Are We Born Gay? | Psychology Today

Contents:

• ARE WE BORN GAY?
• IS A PERSON ‘BORN GAY’, OR IS BEG GAY A LEARNED BEHAVR?
• WHY ARE PEOPLE GAY? GAY BY CHOICE OR IS BEG GAY GEIC?
• IS ANYONE 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
• 'GAY GEN': SCIENCE IS ON THE RIGHT TRACK, WE'RE BORN THIS WAY. LET’S AL WH .
• CLIL STUDY CONFIRMS PEOPLE ARE NOT BLOGILLY “BORN GAY”
• CAN A PERSON BE BORN GAY?
• THE 'GAY GENE' IS A MYTH BUT BEG GAY IS 'NATURAL,' SAY SCIENTISTS
• ARE GAYS BORN OR MA?
• MARCIA GAY HARN

ARE WE BORN GAY?

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

IS ANYONE BORN 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. 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.

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

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.

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.

WHAT DO THE BIBLE SAY ABOUT BEG BORN GAY?

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. Gay nrologist Simon LeVay explas that sexual orientatn is “the tra that predispos to experience sexual attractn” (Gay, Straight, and the Reason Why, 1).

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

However, if we broan sexualy to clu non-sexual and non-romantic appreciatn for bety, then everybody would be gay. 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.

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

“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. Sanrs llaborated wh Bailey on those earlier studi and said their work had always admted that there was no sgle “gay gene.

CLIL STUDY CONFIRMS PEOPLE ARE NOT BLOGILLY “BORN GAY”

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.

CAN A PERSON BE BORN GAY?

“[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. 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?

In the early 1990s, there was great hope some circl that a “gay gene” would be found that would prove homosexualy to be fixed and termed geilly. “There is no nsens among scientists about the exact reasons that an dividual velops a heterosexual, bisexual, gay or lbian orientatn. Studi of intil tws show that, when one tw is homosexual, the other (geilly intil) tw is ually not homosexual.

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

For example, has been reported that men wh more olr brothers are more likely to be homosexual, and has been speculated that this uld relate to a blogil effect the mother’s womb.

Most rearchers prr to the 1970s believed, as many still do today, that homosexual attractns are primarily a velopmental rult of childhood experienc. Even some people who self-intify as gay are rejectg the ia that they were “born that way” — and the fensivens of the implied argument, “I’m only like this bee I n’t help . The “born gay” theory lacks scientific credibily, and — and polici premised on , such as the Equaly Act — should be abandoned.

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.

ARE GAYS BORN OR MA?

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.

MARCIA GAY HARN

So, let’s take the person who says, “I was born gay, ” and they mean they have some geic atn for their attractn to people of the same sex. Then there’s the person who says “I was born gay” and may mean “I have the sir for persons of the same sex and I didn’t nscly choose them. Scientists may have fally solved the puzzle of what mak a person gay, and how is passed om parents to their children.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 mother.The 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 lk.Long 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. 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 not.Rice and his team created a mathematil mol that explas why homosexualy is passed through epi-marks, not geics.