The 'Gay Gene' Is A Myth But Beg Gay Is 'Natural,' Say Scientists

Contents:

• WHAT SCIENCE KNOWS ABOUT WHY PEOPLE ARE GAY
• THE 'GAY GENE' IS A MYTH BUT BEG GAY IS 'NATURAL,' SAY SCIENTISTS
• THERE IS NO ‘GAY GENE.’ THERE IS NO ‘STRAIGHT GENE.’ SEXUALY IS JT PLEX, STUDY NFIRMS
• THE SCIENCE OF GAY
• WHY ARE PEOPLE GAY? GAY BY CHOICE OR IS BEG GAY GEIC?
• GAY AND BISEXUAL MEN'S HEALTH ISSU
• GAY SCIENCE
• BEG GAY NOT A CHOICE: SCIENCE CONTRADICTS BEN CARSON
• NEWS & TECHNOLOGYTHE BLOGY OF BEG GAY

WHAT SCIENCE KNOWS ABOUT WHY PEOPLE ARE GAY

Recently, scientists announced that they found some gen that might be associated wh sexual orientatn and a blogil explanatn for the reason gay men tend to have olr the field of sexual orientatn rearch is far broar and more plited than two studi—and Lisa Diamond, a psychologist and sexual orientatn rearcher at the Universy of Utah, knows that better than most. I n't guarantee you that at age 18, if you child hasn't exprsed same-sex attractns that they won't the future—and ankly ma'am, I n't guarantee you that you are not gog to end up gay eher. The study, which was based on an examatn of the geic material of almost half a ln dividuals, fively refut the ia that beg gay is an nate ndn that is ntrolled or largely pelled by one’s geic makp.

Send, rebuttg s of wispread belief, the study tablished that “there is certaly no sgle geic termant (sometim referred to as the ‘gay gene’ the media)” that same-sex sexual behavr. The logic of the two rults—low herabily and high polygenicy—clearly monstrate that the domant cultural narrative about sexual orientatn—which se homosexual persons as a distctly bound blogil class of people who were “born that way”—simply nnot be te. ” Other scientists volved the study, who are themselv gay, publicly opposed s publitn, voicg ncern that the fdgs would be “misnsted” to “advance agendas of hate.

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

In many such plac, the stggle for eedom today is not primarily for people who want to intify themselv as gay or lbian, but for people who want to avoid or rist such an intifitn for themselv. ” The termist logic of this cisn has empowered those who formerly advoted that homosexual persons may marry someone of the same sex to now advote that, if they marry, homosexual persons mt marry someone of the same sex. Numero legislative and judicial efforts are currently unrway to outlaw voluntary therapy or to ny the legimacy of adults who experience some level of same-sex attractn but choose not to engage same-sex relatns or intify themselv as gay or lbian, on the grounds that such actns ny their immutable nature.

Yet many now seek to ny the same people the eedom to cle to intify as gay and to marry someone of the oppose sex, if they so choose, on the premise that they would thereby be dog vlence to who they “really” are. Followg Polrman’s study, a team of proment sexualy rearchers terpreted the replited low level of herabily to suggt that, while ternal sexual attractn may not be socially malleable, the adoptn of a sexual inty unnstraed by ternal attractn—homosexual, heterosexual, or somethg else—is well wh the range of velopment for most people.

” The kds of choic and therapy to support them, they note, are most mon among the religly observant, and “likely expla claims by ex-gays and ex-lbians that they are no longer leadg a ‘homosexual liftyle. ” We uld also add the books Jephthah’s Dghters and Changed: #Oncegay Stori, each of which prents dozens of acunts of persons who have transned away om homosexual inty and behavr. On the General Social Survey (a biennial statistil profile of the US populatn fund by the Natnal Science Foundatn), 57 percent of people who intify as gay (40 percent of gay men and 78 percent of lbian women) report havg had one or more oppose-sex sex partners sce age eighteen.

