there was no sgle “gay gene. 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. That is to say that if an intil tw is gay or lbian, the probabily of his/her brother or sister beg homosexual is around 60%. If homosexualy was purely geic, we would expect a nrdance of 100% among intil tws sce they share intil DNA (gen).

What scientists refer to as “aternal birth orr effect” is based on the fact that fai wh several children there is a greater probabily of the velopment of homosexualy children further down the birth orr than there is the first or send child. First of all is imperative that we make a clear distctn between homosexual orientatn (which is born) and homosexual behavr or practice (which is a choice).

IS ANYONE BORN GAY?

Neher fornitors, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodom, nor thiev, nor veto, nor dnkards, nor revilers, nor extortners will her the kgdom of God.

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. Though some rema sceptil, nroscientist Simon LeVay told the New Scientist: “His study knocks another nail to the ff of the ‘chosen liftyle’ theory 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.

CAN A PERSON BE BORN GAY?

Gay nrologist Simon LeVay explas that sexual orientatn is “the tra that predispos to experience sexual attractn” (Gay, Straight, and the Reason Why, 1). However, if we broan sexualy to clu non-sexual and non-romantic appreciatn for bety, then everybody would be 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. 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.

IS THERE ARE GAY GENE? ARE YOU BORN GAY OR IS BEG GAY A CHOICE?

As the ease and affordabily of genome sequencg creased, addnal gene ndidat have emerged wh potential lks to homosexual behavr. 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. Gay uncl and nts, for example, are “helpers the nt” that help raise other fay members’ children to nurture the fay tree.

BEG GAY NOT A CHOICE: SCIENCE CONTRADICTS BEN CARSON

” 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. Yet some fear that such a fdg uld be mised “cure” homosexualy, and most rearch teams have shied away om tacklg the topic.

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. “It’s the end of the ’gay gene, ’” says Eric Vila, a geicist at Children’s Natnal Health System Washgton, D. “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.

Natnal Cancer Instute and his lleagu published a paper suggtg that an area on the X chromosome lled Xq28 uld nta a “gay gene. His study, which analysed the genom of 40 pairs of gay brothers, looked exclively at people who intified as homosexual.

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

Many homosexuals hold to the belief that they were born that way, and there are some rearchers who suggt, on the basis of several recent studi, that there may be a geic predisposn toward homosexualy some people.

In any se, other scientists have challenged the studi, and there is prently no generally accepted scientific evince that the homosexual clatn is born. It mt be emphasized that even if a blogil predisposn to homosexualy some people exists, would not change God’s opposn to the behavr.

For a practil gui to overg homosexualy, the book Comg Out of Homosexualy by Bob Davi and Lori Rentzel would be helpful. The theory that people are “born gay” has been ed to argue that sexual orientatn is siar to race — that “gay is the new black. When the qutn is posed whether some people are “born gay, ” the real qutn is, “Are some people oriented om birth toward homosexual attractns?