News: There’s no one ‘gay gene,’ but... (The Washgton Post) - Behd the headl - NLM

Contents:

• NO ‘GAY GENE’: MASSIVE STUDY HOM ON GEIC BASIS OF HUMAN SEXUALY
• MANY GEN INFLUENCE SAME-SEX SEXUALY, NOT A SGLE ‘GAY GENE’
• NEW STUDY: THERE IS NO GAY GENE THAT HOMOSEXUALY
• SEARCH FOR 'GAY GEN' COM UP SHORT IN LARGE NEW STUDY
• THE 'GAY GENE' IS A MYTH BUT BEG GAY IS 'NATURAL,' SAY SCIENTISTS
• THE LIFE OF THE GAY GENE: OM HYPOTHETIL GEIC MARKER TO SOCIAL REALY
• DPE WHAT YOU MAY HAVE READ, THERE’S NO ‘GAY GENE’
• NO SGLE ‘GAY GENE’ TERM SAME-SEX SEXUAL BEHAVR, DNA ANALYSIS FDS
• NO ‘GAY GENE’: MASSIVE STUDY FDS NO SPECIFIC GEIC PREDICTORS FOR SEXUAL BEHAVR, PREFERENC
• A SCIENTIFIC STUDY HAS TABLISHED THAT THERE IS NO “GAY GENE”
• NEWS: THERE’S NO ONE ‘GAY GENE,’ BUT... (THE WASHGTON POST) - BEHD THE HEADL
• NO ‘GAY GENE’ N PREDICT SEXUAL ORIENTATN, STUDY SAYS
• NO “GAY” GENE? DO GEICS DETERME MORALY?
• SCIENCENO SGLE 'GAY GENE', REVEALS THE LARGT-EVER STUDY OF THE GEICS OF SAME-SEX SEXUAL BEHAVUR

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

“There is no ‘gay gene’, ” says lead study thor Andrea Ganna, a geicist at the Broad Instute of MIT and Harvard Cambridge, 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.

Muny there said they were worried the fdgs uld give ammunn to people who seek to e science to bolster bias and discrimatn agast gay ncern is that evince that gen fluence same-sex behavr uld e anti-gay activists to ll for gene edg or embryo selectn, even if that would be technilly impossible. Another fear is that evince that gen play only a partial role uld emboln people who sist beg gay is a choice and who advote tactics like nversn therapy.

Dpe s limatns, the rearch was much larger and more varied than prev studi, which generally foced on gay men, often those who were tws or were otherwise related.

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

“That right there is the big issue wh lookg for the geics of sexual orientatn — social ntext uld be a big part of the exprsn of the tra, ” said Jeremy Yor, an assistant profsor of blogy at California State Universy, Northridge, who is gay and follows geic rearch the field. He and others noted that olr participants me of age when homosexual behavr was crimalized Bra and that for much of their life homosexualy was classified as a psychiatric Reilly and others said such stark differenc between olr and younger participants show the tricks of tryg to draw reprentative blogil rmatn om a study populatn so strongly fluenced by society’s changg attus. Dean Hamer, a former Natnal Instut of Health scientist who led the first high-profile study intifyg a geic lk to beg gay 1993, said he was happy to see such a large rearch effort.

NEW STUDY: THERE IS NO GAY GENE THAT HOMOSEXUALY

“Havg said that, I’d like to emphasize that ’s not a gay gene study — ’s a study of what mak people have a sgle same-sex experience or more, ” said Dr.

More about Pam BelluckA versn of this article appears prt on, Sectn A, Page 1 of the New York edn wh the headle: Rearch Fds Not One ‘Gay Gene, ’ but a Multu of Influenc.

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

I heard one of the thors of this new study mentg on how he was a gay man, and the purpose of his rearch was to show a geic basis for homosexualy, orr to make equal to race. His goal was to make impossible to disagree wh homosexual behavr, bee homosexual behavr would be seen as natural and normal.

The once-prevailg ncept of a “gay gene” dictatg sexual orientatn has been put to rt a powerhoe study published today Science. The normal way that people do the studi is to analyze intil tws, and see how often both intil tws are gay.

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

S., and Sndavia durg the last two s all arrive at the same ncln: gays were not born that way. If homosexualy is ed by geics or prenatal ndns and one tw is gay, the -tw should also be gay.

“The predomant thgs that create homosexualy one intil tw and not the other have to be post-birth factors. A prev study also found that children are more likely to be gay if they are raised by gay adults. Walter Schumm knows what he’s about to do is unpopular: publish a study argug that gay parents are more likely to raise gay children than straight parents.

[…]His study on sexual orientatn, out next month, says that gay and lbian parents are far more likely to have children who bee gay. First, Schumm extrapolated data om 10 books on gay parentg… [and] skewed his data so that only self-intified gay and lbian children would be labeled as such. […]Schumm nclud that children of lbian parents intified themselv as gay 31 percent of the time; children of gay men had gay children 19 percent of the time, and children of a lbian mother and gay father had at least one gay child 25 percent of the time.

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

Schumm ran the numbers om them and nclud that, surprisgly, 20 percent of the kids of gay parents were gay themselv.

DPE WHAT YOU MAY HAVE READ, THERE’S NO ‘GAY GENE’

They vastly overtimate the number of gay people, and also the fluence of geics. In an terview, she said the study is further evince that prev reports of a "gay gene" on the X chromosome are wrong.

