'Gay gen': science is on the right track, we're born this way. Let’s al wh . | Qazi Rahman | The Guardian

Contents:

• IS A PERSON ‘BORN GAY’, OR IS BEG GAY A LEARNED BEHAVR?
• WHAT DO THE BIBLE SAY ABOUT BEG BORN GAY?
• ARE WE BORN GAY?
• CAN A PERSON BE BORN GAY?
• ‘I AM GAY – BUT I WASN’T BORN THIS WAY’
• 'NO ONE IS BORN GAY' BILLBOARD ADVERTISER RPONDS TO NTROVERSY
• WHY ARE PEOPLE GAY? GAY BY CHOICE OR IS BEG GAY GEIC?
• THERE’S NO ONE ‘GAY GENE,’ BUT GEICS ARE LKED TO SAME-SEX BEHAVR, NEW STUDY SAYS
• ARE GAYS ‘BORN THAT WAY’? MOST AMERINS NOW SAY Y, BUT SCIENCE SAYS NO
• IS ANYONE BORN GAY?
• SECTN 2: KNOWG GAYS AND LBIANS, RELIG CONFLICTS, BELIEFS ABOUT HOMOSEXUALY
• NEW TW STUDY: PEOPLE NOT BORN GAY
• 'GAY GEN': SCIENCE IS ON THE RIGHT TRACK, WE'RE BORN THIS WAY. LET’S AL WH .
• NEW STUDY REVEALS - AGAIN - NO ONE IS BORN GAY!
• ‘NO ONE IS BORN GAY’ TABLG EVENT SPARKS PROTT
• THERE’S (STILL) NO GAY GENE

IS A PERSON ‘BORN GAY’, OR IS BEG GAY A LEARNED BEHAVR?

But on the other, he totally wrtl wh the image produced by the ia that one might be "born gay, " of a ltle male neonate appearg wh illy pk diapers and graspg a Barbie doll. Maybe we n agree that the image evoked by "born gay"—that ltle girl neonate appearg wearg overalls and graspg a toy tck—do not help thk through qutns of sexual sire and inty.

In 1996, The Advote, a gay and lbian magaze, asked rears what they believed the potential impact would be to the advancement of gay and lbian rights if a scientific disvery prov a blogil basis for homosexualy. To that end, gay activists and the liberal media have actively enuraged the ia that homosexualy is hered and unchangeable, and rearchers have diligently sought scientific evince to back up that claim.

His team of rearchers began a seri of gene lkage studi, which fai wh several homosexuals unrwent geic analysis to terme if any chromosomal variants uld be found the fay and if the variant rrelated wh those dividuals who displayed the homosexualy. 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.

WHAT DO THE BIBLE SAY ABOUT BEG BORN GAY?

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.

ARE WE BORN GAY?

”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. “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.

CAN A PERSON BE 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.

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

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. ” 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?

'NO ONE IS BORN GAY' BILLBOARD ADVERTISER RPONDS TO NTROVERSY

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. I’m claimg that at some pot durg llege, my sexual and romantic sir beme reoriented toward menThkg back to my llege romanc wh women and men, I n beg to unrstand how my own experienc might have helped me to ‘cultivate’ my sire for homosexualy.

I want to be very clear: I’m not claimg I simply began to ‘grow to’ my homosexualy, or that as I beme more fortable wh beg gay, I allowed myself the eedom to exprs what had always been latent wh me.

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

“Limg our unrstandg of any plex human experience is always gog to be worse than allowg to be plited, ” he gay rights activists pared sexualy to relign - a ccial part of our life that we should be ee to practise however we like (Cred: Ignac Lehamann)So what are we to do wh the Born This Way rhetoric? “That’s a very narrow unrstandg of what jtice looks like, ” says about the ncern that homophob will want to ‘enurage’ gay people to be straight if there’s no blogil basis for sexualy?

It don’t take too much creativy to image a scenar which homophobic parents, upon beg rmed their fet has ‘the gay gene’, choose what to them may seem the lser of two evils: abortn. ”Acrdg to surveys, ls than half of Generatn Z intify as "100% heterosexual", suggtg more and more people have embraced their sexual fluidy (Cred: Ignac Lehmann)Perhaps is time to look to the begng of the gay rights movement. “Then there was a shift, and the lears of the movement chose to jump on board wh a ls nuanced argument that people already unrstood: jt like race, people are born wh their homosexualy.

More than a third chose a number between one and rponse to the poll, one of my Facebook iends quipped about how natural selectn mt be workg overtime, what wh makg all of gay!

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

I’m thankful for a new generatn that is pable of imagg sexualy a way that transcends the gay/straight bary, that uldn’t re ls about what happened to their bodi and mds to make them who they are today. "RICHMOND, VA (WWBT) - In a statement, Rega Griggs, Executive Director of Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays, said:"We fd tertg that the attacks agast the billboard and ex-gay muny have nothg to do wh the facts. It very much appears that same-sex sexual attractn is not a choice but actg on is; so if you fe gay as the mere prence of same-sex attractn, then om everythg we unrstand, beg gay is not a choice.

The rearchers say that, although variatns the gen nnot predict whether a person is gay, the variants may partly fluence sexual Ganna, lead thor and European Molecular Blogy Laboratory group lear at the Instute of Molecular Medice Fland, said the rearch rerc the unrstandg that same-sex sexual behavr is simply “a natural part of our diversy as a speci. Some of the variants were rrelated wh same-sex sexual behavr men, others women, and some Vila, director of the Center for Geic Medice Rearch at Children’s Natnal Health System, said the study marks the end of “the simplistic ncept of the ‘gay gene. Environmental effects may be a factor for some people; for stance, havg olr brothers creas the odds that younger brothers will be gay, which rearchers spect may have to do wh chang to the mother’s immune system rponse to the earlier Stok, chief programs officer for GLAAD, said a statement that the new rearch on the geics “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.

