There’s (Still) No Gay Gene | Harvard Magaze

Contents:

• THE END OF GAYS: GAY MARRIAGE AND THE DECLE OF THE HOMOSEXUAL POPULATN
• THERE’S (STILL) NO GAY GENE
• PULSE SURVIVOR SAYS HE IS NO LONGER GAY, HAS FOUND CHRIST
• AFTER YEARS OF PROGRS ON GAY RIGHTS, HOW DID THE US BEE SO ANTI-LGBTQ+?
• AUTHOR WHO ONCE EMBRACED HOMOSEXUALY EXPLAS WHY HE NO LONGER CALLS HIMSELF 'GAY' (INTERVIEW)
• THERE IS NO ‘GAY GENE.’ THERE IS NO ‘STRAIGHT GENE.’ SEXUALY IS JT PLEX, STUDY NFIRMS
• JAGS' MAXEN IS FIRST MALE AMERIN PRO SPORTS ACH TO E OUT AS GAY

THE END OF GAYS: GAY MARRIAGE AND THE DECLE OF THE HOMOSEXUAL POPULATN

Yet this is precisely what I predict will happen over the very long urse of natural selectn should the societal-level normalizatn of adult homosexual relatnships, such as is happeng currently wh the triumphant legalizatn of gay marriage my new home state of New York, ntu happily on s way. ) Not so very long ago, the ncept of “gay marriage” was so far om beg a legal possibily s leral sense that most listeners would have probably terpreted this phrase to mean a closeted gay man married to a woman, or a lbian to a man.

In one extensive study 1978, for example, rearchers Alan Bell and Mart Weberg, factorg ethnic differenc, found that 35 percent of gay whe mal, and 13 percent of gay black mal, reported havg been married to a woman. And Bell and Weberg’s figur almost certaly unrreport the actual equency of such relatnships, too, sce their data e om surveys of sexual orientatn llected durg an unapologetilly homophobic era.

) Still, many studi have sce examed the psychologil experienc of those who acknowledge beg mixed-orientatn marriag—cludg motivatns to enter to such a marriage to beg wh, ternalized homophobia, self-awarens and acceptance, relig iology, experimentg wh open relatnships, and so on—om the perspective of the homosexual as well as om that of the heterosexual spoe.

THERE’S (STILL) NO GAY GENE

One tertg sex difference, reported 1985 by Universy of Mnota psychologist Eli Coleman, is that lbians tend to marry men at younger ag (mean age of 21) than did gay men marryg women (mean age of 24). And for our purpos, the most relevant fdgs for the qutn we started off wh—which is whether the creasg public support for gay marriage will lead, ironilly, to the eventual cle of the homosexual populatn—is the fact that most homosexuals mixed-orientatn marriag have had at least one child wh their spoe. Although the precise geic mechanisms unrlyg homosexualy are still relatively unknown, we do know that, however the mechanisms actually work, there are ed clear, ntributg geic factors unrlyg homosexual orientatn.

The bt evince that homosexualy ns fai as a herable blogil tra om 1990s-era tw studi, which revealed that the nrdance rate (the rate by which tw members overlap on anythg om schizophrenia to creativy to sexual orientatn) for homosexualy is signifintly greater monozygotic tws (intil) than dizygotic tws (who share only half of their gen, jt like non-tw siblgs). The more rigoroly ntrolled tw studi adjt for possible shared environmental fluenc by takg to acunt, for stance, the sexual orientatn of non-tw siblgs or tws separated at birth, and yet all reveal that homosexualy is at least partially herable. Homosexualy is often prented as an evolutnary “mystery” bee of the obv reproductive disadvantag, and th for s rearchers have sought some adaptive functn for the culturally recurrent percentage (anywhere om 1 to 10 percent of the populatn, pendg on the measur ed) of the human populatn that is aroed more by the same than is by the oppose sex.