NO SGLE ‘GAY GENE’ TERM SAME-SEX SEXUAL BEHAVR, DNA ANALYSIS FDS

And bee the rearchers didn't fd gene variants that rrelated wh a gradient of sexual behavr, she says, unrcuts Aled Ksey's s-old sle, which ranked people on a spectm of sexualy, om exclively heterosexual to exclively homosexual. Dpe the numbers, many people still nsir homosexual behavr to be an anomalo choice.

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.

As the ease and affordabily of genome sequencg creased, addnal gene ndidat have emerged wh potential lks to homosexual behavr.

NO ‘GAY GENE’: MASSIVE STUDY FDS NO SPECIFIC GEIC PREDICTORS FOR SEXUAL BEHAVR, PREFERENC

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. Wh multiple gene ndidat beg lked to homosexualy, seemed highly unlikely that a sgle “gay” gene exists.

In rats, manipulatn of hormon durg pregnancy produc offsprg that exhib homosexual behavr.

Several hypoth have been advanced to expla how homosexualy n be beneficial perpetuatg faial gen. Gay uncl and nts, for example, are “helpers the nt” that help raise other fay members’ children to nurture the fay tree.

A SCIENTIFIC STUDY HAS TABLISHED THAT THERE IS NO “GAY GENE”

” 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.

Muny there said they were worried the fdgs uld give ammunn to people who seek to e science to bolster bias and discrimatn agast gay people. One ncern is that evince that gen fluence same-sex behavr uld e anti-gay activists to ll for gene edg or embryo selectn, even if that would be technilly impossible.

Another gay scientist, one who works at Broad, explaed why he supported the rearch:. It quot the scientist who, 1993, claimed to disver a “gay gene, ” sayg that this new study wasn’t actually lookg for a gay gene. How n you flt a gay man or gay woman for havg grown up an environment that might have nurtured them towards same-sex sire?

NEWS: THERE’S NO ONE ‘GAY GENE,’ BUT... (THE WASHGTON POST) - BEHD THE HEADL

And here’s a lk to a NYT op-ed by two gay scientists who worked on the project. They say that there’s no doubt that geics plays some role homosexualy, but that ’s relatively small, and impossible to p down. I actually have sympathy for the gay scientists who are nervo about this kd of rearch.

Anyway, if homosexualy is primarily a matter of nurture, not nature, why is wrong to let gay people who want to seek therapy hope of rcg or elimatg same-sex sire unrgo that treatment? UPDATE: In the ments, some people have poted out that someone might not have homosexualy their gen, but uld still be affected by factors utero that predispose them to same-sex attractn.

The news this week that the largt study of s kd failed to nfirm the existence of a "gay gene" is not so much a disappotment for those lookg to unrstand the LGBTQ muny, as is an acknowledgement that science do not need to tell what should be plaly obv: gays, lbians, bisexuals and pansexuals are who they are. But here's the quote that will light opponents of LGBTQ rights, some of whom sist they n "nvert" gay people to choose to be straight by prayg the gay away:. "There is no ‘gay gene’ that term whether someone has same-sex partners, ” said Ganna, who is also a geicist at the Broad Instute of MIT and Harvard as well as the Universy of Helski.

NO ‘GAY GENE’ N PREDICT SEXUAL ORIENTATN, STUDY SAYS

While the variatns the gen are not enough to raise a rabow flag and label anyone as unqutnably gay, the rearchers say the blogil variants may at the very least partly fluence sexual behavr.

This new rearch, he said “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.

NO “GAY” GENE? DO GEICS DETERME MORALY?

This new rearch also renfirms the long tablished unrstandg that there is no nclive gree to which nature or nurture fluence how a gay or lbian person behav. Geics nnot tell "the whole story, " as Eric Vila, director of the Center for Geic Medice Rearch at Children’s Natnal Health System, told the Post, about what "mak" somebody gay.

But even if people are not "Born This Way, " as Lady Gaga sang, at last now we n jo Gloria Gaynor sgg, "I Am What I Am. Those who nsir beg gay a disadvantage life (which still is, certa societi), might regard gay people differently if they knew that beg gay was an hered tra, rather than a nsequence of life events, such as a particular type of upbrgg, or mixg wh certa sorts of iends or even a liberate cisn. The law also might take a different view those untri (aga, there are still many) which beg gay is a crimal offense.

An early study claimed that if one pair of (male) intil tws (who have intil geic patterns) was gay, there was a 100 percent chance of the other one also beg gay.

SCIENCENO SGLE 'GAY GENE', REVEALS THE LARGT-EVER STUDY OF THE GEICS OF SAME-SEX SEXUAL BEHAVUR

It was quickly shown that, fact, the real chance of two intil tws beg gay was around 40-50 percent, whereas was ls non-intil on, though still somewhat greater than the general populatn. A dramatic claim was that there was a sgle geic variatn, the "gay gene, " that was found gay men. Alas, like so many other early reports of a "gay gene, " this one uld not be repeated.

There was another, much smaller, group who said they were entirely gay (about 6 percent), and a stterg of even smaller numbers who claimed to be bisexual. Firstly, they found very few gen whose variatns were rrelated wh beg gay, or even havg a sgle same-sex partner.

Overall, geic variatns acunted for only around 1 percent of the likelihood of beg gay. The plex and variable psychologil state that we label as "gay" will have equally plex termants.