Are We Born Gay? | Psychology Today

Contents:

• WHY ARE PEOPLE GAY? GAY BY CHOICE OR IS BEG GAY GEIC?
• 'GAY GEN': SCIENCE IS ON THE RIGHT TRACK, WE'RE BORN THIS WAY. LET’S AL WH .
• 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
• WHAT DO THE BIBLE SAY ABOUT BEG BORN GAY?
• ARE YOU BORN GAY OR IS A CHOICE? SCIENTISTS MIGHT HAVE FOUND THE ANSWER
• ARE HOMOSEXUAL PEOPLE REALLY “BORN GAY”?
• ARE GAYS ‘BORN THAT WAY’? MOST AMERINS NOW SAY Y, BUT SCIENCE SAYS NO
• CAN A PERSON BE BORN GAY?
• THE 'GAY GENE' IS A MYTH BUT BEG GAY IS 'NATURAL,' SAY SCIENTISTS
• WHY ARE THERE GAY MEN?

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

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. 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).

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.

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).

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

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. “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.

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

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. 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.

ARE WE BORN GAY?

Scholars at the teemed Johns Hopks Universy studied the origs of homosexualy and found there is sufficient evince to say gay, lbian, or transgenr people are born this way (sexual orientatn or genr inty). “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 reads. The three-part, 143-page report, which appeared the Fall 2016 edn of The New Atlantis, also challeng the ia that discrimatn and social stigma are the only reasons gays and transgenrs suffer higher rat of mental health problems an suicis.

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. How Olr Brothers Influence HomosexualyHomosexualy might be partly driven by a mother’s immune rponse to her male fet—which creas wh each son she MacGregor / RtersHere’s what we know: Homosexualy is normal.

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

Part of the explanatn is geic, but bee most intil tws of gay people are straight, heredy don’t expla “why” qutn is important bee “there is a strong rrelatn between beliefs about the origs of sexual orientatn and tolerance of non-heterosexualy, ” acrdg to the report thors, who are om seven universi spanng the globe. (When Atlantic ntributor Chandler Burr proposed his 1996 book, A Separate Creatn, that people are born gay, Southern Baptists lled to boytt Disney films and parks prott agast the publisher, Disney subsidiary Hypern.

WHAT DO THE BIBLE SAY ABOUT BEG BORN GAY?

But gaps will rema, such as why some firstborn sons are gay, why some intil tws of gay sons are straight, and why women are gay, to name jt a review-paper thors do le out one explanatn for homosexualy, however: That tolerance for gay people enurag more people to bee gay. “Homosexual orientatn do not crease equency wh social tolerance, although s exprsn ( behavr and open intifitn) may do so, ” they reasong—that a tolerant society somehow enurag homosexualy to flourish—has been ed to support anti-gay legislatn Uganda, Rsia, and elsewhere. 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.

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

“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.

“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. In 1976, 9% reportedly claimed to be born gay, the figure creased to 35% by 1989, and by 2004, one gay muny, more than 90% of gays reported that they believe gen are a signifint factor their orientatn— which would suggt a ten-fold crease  28 years.

ARE HOMOSEXUAL PEOPLE REALLY “BORN GAY”?

By repeatg this claim over and over aga for s now, gay activists have managed to w over a large percentage of heterosexual “believers” to their e, whout any substantial basis fact to validate the claim that they were “born that way.

” “Born gay” is, fact, a hoax of mammoth proportns that has been accepted by many stutns, anizatns and dividuals  our culture, even by those the “Christian church” and even by many apparently “born-aga Christians” (1). The cril qutn is whether homosexualy is already termed at birth by blogil factors and is immutable (unchangeable), or velops later as a rult of post-natal experienc and fluenc, and is fluid (changeable).

As you will see, the evince strongly supports the view that homosexualy velops primarily as a rult of post-natal experienc and fluenc, and is fluid (changeable); all pre-natal fluenc bed (cludg geics, epi-geics and hormon) have, at most, a weak and non-termative role. This rearch has foced primarily on possible geic ntributns to the velopment of homosexualy, but other potential blogil factors, such as epi-geics and pre-natal hormon, have received nsirable attentn as well and rema viable theori.

ARE GAYS ‘BORN THAT WAY’? MOST AMERINS NOW SAY Y, BUT SCIENCE SAYS NO

In this regard, is important to note at the outset that if homosexualy were geilly termed (as opposed to merely beg geilly fluenced), most likely would have been bred out of existence only several generatns. Acrdg to this theory, durg a cril stage of fetal velopment, exposure of a male fet to a high level of ttosterone would lead to typil heterosexual orientatn, whereas exposure to a sufficiently lower level would lead to homosexualy.

Support for this theory primarily om direct evince rived om animal studi, speculatn based on hormone effects on other aspects of sexual differentiatn humans, bra studi that fail to show any signifint chang bra stcture before the ag of 8-11 years old (32) and clil ndns wh signifint prenatal hormone chang that are associated wh creased cinc of homosexualy. The mol would expla homosexualy on the basis of epi-mark-ntrolled prenatal ttosterone (a sex hormone) levels, to the virtual excln of a role for eher a strictly geic fluence or post-natal environmental fluenc.

CAN A PERSON BE BORN GAY?

Acrdg to the mol, when this mistake is ma, epi-mark regulated ttosterone overexposure a female fet would rult a masculized female who will prefer femal (a lbian), whereas epi-mark regulated ttosterone unrexposure a male fet would rult a femized male who will prefer mal (a gay). The low nrdance tw studi would be explaed not by a low-level geic fluence, as is ually assumed, but by the ocsnal passg of ttosterone-enhancg epi-marks om father to dghter (creatg a lbian) and of ttosterone-limg epi-marks om mother to son (creatg a gay man).

It is tertg to note that this mol poss homosexualy as an aberrant accint of nature, which normal prenatal velopment of a fet produc the tend effect (heterosexualy), and abnormal prenatal velopment produc an untend effect (homosexualy) by mistake.

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

Abnormal prenatal velopment rults when a mistake is ma and an epi-mark  a parent is not erased, but is, stead, passed on to the offsprg, where s effect (homosexualy) is seen the subsequent generatn.

Although this mol is highly speculative and prently has very ltle, if any, direct experimental support, do have mer as a scientific hypothis, bee 1) would expla both male and female homosexualy, 2) uld expla the low nrdance for homosexualy found tw studi, 3) seems to provi a feasible explanatn for the long-term survival of a reproductively leter tra the human populatn, and 4) is, at least to some extent, ttable.

WHY ARE THERE GAY MEN?

Tw Studi Overview: As dited above, most of the more recent rearch has foced on the gree to which gen, along wh other prenatal factors such as hormon and epi-geics, may fluence the velopment of homosexualy. The former approach of recg intil tws via advertisements gay and lbian publitns is now known to have a very strong “volunteer effect” that produced the appearance of relatively large geic effects (8).