'Gay Gene' Rearch Com Up Short : Shots - Health News : NPR

Contents:

• THERE IS NO ‘GAY GENE.’ THERE IS NO ‘STRAIGHT GENE.’ SEXUALY IS JT PLEX, STUDY NFIRMS
• GAY GEICSMOST OF BELIEVE THAT WE WERE BORN THAT WAY, BUT IS SEXUAL ORIENTATN OUR DNA? JV CHAMARY GO SEARCH OF THE GAY GENEJV CHAMARYPUBLISHED: MAY 31, 2009 AT 11:00 PMGAY GEICS
• THERE’S (STILL) NO GAY GENE
• THE LIFE OF THE GAY GENE: OM HYPOTHETIL GEIC MARKER TO SOCIAL REALY
• WHAT DO THE NEW ‘GAY GEN’ TELL ABOUT SEXUAL ORIENTATN?
• THE REAL STORY ON GAY GEN
• SEARCH FOR 'GAY GEN' COM UP SHORT IN LARGE NEW STUDY
• MANY GEN INFLUENCE SAME-SEX SEXUALY, NOT A SGLE ‘GAY GENE’

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

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. 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.

” 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.

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.

GAY GEICSMOST OF BELIEVE THAT WE WERE BORN THAT WAY, BUT IS SEXUAL ORIENTATN OUR DNA? JV CHAMARY GO SEARCH OF THE GAY GENEJV CHAMARYPUBLISHED: MAY 31, 2009 AT 11:00 PMGAY GEICS

“We worried a lot about volunteer bias, ” said Bailey, whose rearch clus a wily publicized study on Xq28 and gay brothers om 2018. 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. The search for ‘gay gen’ go back to 1993, when a US team led by Dr Dean Hamer scribed a regn of DNA loted on the X chromosome lled Xq28. “Conservative, right-wg people hated bee they felt that was sayg that beg gay is like beg black, that was -born, that would somehow ‘exce’ gay people or give them more rights, ” says Hamer.

“On the other hand, gay people hated too bee, at that time, there were fears that the disvery would be mised to abort gay babi and wipe gay people off the face of the Earth. Although the fears rema, recent years the search for ‘gay gen’ has bee more accepted by the gay muny, no small part bee a blogil explanatn wouldunrme arguments that beg gay is a social or liftyle choice.

THERE’S (STILL) NO GAY GENE

For stance, intil tw brothers (siblgs rived om the same fertilised egg) are more likely to both be gay than aternal tws (tws that velop om separate eggs). Now chief of the gene stcture and regulatn sectn at the US Natnal Cancer Instute, his study revealed a cur pattern: gay men tend to have more gay uncl and gay male s on their mother’s si of the fay than on their father’s. To track down the DNA regn lked to the gay tra, Hamer ed a technique lled ‘lkage mappg’, an approach that lets geicists fd a gene even when they don’t know what do or where ’s loted.

Lkage mappg works bee close relativ like brothers share not only a particular tra, such as homosexualy, but also the gen unrlyg the tra. So, if you study many pairs of gay brothers and fd a DNA regn that’s the same more than 50 per cent of s, ’s likely to be lked to homosexualy. A subsequent study 1999 failed to replite Hamer’s rults and other rearchers are sceptil that Xq28 is lked to homosexualy at all.

THE LIFE OF THE GAY GENE: OM HYPOTHETIL GEIC MARKER TO SOCIAL REALY

Asi om a few superficial differenc (among them penis and rg-fger length – both longer homosexuals), gay and straight men’s bodi appear the same. The exceptn is homosexual men’s bras, which show remarkable siari to the bras of heterosexual women, suggtg that sexual orientatn pends on the effect hormon have on the velopg bra. In 1996 Blanchard and Profsor Tony Bogaert revealed a peculiar phenomenon: the more olr brothers a boy has, the greater their chanc of beg homosexual.

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

Blanchard believ that homosexualy is “100 per cent blogil”, and timat that the aternal birth orr effect acunts for 15-30 per cent of gay men the populatn. Not only did he replite Blanchard’s birth orr effect, he also tected herance of homosexualy on the mother’s si, supportg Hamer’s ia of a gay gene on chromosome X. Natural selectn oppos anythg that might e even a small rctn the number of offsprg you produce, so a gay tra would soon disappear om the gene pool.

THE REAL STORY ON GAY GEN

After Camper Ciani scribed the observed patterns pedigre of homosexualy – the effects of maternal herance and birth orr – his dghter suggted that he re-check his data to see if the female relativ of gay men had more children on the mother’s si. “Mothers and nts on the maternal le of homosexuals had around one-fifth to one-fourth more kids than the heterosexual parison, and also than the paternal le. In this stance, the ‘gay gen’ don’t exist to make men homosexual, stead they’re a nsequence of ‘fertily factors’ that help women reproduce.

While they may nfirm the ia that homosexualy has a blogil basis, many people fear that the rults uld be ed to discrimate agast gay people. “People we talked to at gay pri ftivals have signer-baby kd of worri – a geic tt employed a pre-natal way, or for employment and surance discrimatn, maybe the ary too.

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. “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.

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

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. ’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.

As noted above, the gen that rrelated wh same-sex sexual behavr also rrelated wh willgns to take risks, a nnectn that might not hold up cultur where homosexualy is ls stigmatized and those who are ls risk tolerant would therefore feel more able to act openly. However, spe such tenuo provenance, the gay gene has persisted as a reference science news, popular science wrgs, and prs releas and edorials about bmedil rearch. News media monstrat that the gay gene has bee an assumed back-story to geic sexualy rearch over time, and that the crique of s very existence has been dimished.

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

Latterly, the gay gene has entered to the onle bmedil databas of the 21st century wh the same pattern of persistence and dimishg crique. The nsequent unmoorg of the gay gene om acuntabily and accuracy monstrat that the anizatn of bmedil databas uld benef om greater cross-disciplary attentn. The largt study1 to date on the geic basis of sexualy has revealed five spots on the human genome that are lked to same-sex sexual behavur — but none of the markers are reliable enough to predict someone’s sexualy.The fdgs, which are published on 29 Augt Science and based on the genom of nearly 500,000 people, shore up the rults of earlier, smaller studi and nfirm the spicns of many scientists: while sexual preferenc have a geic ponent, no sgle gene has a large effect on sexual behavurs.“There is no ‘gay gene’,” says lead study thor Andrea Ganna, a geicist at the Broad Instute of MIT and Harvard Cambridge, Massachetts.Ganna 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.“This is a solid study,” says Melda Mills, a soclogist at the Universy of Oxford, UK, who studi the geic basis of reproductive behavurs.But she utns that the rults may not be reprentative of the overall populatn — a limatn that the study thors acknowledge.

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.