Why would people 'choose' to be gay? | Science | The Guardian

Contents:

• WHY ARE THERE GAY MEN?
• SCIENTISTS MAY HAVE FALLY UNLOCKED PUZZLE OF WHY PEOPLE ARE GAY
• ARE MORY MEN MORE LIKELY TO BE GAY? WHY?
• WHAT SCIENCE KNOWS ABOUT WHY PEOPLE ARE GAY
• WHY WOULD PEOPLE 'CHOOSE' TO BE GAY?

WHY ARE THERE GAY MEN?

It’s not pletely known why someone might be lbian, gay, straight, or bisexual. For example, exposg a boy to toys tradnally ma for girls, such as dolls, won’t e him to be gay.

Many people say that they knew they were lbian, gay, or bisexual even before puberty. ” Many people, cludg sex rearchers and scientists, believe that sexual orientatn is like a sle wh entirely gay on one end and entirely straight on the other.

LGBTQ stands for Lbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgenr, and Queer/Qutng. Sexual inty is how you label yourself (for example, g labels such as queer, gay, lbian, straight, or bisexual).

SCIENTISTS MAY HAVE FALLY UNLOCKED PUZZLE OF WHY PEOPLE ARE GAY

Some people may engage same genr sexual behavr but not intify themselv as bisexual, lbian, or gay. How Olr Brothers Influence HomosexualyHomosexualy might be partly driven by a mother’s immune rponse to her male fet—which creas wh each son she MacGregor / RtersHere’s what we know: Homosexualy is normal. Between 2 and 11 percent of human adults report experiencg some homosexual feelgs, though the figure vari wily pendg on the survey.

Homosexualy exists across cultur and even throughout the animal kgdom, as the thors of a mammoth new review paper on homosexualy wre. Female Japane maqu will even pete tersexually wh mal for exclive accs to female sexual ’s what we don’t know: What, specifilly, someone to bee gay, straight, or somethg between.

Part of the explanatn is geic, but bee most intil tws of gay people are straight, heredy don’t expla “why” qutn is important bee “there is a strong rrelatn between beliefs about the origs of sexual orientatn and tolerance of non-heterosexualy, ” acrdg to the report thors, who are om seven universi spanng the globe.

ARE MORY MEN MORE LIKELY TO BE GAY? WHY?

(When Atlantic ntributor Chandler Burr proposed his 1996 book, A Separate Creatn, that people are born gay, Southern Baptists lled to boytt Disney films and parks prott agast the publisher, Disney subsidiary Hypern. ) It shouldn’t matter whether people “choose” to be gay, but polilly, do—at least for of the most nsistent environmental explanatns for homosexualy is lled the “aternal birth orr effect. ” Essentially, the more olr brothers a man has, the more likely he is to be gay.

WHAT SCIENCE KNOWS ABOUT WHY PEOPLE ARE GAY

Studi have found that a man whout olr brothers has about a 2 percent chance of beg gay, but one wh four olr brothers has a 6 percent chance. Average prevalence 2013 (Sav-Williams and Vrangalova)Acrdg to the report, Blanchard now plans to tt mothers of gay and straight men for the prence of the antibodi.

WHY WOULD PEOPLE 'CHOOSE' TO BE GAY?

If proved out, fetal birth orr uld do a lot to fill the missg explanatns for homosexualy. But gaps will rema, such as why some firstborn sons are gay, why some intil tws of gay sons are straight, and why women are gay, to name jt a review-paper thors do le out one explanatn for homosexualy, however: That tolerance for gay people enurag more people to bee gay. “Homosexual orientatn do not crease equency wh social tolerance, although s exprsn ( behavr and open intifitn) may do so, ” they reasong—that a tolerant society somehow enurag homosexualy to flourish—has been ed to support anti-gay legislatn Uganda, Rsia, and elsewhere.

The laws do margalize and shame gay people, the thors wre. While female sexualy appears to be more fluid, rearch suggts that male gayns is an born, unalterable, strongly geilly fluenced tra.

But nsirg that the tra disurag the type of sex that leads to procreatn — that is, sex wh women — and would therefore seem to thwart s own chanc of beg geilly passed on to the next generatn, why are there gay men at all? Put differently, why haven't gay man gen driven themselv extct?