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

Contents:

• ‘I AM GAY – BUT I WASN’T BORN THIS WAY’
• IS IT POSSIBLE TO SYSTEMATILLY TURN GAY PEOPLE STRAIGHT?
• WHY ARE PEOPLE GAY? GAY BY CHOICE OR IS BEG GAY GEIC?
• CAN SOME GAY MEN AND LBIANS CHANGE THEIR SEXUAL ORIENTATN? 200 PARTICIPANTS REPORTG A CHANGE OM HOMOSEXUAL TO HETEROSEXUAL ORIENTATN
• IS MY HBAND GAY? SIGNS OF A GAY HBAND
• ARE WE BORN GAY?
• THERE IS NO ‘GAY GENE.’ THERE IS NO ‘STRAIGHT GENE.’ SEXUALY IS JT PLEX, STUDY NFIRMS
• THE FACT NO ONE LIK TO ADM: MANY GAY MEN ULD JT HAVE EASILY BEEN STRAIGHT

‘I AM GAY – BUT I WASN’T BORN THIS WAY’

While 's unlikely that queer feelgs live si the heart of every homophobe, a signifint number of anti-LGBT relig and polil lears have ultimately e out or been outed for same-sex feelgs, enunters, or relatnships.

Isve, and both said that at some pot, they thought that the sexual activy was part of the therapy and an attempt to cure them of homosexualy by engagg the acts, rather than fantasizg about them, " a disciplary panel wrote s report.

IS IT POSSIBLE TO SYSTEMATILLY TURN GAY PEOPLE STRAIGHT?

The pastor left the Evangelil Lutheran Church Ameri over a cisn by the nomatn 2009 to orda "practicg homosexuals, " and even said God sent a tornado to strike the Mneapolis Conventn Center durg an ELCA nference over the cisn. Then multiple childhood associat of Suarez Pasgaza revealed to media outlets cludg El Espectador and La Opn that he had been kicked out of a Ju school for beg gay.

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

A former Hoton Cy Council member and rad talk show host, Berry 2012 was volved a h-and-n accint outsi a gay bar the Montrose district, which led to secury footage of Berry leavg the club beg ma public. The founr of Glory Hoe Internatnal Pentestal Church cried homosexualy as "at odds wh my relig beliefs, " even as he admted to he fondled a younger preacher and a teenage boy durg separate trips where he stayed the other men's hotel beds.

Once the most senr Catholic clergyman Bra, O'Brien also had a reputatn for homophobia and opposed marriage equaly, adoptn by gays, and other civil rights protectns for LGBT people, earng him the tle "Bigot of the Year" om the Stonewall chary. Self-scribed as a tradnal nservative, this mayor of Mississippi town Southaven got exposed as gay durg his fourth term office after state dors revealed he purchased $67 worth of toys om a gay sex shop Toronto and billed to the taxpayers.

CAN SOME GAY MEN AND LBIANS CHANGE THEIR SEXUAL ORIENTATN? 200 PARTICIPANTS REPORTG A CHANGE OM HOMOSEXUAL TO HETEROSEXUAL ORIENTATN

Audors found the spic purchase 2011, and the news prompted an terview wh the Memphis, Tenn., Commercial Appeal which Davis nfsed that he "me to the realizatn that I am gay" over the past few years. The mayor of Spokane, Wash., om 2003 to 2005, Wt prevly served the state legislature, where the Republin supported such legislatn as a ban on gay workers at schools and day re centers. But six years after securg that w, Mehlman me out as gay to The Atlantic, sayg he me to that ncln about his inty fairly recently (though Bill Maher seemed to know 2006).

You so obvly nnot be gay, was her implitn, bee this is good was 2006, a full five years before Lady Gaga would set the Born This Way argument atop s unassailable cultural perch, but even then the popular unrstandg of orientatn was that was somethg you were born wh, somethg you uldn’t change. But what feels most accurate to say is that I’m gay – but I wasn’t born this people may fd their sir changg directn - and n't jt be explaed as experimentatn (Cred: Ignac Lehmann)In 1977, jt over 10% of Amerins thought gayns was somethg you were born wh, acrdg to Gallup. Throughout the same perd, the number of Amerins who believe homosexualy is “due to someone’s upbrgg/environment” fell om jt unr 60% to ias reached cril mass pop culture, first wh Lady Gaga’s 2011 Born This Way and one year later wh Macklemore’s Same Love, the chos of which has a gay person sgg “I n’t change even if I tried, even if I wanted to.

