What do the new ‘gay gen’ tell about sexual orientatn? | New Scientist

Contents:

• THERE IS NO ‘GAY GENE.’ THERE IS NO ‘STRAIGHT GENE.’ SEXUALY IS JT PLEX, STUDY NFIRMS
• NO ‘GAY GENE’: MASSIVE STUDY HOM ON GEIC BASIS OF HUMAN SEXUALY
• SEARCH FOR 'GAY GEN' COM UP SHORT IN LARGE NEW STUDY
• 'GAY GEN': SCIENCE IS ON THE RIGHT TRACK, WE'RE BORN THIS WAY. LET’S AL WH .
• THERE’S NO EVINCE THAT A SGLE ‘GAY GENE’ EXISTS
• NEWS: 'GAY GEN': SCIENCE IS ON THE RIGHT... (THE GUARDIAN) - BEHD THE HEADL
• WHAT DO THE NEW ‘GAY GEN’ TELL ABOUT SEXUAL ORIENTATN?
• THERE’S (STILL) NO GAY GENE
• THE 'GAY GENE' IS A MYTH BUT BEG GAY IS 'NATURAL,' SAY SCIENTISTS
• SCIENTISTS QUASH IA OF SGLE 'GAY GENE'
• IS THERE A 'GAY GENE'? THE PROBLEM WH STUDI NNECTG GEICS AND LGBTQ INTY
• THERE’S NO ONE ‘GAY GENE,’ BUT GEICS ARE LKED TO SAME-SEX BEHAVR, NEW STUDY SAYS
• THE GAY GENE: NEW EVINCE SUPPORTS AN OLD HYPOTHIS
• MANY GEN INFLUENCE SAME-SEX SEXUALY, NOT A SGLE ‘GAY GENE’
• NO, SCIENTISTS HAVE NOT FOUND THE ‘GAY GENE’

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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. None of the variatns seemed to greatly affect sexual behavur on s own, backg up prev rearch that has found no sign of a ‘gay gene’. 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. 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.

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

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. 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.

THERE’S NO EVINCE THAT A SGLE ‘GAY GENE’ EXISTS

” 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.

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

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

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

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’S (STILL) NO GAY GENE

“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.

In a recent Guardian article, Simon Copland argued that is very unlikely people are born gay (or prumably any other sexual orientatn). 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).

Tw studi are a first look to the geics of a tra and tell that there are such thgs as “gen for sexual orientatn” (I hate the phrase “gay gene”).

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

Three gene fdg studi showed that gay brothers share geic markers on the X chromosome; the most recent study also found shared markers on chromosome 8. Perhaps this is due to the stereotype that female sexualy is “too plex” or that lbians are rarer than gay are far om the whole story. 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.

For example patterns of bra anisatn appear siar between gay men and heterosexual women and between lbian women and heterosexual men.

Differenc bra anisatn mean differenc psychology and study after study show differenc gnn between heterosexual and gay people. 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).

SCIENTISTS QUASH IA OF SGLE 'GAY GENE'

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. 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.

IS THERE A 'GAY GENE'? THE PROBLEM WH STUDI NNECTG GEICS AND LGBTQ INTY

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. Alan Sanrs at North Shore Universy, Illois, and his team ppoted the gen by parg DNA om 1077 gay and 1231 straight men.

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.

THERE’S NO ONE ‘GAY GENE,’ BUT GEICS ARE LKED TO SAME-SEX BEHAVR, NEW STUDY SAYS

There have been studi suggtg that there is a geic element to homosexualy women, but more rearch has been done men, says Sanrs.

THE GAY GENE: NEW EVINCE SUPPORTS AN OLD HYPOTHIS

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. Those who nsir beg gay a disadvantage life (which still is, certa societi), might regard gay people differently if they knew that beg gay was an hered tra, rather than a nsequence of life events, such as a particular type of upbrgg, or mixg wh certa sorts of iends or even a liberate cisn.

The law also might take a different view those untri (aga, there are still many) which beg gay is a crimal offense. An early study claimed that if one pair of (male) intil tws (who have intil geic patterns) was gay, there was a 100 percent chance of the other one also beg gay. It was quickly shown that, fact, the real chance of two intil tws beg gay was around 40-50 percent, whereas was ls non-intil on, though still somewhat greater than the general populatn.

MANY GEN INFLUENCE SAME-SEX SEXUALY, NOT A SGLE ‘GAY GENE’

There was another, much smaller, group who said they were entirely gay (about 6 percent), and a stterg of even smaller numbers who claimed to be bisexual. 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. “There is no sgle gay gene, but rather the ntributn of many small geic effects sttered across the genome, ” he emphasized.

“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. 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.

NO, SCIENTISTS HAVE NOT FOUND THE ‘GAY GENE’

’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.

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. 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.