Yet if we nsir the historil, and perhaps even the anctral, percentage of the homosexual populatn that did fact reproduce bee of societal proscriptns agast adult relatns wh the same sex, the mystery be nsirably ls profound. Even societi where homosexualy was tolerated, such as Ancient Greece, men tend to engage perasty wh adolcent boys while matag wiv and fai at home—romantic relatnships wh fellow adults were by ntrast nsired reprehensible. For gay men, a healthy imagatn ( what I’ve discsed before this lumn terms of erotic mental reprentatn) would be all that is need to transform one’s md a female vaga to one’s favore male an or mouth.

PULSE SURVIVOR SAYS HE IS NO LONGER GAY, HAS FOUND CHRIST

Whatever allel are associated wh homosexual orientatn are transmted by the fx heterosexual means, and this is an age-old reproductive cycle that has been occurrg for as long as adult homosexualy has been proscribed by human societi—and by all acunts, such proscriptn has been the speci’ norm.

AFTER YEARS OF PROGRS ON GAY RIGHTS, HOW DID THE US BEE SO ANTI-LGBTQ+?

The cultural velopments are signifint for the homosexual populatn, not only for the obv sake of gag equaly and protectn agast persecutn for an unalterable phenotypic tra, but bee means that the age-old reproductive cycle that has been so central to mixed-orientatn marriag is slowly but surely breakg. This is not to say that lbians and gay men who are now ee to marry the same sex will no longer reproduce—many do, and this trend will ntue wh the advent of new reproductive technologi and creasg societal support (such as surrogacy) for those who sire their own blogil children. But wh the societal expectatn for men and women to bear children unr the roofs of tradnal oppose-sex relatnships obvly lseng, bed wh the hefty fancial sts of reproductive technologi, as well as the stly terpersonal plexi of arrangements such as surrogacy, not to mentn the fact that homosexual activy among same-sex married upl nnot possibly lead to unplanned pregnanci, homosexual reproductn will clearly cle as same-sex marriag ntue to rise.

In an evolvg culture of tolerance and wh the available optn of gay marriage, “g out the closet” will occur at younger and younger ag, and fewer young people will therefore feel strong-armed by shame and obligatn to enter to mixed-orientatn marriag to beg wh. Addnally, wh this creasg societal acceptance of homosexualy, and as a way to circumvent the often surmountable sts associated wh alternative reproductive technologi (at least for gay men) I spect that gay married upl will beg adoptg children wh creasg equency through the support of state-sponsored equaly iativ, effectively puttg a full stop to the transmissn of their gen.

AUTHOR WHO ONCE EMBRACED HOMOSEXUALY EXPLAS WHY HE NO LONGER CALLS HIMSELF 'GAY' (INTERVIEW)

For example, fdgs om a 2008 study by Brendan Zietsch and his lleagu of the Queensland Instute of Medil Rearch revealed that the blogil relativ of homosexuals (and therefore those that posss allel lked to homosexualy, but who are themselv heterosexual) are at a reproductive advantage over those whout homosexual relativ.

Zietsch and his lleagu argue, sentially, that while too many or too potent homosexual allel may rult full-blown homosexualy—which, all else beg equal—is disadvantageo to reproductive succs, the same allel a heterosexual relative tend to lead to that person havg more lifetime sexual partners and th greater reproductive succs.

The logic here is that sex-atypil tras (for example, men who sre more like femal kdns, empathy, and sensivy, or women who, like men, are more willg to engage unmted sexual relatns) are good but not perfect dic of homosexual orientatn, and when they do occur heterosexual dividuals, they make the people more attractive and or terpersonally appealg to the oppose sex. Aga, the are jt my, admtedly, entirely speculative predictns for the cle of homosexualy as a direct rult of the creasg legalizatn of gay marriage and the domtitn of exclively same-sex relatnships. If only relig fundamentalists were brighter—which, by ntrast, I see absolutely no sign of change—they might beg to see gay marriage as an answer to their homophobic prayers after all.

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

“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. 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.

JAGS' MAXEN IS FIRST MALE AMERIN PRO SPORTS ACH TO E OUT AS GAY

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.