ARE GAYS ‘BORN THAT WAY’? MOST AMERINS NOW SAY Y, BUT SCIENCE SAYS NO

Acrdg to the latt Gallup poll, 51 percent of Amerins say that people are born gay or lbian, while only 30 percent say outsi factors such as upbrgg and environment terme sexual orientatn. Acrdg to the new Gallup poll, Republins are divid on whether Amerins are born homosexual (40 percent) or whether same-sex orientatn is termed by environmental factors (36 percent).

IS ANYONE BORN GAY?

“If homosexual behavr is a choice, then our public policy n eely be shaped by an hont look at whether this behavral choice is healthy and should be enuraged, or unhealthy and dangero and nsequently disuraged, ” he wrote.

SECTN 2: KNOWG GAYS AND LBIANS, RELIG CONFLICTS, BELIEFS ABOUT HOMOSEXUALY

Fischer not that the Gay and Lbian Medil Associatn adms homosexuals are at greater risk of AIDS, substance and alhol abe, prsn and anxiety, hepatis, STDs, and prostate and lon ncer. After all, my theology tells me that as human begs, we are all created God's image and yet we are a fallen race, and so all of rry aspects of that fallen nature to the re of our beg, and that uld theoretilly clu homosexualy.

As noted years ago by gay scientist Simon LeVay, "There [was] a survey the New York Tim that broke down people on the basis of whether they thought gays and lbians were born that way or whether was a liftyle choice. One of the most gay-iendly profsnal anizatns our untry is the Amerin Psychologil Associatn, and yet even the APA stat that, "There is no nsens among scientists about the exact reasons that an dividual velops a heterosexual, bisexual, gay, or lbian orientatn.

NEW TW STUDY: PEOPLE NOT BORN GAY

Siarly, England, the pro-gay Royal College of Psychiatrists recently backtracked on an earlier statement that homosexualy was blogilly termed, now sayg that "sexual orientatn is termed by a batn of blogil and postnatal environmental factors. " And while they stated clearly their belief that homosexualy was not a mental disorr and that should be accepted, they add, "It is not the se that sexual orientatn is immutable or might not vary to some extent a person's life.

'GAY GEN': SCIENCE IS ON THE RIGHT TRACK, WE'RE BORN THIS WAY. LET’S AL WH .

Lehrman, former chairperson of the Task Force on Relign and Mental Health said 2005, "Rearchers now openly adm that after searchg for more than 20 years, they are still unable to fd the 'gay gene. Though the vast majory of Amerins say they know gays or lbians, jt over a quarter (28%) say they know “a lot” of people who are gay or lbian, while 43% say they know some and 17% say they only know one or two gays or lbians. While large majori of almost all mographic and partisan groups say they know someone who is gay or lbian, there are differenc both the number of gay and lbian acquatanc people have and whether people say they have close fay members or iends who are gay.

Millennials are among the most likely of any mographic or partisan group to say they know a lot of people who are gay or lbian: Nearly four--ten (38%) say so, pared wh fewer Gen Xers (28%), Boomers (22%) and Silents (15%).

There are also divis by muny type: People who live urban areas (32%) are more likely to know a lot of people who are gay and lbian than those who live suburban (27%) or ral (20%) muni. About three-quarters (73%) of those who know a lot of gays and lbians – and two-thirds (66%) of those who have gay or lbian close iends or fay members – say they support same-sex marriage. And nearly half (48%) of Amerins wh many gay acquatanc, and 38% of those who have close iends or fay who are gay, strongly favor allowg gays and lbians to marry legally.

NEW STUDY REVEALS - AGAIN - NO ONE IS BORN GAY!

There is far ls support for same-sex marriage among those wh few or no gay or lbian acquatanc, as well as among those who do not have close iends or fay members who are gay or lbian. Conflict between relig beliefs and homosexualy is felt particularly strongly by whe evangelil Prottants, about seven--ten (72%) of whom say there is a nflict, cludg 64% who say there is “a lot” of nflict.

Six--ten black Prottants say there is eher a lot (48%) or a ltle (12%) nflict between their relig beliefs and homosexualy, while 53% of Catholics feel that their relig beliefs and homosexualy are some nflict (38% say there is a lot of nflict). When asked about possible reasons why people are gay or lbian, 47% say people are born gay or lbian, while slightly fewer (40%) say ’s jt the way some people choose to live; relatively few (7%) say beg gay or lbian is a rult of a person’s upbrgg. College graduat are far more likely than those wh ls tn to say that people are born gay or lbian: 61% of llege graduat say this, pared wh 46% of those wh some llege experience and 39% of those wh no llege experience.

‘NO ONE IS BORN GAY’ TABLG EVENT SPARKS PROTT

Comparable percentag of Democrats (55%) and pennts (53%) say people are born gay or lbian; about four--ten each group say ’s jt the way some people choose to live (37% of Democrats, 35% of pennts). By ntrast, about as many Republins say a gay or lbian person’s sexual orientatn n be changed (45%) as say nnot be changed (47%); views among Republins are ltle changed sce 2012.

Adults wh no relig affiliatn are among the most likely to say that a gay person’s sexual orientatn nnot be changed: 79% exprs this view, while jt 18% say homosexualy n be changed.

THERE’S (STILL) NO GAY GENE

Most Amerins (57%) say they would not be upset if they had a child who told them he or she was gay or lbian; 39% say they would be upset about this, cludg 17% who say they would be very upset.

By 2000, the share sayg they would be upset about havg a gay child had fallen to 73%, and by 2013 jt 40% said they would be upset if a child of theirs said he or she was gay.