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

In 100, 300 terviews that asked about sexual orientatn on the 2013-2015 Natnal Health Interview Survey, 13 percent of currently partnered gay persons reported beg an oppose-sex, not same-sex, sexual partnership. As the studi have both found, most persons wh a genotype parable to that of gay or lbian persons end up, for var reasons of social environment or velopment or personal prciple, not engagg same-sex relatns.

If ever did make sense on the premise that gay persons were geilly termed, the absence of a pellg geic difference, is impossible reasonably to mata that tolerance of homosexual behavr requir tolerance of heterosexual behavr.

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. "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.

THE SCIENCE OF GAY

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. 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.

Scientists may have fally solved the puzzle of what mak a person gay, and how is passed om parents to their children.A group of scientists suggted Tuday that homosexuals get that tra om their oppose-sex parents: A lbian will almost always get the tra om her father, while a gay man will get the tra om his mother.The heredary lk of homosexualy has long been tablished, but scientists knew was not a strictly geic lk, bee there are many pairs of intil tws who have differg sexuali. Scientists om the Natnal Instute for Mathematil and Blogil Synthis say homosexualy seems to have an epigeic, not a geic lk.Long thought to have some sort of heredary lk, a group of scientists suggted Tuday that homosexualy is lked to epi-marks — extra layers of rmatn that ntrol how certa gen are exprsed.

In homosexuals, the epi-marks aren't erased — they're passed om father-to-dghter or mother-to-son, explas William Rice, an evolutnary blogist at the Universy of California Santa Barbara and lead thor of the study."There is pellg evince that epi-marks ntribute to both the siary and dissiary of fay members, and n therefore feasibly ntribute to the observed faial herance of homosexualy and s low nrdance between [intil] tws," Rice not.Rice and his team created a mathematil mol that explas why homosexualy is passed through epi-marks, not geics.

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

Evolutnarily speakg, if homosexualy was solely a geic tra, scientists would expect the tra to eventually disappear bee homosexuals wouldn't be expected to reproduce. But bee the epi-marks provi an evolutnary advantage for the parents of homosexuals: They protect fathers of homosexuals om unrexposure to ttosterone and mothers of homosexuals om overexposure to ttosterone while they are gtatn."The epi-marks protect fathers and mothers om excs or unrexposure to ttosterone — when they rry over to oppose-sex offsprg, n e the masculizatn of femal or the femizatn of mal," Rice says, which n lead to a child beg gay.

Rice not that the markers are "highly variable" and that only strong epi-marks will rult a homosexual offsprg.Though scientists have long spected some sort of geic lk, Rice says studi attemptg to expla why people are gay have been few and far between."Most mastream blogists have shied away om studyg bee of the social stigma," he says. Well there are many exampl of homosexualy nature, 's very mon." Homosexual behavr has been observed black swans, pengus, sheep, and other animals, he says.Rice's mol still needs to be tted on real-life parent-offsprg pairs, but he says this epigeic lk mak more sense than any other explanatn, and that his team has mapped out a way for other scientists to tt their work."We've found a story that looks really good," he says. Humans have tried to unrstand human sexualy for centuri — and geics rearchers joed the ay the early 1990s after a seri of studi on tws suggted homosexualy ran fai.

“As a teenager tryg to unrstand myself and unrstand my sexualy, I looked at the ter for “the gay gene” and obvly me across Xq28, ” said Fah Sathirapongsasuti, a study -thor and senr scientist at 23andMe, which he joked once led him to believe he hered his gayns om his mother. The rearchers had members of the same-sex muny review the study’s sign and language, and they adm that their termology and fns for gay, lbian and heterosexual do not reflect the full nature of the sexualy ntuum. “[Our study] unrsr an important role for the environment shapg human sexual behavr and perhaps most importantly there is no sgle gay gene but rather the ntributn of many small geic effects sttered across the genome, ” Neale said.

