Why are people gay? Are they gay by choice or is beg gay geic? Are they born gay? Learn about the and reasons for beg gay.
Contents:
- WHY ARE PEOPLE GAY? GAY BY CHOICE OR IS BEG GAY GEIC?
- GAY BY CHOICE? THE SCIENCE OF SEXUAL INTY
- CYNTHIA NIXON: I'M GAY BY CHOICE
- QUEER BY CHOICE: LBIANS, GAY MEN, AND THE POLICS OF INTY
- "BORN THIS WAY" OR GAY BY CHOICE: DO IT MATTER?
- GAY BY CHOICE
- WHY WOULD PEOPLE 'CHOOSE' TO BE GAY?
WHY ARE PEOPLE GAY? GAY BY CHOICE OR IS BEG GAY GEIC?
* gay by choice *
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.
In 1993, a study published the journal Science showed that fai wh two homosexual brothers were very likely to have certa geic markers on a regn of the X chromosome known as Xq28.
Some people might argue that if you are “geilly gay” but the thought of homosexualy nseat you, then you jt haven’t accepted the fact that you really are gay.
GAY BY CHOICE? THE SCIENCE OF SEXUAL INTY
We know what Lady Gaga would say, but what if queerns isn't simply a matter of geics? What if some of choose to be gay? That's a more ntroversial qutn than should be — after all, there's nothg herently wrong wh beg gay, so shouldn't matter that some people, for reasons of their own, have opted to . Neverthels, Cynthia Nixon pissed off a huge chunk of the LGBT muny when she told The New York Tim Magaze that she choos to be gay. * gay by choice *
In 1991, a study published the journal Science seemed to show that the hypothalam, which ntrols the release of sex hormon om the puary gland, gay men differs om the hypothalam straight men.
PET and MRI studi performed 2008 have shown that the two halv of the bra are more symmetril homosexual men and heterosexual women than heterosexual men and homosexual women. The studi have also revealed that nnectns the amygdalas of gay men remble those of straight women; gay women, nnectns the amygdala remble those of straight men. Today, however, we know much more about the bra than we did when homosexualy was nsired a disease that required treatment, and the amount of knowledge that we have about the bra is creasg.
CYNTHIA NIXON: I'M GAY BY CHOICE
Queer by Choice enters the ntroversial bate of sexual inty by examg choice gay men and lbian sexual inty. Drawg on terviews wh a * gay by choice *
If we fe beg gay as engagg homosexual behavr (the ncept of “gay” as an inty is a Wtern cultural ncept – people who have sex wh both men and women may ll themselv gay, straight or bisexual, pendg on the l of their culture or subculture), then people stop beg gay as soon as they stop engagg this behavr. I believe that people have the right to engage any behavr that they choose, as long as their actns do not harm others, and I believe that gay sex and gay relatnships do not e harm to anyone.
(Of urse, there are abive and unhealthy gay relatnships that should not be tolerated, jt as there are unhealthy heterosexual relatnships that should not be tolerated. If sexual preference n be altered, then people who support gay rights n’t rely on the argument that gay people should be protected om discrimatn bee gay people have no choice but to be gay – an argument that seems like an apology for homosexualy, as if homosexualy is a disease for which there is no cure.
Jt as gay people who are happy as they are should not be forced to change their sexual orientatn, gay people who want to be straight should have the right to change if they n – and the rrect word is “change” – not “cure”. Photo creds: Vanuver Gay Pri Para 2008 by edallaluna on Wikimedia Commons; DNA by ynse on Wikimedia Commons; Bra fMRI by views exprsed are those of the thor(s) and are not necsarily those of Scientific Amerin.
QUEER BY CHOICE: LBIANS, GAY MEN, AND THE POLICS OF INTY
Over the crash of the wav, he spar no tails as he scrib how much he hated the fact that he was gay, how the last thg the world he wanted to do was act on his sire to have sex wh another man. One of the few people who knew that Aaron was gay showed him an article Newsweek about a group offerg “reparative therapy”—psychologil treatment for people who want to bee “ex-gay.
"BORN THIS WAY" OR GAY BY CHOICE: DO IT MATTER?
That’s the ual terpretatn of reparative therapy—that to the extent that do anythg, leads people to reprs rather than change their natural clatns, that s claims to change sexual orientatn are an outright d perpetrated by the relig right on people who have ternalized the homophobia of Amerin society, personalized the polil such a way as to reject their own sexualy and stunt their love liv. It wasn’t a matter of ignorance—he has an advanced gree—and really wasn’t a psychopathologil thg—he rejects the ia that he’s ever suffered om ternalized homophobia. All the major psychotherapy guilds have barred their members om rearchg or practicg reparative therapy on the grounds that is herently uhil to treat somethg that is not a disease, that ntribut to opprsn by pathologizg homosexualy, and that is dangero to patients whose self-teem n only suffer when they try to change somethg about themselv that they n’t (and shouldn’t have to) change.
For if he’s not a posr, then he is a walkg challenge to the polil and scientific nsens that has emerged over the last century and a half: that sexual orientatn is born and immutable, that efforts to change are bound to fail, and that discrimatn agast gay people is therefore unjt.
GAY BY CHOICE
While scientists have found trigug blogil differenc between gay and straight people, the evince so far stops well short of provg that we are born wh a sexual orientatn that we will have for life.
Even more important, some rearch shows that sexual orientatn is more fluid than we have e to thk, that people, pecially women, n and do move across ctomary sexual orientatn boundari, that there are ex-straights as well as ex-gays. In he explaed that he had been cleaned out by a blackmailer who was now threateng to expose his homosexualy, and that he uldn’t face eher the shame or the potential legal trouble that would follow. Nature, he argued, had divid the human race to four sexual typ: “monosexuals, ” who masturbated, “heterogens, ” who had sex wh animals, “heterosexuals, ” who upled wh the oppose sex, and “homosexuals, ” who preferred people of the same sex.
But while homosexual nduct had occurred throughout history, the ia that reflected fundamental differenc between people, that gay people were a sexual subspeci, was a new one. Another anti-sodomy-law opponent, lawyer Karl Herich Ulrichs, proposed that homosexual men, or “Uranians, ” as he lled them (and he openly nsired himself a Uranian, while Kertbeny was y about his preferenc), were actually a third sex, their attractn to other men a maniftatn of the female soul ridg their male bodi. In keepg wh the post-Enlightenment notn that we are morally culpable only for what we are ee to choose, homosexuals were not to be nmned or rtricted by the state.
WHY WOULD PEOPLE 'CHOOSE' TO BE GAY?
Hirschfeld was an outspoken opponent of anti-sodomy laws and champned tolerance of gay people, but he also believed that homosexualy was a pathologil state, a ngenal formy of the bra that may have been the rult of a parental “generacy” that nature tend to elimate by makg the fective populatn unlikely to reproduce. Even Sigmund Frd, who thought people were “polymorpholy perverse” by nature and urged tolerance for homosexualy, believed heterosexualy was sential to matury and psychologil health. Frd was psimistic that homosexualy uld be treated, but doctors abhor an illns whout a cure, and the 20th century saw therapists flict the bt of morn psychiatric practice on gay people, which clud, addn to termable psychoanalysis and unproven meditns, treatments that ed electric shock to associate pa wh same-sex attractn.
The therapi were largely unsuccsful, and, particularly after the Stonewall rts of 1969—the clash between police and gays that iated the morn gay rights movement—patients and psychiatrists alike started qutng whether homosexualy should be nsired a mental illns at all.