Are We Born Gay? | Psychology Today

Contents:

• 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?
• IS ANYONE BORN GAY?
• JOHNS HOPKS REARCH: NO EVINCE PEOPLE ARE BORN GAY OR TRANSGENR
• IS A PERSON ‘BORN GAY’, OR IS BEG GAY A LEARNED BEHAVR?
• WHY ARE PEOPLE GAY? GAY BY CHOICE OR IS BEG GAY GEIC?
• ARE WE BORN GAY?
• ARE YOU BORN GAY OR IS A CHOICE? SCIENTISTS MIGHT HAVE FOUND THE ANSWER
• PROOF YOU N'T BE 'BORN GAY'
• CLIL STUDY CONFIRMS PEOPLE ARE NOT BLOGILLY “BORN GAY”
• 'GAY GEN': SCIENCE IS ON THE RIGHT TRACK, WE'RE BORN THIS WAY. LET’S AL WH .
• THE 'GAY GENE' IS A MYTH BUT BEG GAY IS 'NATURAL,' SAY SCIENTISTS

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.

WHAT DO THE BIBLE SAY ABOUT BEG BORN GAY?

“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.

IS ANYONE 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.

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

JOHNS HOPKS REARCH: NO EVINCE PEOPLE ARE BORN GAY OR TRANSGENR

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.

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).

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

It’s a hot topic and people on the left, pecially LGBTs, follow the dictum that gays and transgenrs are born that way.

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

The two scholars, Lawrence Mayer, and Pl McHugh examed whether homosexualy is an hered tra, and nclud that people are not simply “born that way. They also looked at the of the poor mental health associated wh gay and transgenr people, ncludg that social strs do not expla all of . “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.

“There are probably some people that intify as heterosexual that then, later on, intify as homosexual, so go both ways. 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. This is Gay Pri month and there are paras, flags wavg, monuments, but if people do choose this as a liftyle and are not born this way, what do mean for the movement?

Scholars at Johns Hopks Universy released a new report on Monday which argu that there is not sufficient evince to suggt that lbian, gay, or transgenr people are born wh this sexual orientatn or genr inty. “There are probably some people that intify as hetrosexual [sic] that then later on intified as homosexual, so go both ways.

ARE WE BORN GAY?

The three-part, 143-page report, which appeared the Fall 2016 edn of The New Atlantis, also vtigated other monly accepted ias about homosexualy and transgenrism. Mayer and his -thor Pl McHugh, a profsor of psychiatry and behavral scienc at Johns Hopks, challenged the claim that discrimatn and social stigma are the only reasons why homosexual and transgenr people suffer higher rat of mental health problems and are more likely to m suici. The study breaks down three parts: First, Mayer and McHugh examed whether homosexualy is an hered tra, and nclud that people are not simply “born that way.

” Send, they looked at the of the poor mental health associated wh gay and transgenr people, ncludg that social strs do not expla all of .

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

“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 explaed. There is virtually no evince that anyone, gay or straight, is ‘born that way’ if means that their sexual orientatn was geilly termed, ” the report explaed (emphasis add). “But there is some evince om the tw studi that certa geic profil probably crease the likelihood the person later intifi as gay or engag same-sex sexual behavr.

The report also found that gay and transgenr people are at elevated risk for a variety of mental health risks, cludg anxiety disorrs, prsn, substance abe, and suici. 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.

PROOF YOU N'T BE 'BORN GAY'

Evolutnarily speakg, if homosexualy was solely a geic tra, scientists would expect the tra to eventually disappear bee homosexuals wouldn't be expected to reproduce. But bee the epi-marks provi an evolutnary advantage for the parents of homosexuals: They protect fathers of homosexuals om unrexposure to ttosterone and mothers of homosexuals om overexposure to ttosterone while they are gtatn."The epi-marks protect fathers and mothers om excs or unrexposure to ttosterone — when they rry over to oppose-sex offsprg, n e the masculizatn of femal or the femizatn of mal," Rice says, which n lead to a child beg gay.

Rice not that the markers are "highly variable" and that only strong epi-marks will rult a homosexual offsprg.Though scientists have long spected some sort of geic lk, Rice says studi attemptg to expla why people are gay have been few and far between."Most mastream blogists have shied away om studyg bee of the social stigma," he says. Well there are many exampl of homosexualy nature, 's very mon." Homosexual behavr has been observed black swans, pengus, sheep, and other animals, he says.Rice's mol still needs to be tted on real-life parent-offsprg pairs, but he says this epigeic lk mak more sense than any other explanatn, and that his team has mapped out a way for other scientists to tt their work."We've found a story that looks really good," he says. 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.

CLIL STUDY CONFIRMS PEOPLE ARE NOT BLOGILLY “BORN GAY”

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.

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

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. 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. 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. 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. 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.

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

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.