There is no ‘gay gene.’ There is no ‘straight gene.’ Sexualy is jt plex, study nfirms | PBS NewsHour

Contents:

• THERE IS NO ‘GAY GENE.’ THERE IS NO ‘STRAIGHT GENE.’ SEXUALY IS JT PLEX, STUDY NFIRMS
• WHAT DO THE NEW ‘GAY GEN’ TELL ABOUT SEXUAL ORIENTATN?
• GAY GEICS
• WHY ARE PEOPLE GAY? GAY BY CHOICE OR IS BEG GAY GEIC?
• NO ‘GAY GENE’: MASSIVE STUDY HOM ON GEIC BASIS OF HUMAN SEXUALY
• THERE’S NO ONE ‘GAY GENE,’ BUT GEICS ARE LKED TO SAME-SEX BEHAVR, NEW STUDY SAYS
• SCIENTISTS FD DNA DIFFERENC BETWEEN GAY MEN AND THEIR STRAIGHT TW BROTHERS
• MANY GEN INFLUENCE SAME-SEX SEXUALY, NOT A SGLE ‘GAY GENE’
• CONTROVERSIAL ‘GAY GENE’ APP PROVOK FEARS OF A GEIC WILD WT

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. “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. FEATURED: Gay Ski Week Atralia | Webse #Sponsored Gay Ski Week Atralia returns for s 13th season, vg everyone to jo the... In theory, humans and other animals who are exclively attracted to others of the same sex should be unlikely to produce many blogil children, so any gen that predispose people to homosexualy would rarely be passed on to future generatns.

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

Yet same-sex attractn is wispread humans, and rearch suggts that is partly a study of data om hundreds of thoands of people, rearchers have now intified geic patterns that uld be associated wh homosexual behavur, and showed how the might also help people to fd different-sex mat, and reproduce.

The thors say their fdgs, published on 23 Augt Nature Human Behavur1, uld help to expla why gen that predispose people to homosexualy ntue to be passed down. None of the variatns seemed to greatly affect sexual behavur on s own, backg up prev rearch that has found no sign of a ‘gay gene’. Most of the participants were born durg a time when homosexualy was eher illegal or culturally taboo their untri, so many people who were attracted to others of the same sex might never have actually acted on their attractn, and uld therefore have end up the wrong group the Monk, an elogist and evolutnary blogist at Yale Universy New Haven, Connecticut, thks that the veats are so important that the paper n’t draw any real nclns about geics and sexual orientatn.

Instead, he thks the rearchers have found geic markers associated wh openns to new experienc, which uld expla the overlap between people who have had a homosexual partner and heterosexual people who have had many partners. And he adms that g a sgle homosexual experience as an ditn of sexual orientatn isn’t ial, but says that the UK Bbank didn’t provi data on attractn. Your gen terme your sexual orientatn, study suggtsA NEW study parg the DNA of homosexual and heterosexual men uld prove that sexual orientatn is rooted a person’s HAS long been bated whether sexual orientatn is a rult of a person’s blogy or is termed by environmental factors and outsi fluenc.

GAY GEICS

Rearch unrtaken by North Shore Universy Illois claims to have disvered geic markers that dite whether or not a person is gay. Scientists pared the whole genom of around 1000 homosexual men and 1200 heterosexual men and found there were two specific DNA regns that differed between the of the regns alt wh a gene that plays an important role bra velopment and hormone productn, which uld also be lked to a person’s sexual other gene is lked to thyroid functn, which is an area prevly been lked wh sexual orientatn, acrdg to the thors of the some geic differenc were found the areas, the rearchers have utned that the rults are “bt scribed as speculative”, but still leave rearchers a step closer to unrstandg how sexual preferenc velop.

“As this study was rried out European men, we do not know whether the fdgs will apply to homosexualy women, or even to homosexualy non-European men. “All that is required to see a geic associatn this study is for slightly more homosexual men to rry the geic variant than heterosexual men, and many tim this will simply be due to chance. 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.

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

In 1993, geic variatns a regn on the X chromosome men were lked to whether they were heterosexual or homosexual, and 1995, a regn on chromosome 8 was intified. Grave’s disease is more mon gay than straight men, and some rearch suggts that gay men tend to be thner – which might possibly be a rult of thyroid overdrive. There have been studi suggtg that there is a geic element to homosexualy women, but more rearch has been done men, says Sanrs.

The latt fdgs open the prospect to intifyg the whole pathway of gen volved both homosexual and heterosexual orientatn, says Dean Hamer at the US Natnal Instut of Health, who led the study that ppoted chromosome X back 1993. It’s held aloft by Dr Alan Sanrs and a group of lleagu om NorthShore Universy near Chigo who are attendg a gay pri ftival.

“The people participatg our study are terted ntributg to this kd of scientific knowledge and want to unrstand at least part of how they me to be the way they are, ” Sanrs 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.

NO ‘GAY GENE’: MASSIVE STUDY HOM ON GEIC BASIS OF HUMAN SEXUALY

“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. ”More like thisAlthough 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 would unrme arguments that beg gay is a social or liftyle choice. 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).

The fact that intil tws have the same DNA and aternal tws share 50 per cent suggts that male homosexualy is gay geneIt was sctisg fay tre to see how homosexualy is hered that led Hamer to the disvery of Xq28.

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. This is bee mal her their X chromosome om their 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.

THERE’S NO ONE ‘GAY GENE,’ BUT GEICS ARE LKED TO SAME-SEX BEHAVR, NEW STUDY SAYS

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.

SCIENTISTS FD DNA DIFFERENC BETWEEN GAY MEN AND THEIR STRAIGHT TW BROTHERS

A subsequent study 1999 failed to replite Hamer’s rults and other rearchers are sceptil that Xq28 is lked to homosexualy at brothers, immune mothersMany scientists believe that exposure to hormon durg pregnancy heavily fluenc sexualy. Durg pre-natal velopment, for example, the sex ans a foet n regnise ttosterone, which will swch on gen to make 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 the two factors only go so far explag how homosexualy velops.

”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. ”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.

Fertile femalProfsor Andrea Camper Ciani at the Universy of Padova Italy has tted var hypoth by studyg 100 fai of gay men. 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.

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

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.

Nippl are another example of a sexually antagonistic tra: they’re need for feedg babi, but velopg nippl men is a waste of the body’s rourc and allow errors leadg to breast search for sexualyEven if Camper Ciani’s fecundy factors are the same as Hamer’s gay gen, don’t tell what the specific gen actually do. Hamer speculat the gen might boost the size or nnectns om parts of the bra ed reproductn – such as the hypothalam – to make people more Sanrs’s study at NorthShore Universy uld fally reveal the inty and functn of ‘gay gen’. Sanrs will then e sequenc om databas like the Human Genome Project to ppot which gen are the what happens if ‘gay gen’ are found?

CONTROVERSIAL ‘GAY GENE’ APP PROVOK FEARS OF A GEIC WILD WT

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.