” Around the same time, the Human Rights Campaign clared unequivolly that “Beg gay is not a choice, ” and to claim that is “giv unwarranted crence to roundly disproven practic such as nversn or reparative therapy. ”People who challenge the Born This Way narrative are often st as homophobic, and their thkg is nsired backwardAs Jane Ward not Not Gay: Sex Between Straight Whe Men, what’s tertg about many of the claims is how transparent their speakers are wh their polil motivatns.

IS MY HBAND GAY? SIGNS OF A GAY HBAND

“Such statements, ” she wr, “fe blogil acunts wh an obligatory and nearly ercive force, suggtg that anyone who scrib homosexual sire as a choice or social nstctn is playg to the hands of the enemy.

” People who challenge the Born This Way narrative are often st as homophobic, and their thkg is nsired backward – even if they are themselv, for example, Cynthia Nixon of Sex and The Cy fame. ”Gay rights do not have to hge on a geic explanatn for sexualy (Cred: Ignac Lehmann)For Aravosis, and many gay activists like him, the public will only accept and affirm gay people if they thk they were born gay.

Patrick Grzanka, Assistant Profsor of Psychology at Universy of Tennsee, for stance, has shown that some people who believe that homosexualy is nate still hold negative views of gays. In fact, the homophobic and non-homophobic rponnts he studied shared siar levels of belief a Born This Way Samantha Allen not at The Daily Beast, the growg public support for gays and lbians has grown out of proportn wh the rise the number of people who believe homosexualy is fixed at birth; would be unlikely that this small change opn uld expla the spike support for gay marriage, for stance.

ARE WE BORN GAY?

“It don’t seem to matter as much whether or not people believe that gay people are born that way as do that they simply know someone who is currently gay, ” Allen spe of the studi, those who ph agast Born This Way narrativ have been heavily cricised by gay activists. Siarly, Ward has received her own hatemail for phg agast the lg LGB narrativ, wh some gays tellg her she’s “worse than Ann Coulter, ” the ntroversial US thor of books like If Democrats Had Any Bras, They’d Be Republins. And when I published my say on choosg to be gay, an irate Amerin lbian activist wrote me that had “jt been nfirmed” to her that my wrg was “directly rponsible for four gay aths Rsia.

There is a unanimo opn that gay “nversn therapy” should be rejectedLet’s first be clear that whatever the origs of our sexual orientatn, there is a unanimo opn that gay “nversn therapy” should be rejected. The efforts are potentially harmful, acrdg to the APA, “bee they prent the view that the sexual orientatn of lbian, gay and bisexual youth is a mental illns of disorr, and they often ame the abily to change one’s sexual orientatn as a personal and moral failure.

The APA, for example, while notg that most people experience ltle to no choice over their orientatns, says this of homosexualy’s origs:“Although much rearch has examed the possible geic, hormonal, velopmental, social and cultural fluenc on sexual orientatn, no fdgs have emerged that perm scientists to nclu that sexual orientatn is termed by any particular factor or factors. ”Siarly, the Amerin Psychiatric Associatn wr a 2013 statement that while the of heterosexualy and homosexualy are currently unknown, they are likely “multifactorial cludg blogil and behavral roots which may vary between different dividuals and may even vary over time.

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

” Acrdg to LeVay’s rearch, a specific part of the bra, the third terstial nucls of the anterr hypothalam (INAH-3), is smaller homosexual men than is heterosexual as they might, scientists have stggled to inty any particular gen that nsistently predict the directns of our love and sire (Cred: Ignac Lehmann)Read moreYou n spot the problem wh this study a e away: were the gay bras LeVay studied born that way, or did they bee that way? Begng om his observatn that there are more gay relativ on a mother’s si than a father’s, Hamer turned his attentn to the X chromosome (which is passed on by the mother).

THE FACT NO ONE LIK TO ADM: MANY GAY MEN ULD JT HAVE EASILY BEEN STRAIGHT

Bis the dividual criqu leveled agast each new study announcg some gay gene disvery, there are major methodologil cricisms to make about the entire enterprise general, as Grzanka pots out: “If we look at the raveno pursu, particularly among Amerin scientists, to fd a gay gene, what we see is that the ncln has already been arrived at.

”The other problem wh Born This Way science is summed up nicely by Simon Copland: “Scientists are askg whether homosexualy is natural when we n’t even agree exactly what homosexualy is. ” Our sir may exprs themselv many different ways that do not all nform to existg notns of ‘gay’, ‘straight’ or ‘bisexual’ is one of the bt takeaways of Ward’s Not Gay, a peratg analysis of sex between straight whe men.

”Gay or not, our sir are oriented and re-oriented throughout our liv (Cred: Ignac Lehmann)In fact, the straight-intified men Ward studied for her book sometim found themselv suatns that sparked the sire for homosexual sex: aterni, ployments, public rtrooms, etc.