GAY AND BISEXUAL MEN'S HEALTH ISSU

They asked more than 477, 000 participants whether they had ever had sex wh someone of the same sex, and also qutns about sexual fantasi and the gree to which they intified as gay or straight. “A lot of people want to unrstand the blogy of homosexualy, and science has lagged behd that human tert, ” says William Rice, an evolutnary geicist at the Universy of California, Santa Barbara, who also was not volved the work. 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.

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. 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. 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.

Edgardo Sanabria-Valent grew up feelg different om his peers – a suatn he n now make light of as Associate Director of the Program for Rearch Iniativ Science and Math (PRISM) at John Jay College of the Cy Universy of New York (CUNY):I e om a very Catholic background Puerto Ri, so I went to Catholic school, and — let’s jt say that no matter what, I n activate gaydars wh 50 feet.

GAY SCIENCE

”For Edgardo, the journey has meant tegratg his var inti:I feel like we want to make sure we’re active the different aspects of our liv and for a while, I tried to keep them separate: I was Puerto Rin, I was gay, I was a scientist. More about Sheryl Gay StolbergA versn of this article appears prt on, Sectn A, Page 15 of the New York edn wh the headle: Virologists Deny to Panel That Fci Swayed Report Agast Lab Leak Theory. There are a few optns for gay men and bisexual men same-sex relatnships who aspire to have children, cludg surrogacy, where sperm is ed to fertilize a donated egg, which is then rried to term by a surrogate mother.

See alsoChildren and genr intyFemizg hormone therapyFemizg surgeryGynelogil re for trans menTransgenr health ncernsHealth issu for gay menHealth issu for lbiansMasculizg hormone therapyMasculizg surgery. In theory, humans and other animals who are exclively attracted to others of the same sex should be unlikely to produce many blogil children, so any gen that predispose people to homosexualy would rarely be passed on to future generatns.

BEG GAY NOT A CHOICE: SCIENCE CONTRADICTS BEN CARSON

Yet same-sex attractn is wispread humans, and rearch suggts that is partly a study of data om hundreds of thoands of people, rearchers have now intified geic patterns that uld be associated wh homosexual behavur, and showed how the might also help people to fd different-sex mat, and reproduce. Most of the participants were born durg a time when homosexualy was eher illegal or culturally taboo their untri, so many people who were attracted to others of the same sex might never have actually acted on their attractn, and uld therefore have end up the wrong group the Monk, an elogist and evolutnary blogist at Yale Universy New Haven, Connecticut, thks that the veats are so important that the paper n’t draw any real nclns about geics and sexual orientatn. Instead, he thks the rearchers have found geic markers associated wh openns to new experienc, which uld expla the overlap between people who have had a homosexual partner and heterosexual people who have had many partners.

Ben Carson, a retired nrosurgeon and printial hopeful, recently apologized for a statement which he said beg gay is "absolutely" a an terview on CNN, the potential 2016 Republin printial ndidate mented that "a lot of people who go to prison, go to prison straight, and when they e out they're gay, so did somethg happen while they were there? And nearly 130 bird speci have been observed engagg sexual activi wh same-sex the evolutnary purpose of this behavr is not clear, the fact that animals routely exhib same-sex behavr beli the notn that gay sex is a morn human studi have found specific "gay gen" that reliably make someone gay.

For stance, a 2014 study the journal Psychologil Medice showed that a gene on the X chromosome (one of the sex chromosom) lled Xq28 and a gene on chromosome 8 seem to be found higher prevalence men who are gay. It's also more likely for two intil tws, who share all of their gen, to both be gay than is for two aternal tws, who share jt half of their gen, to both be homosexual.

NEWS & TECHNOLOGYTHE BLOGY OF BEG GAY

But this so-lled epigenome n also be passed on om generatn to generatn, which would expla why beg gay seems to n fai, even when a sgle gene n't be such gay gen get passed down om generatn to generatn has puzzled scientists, given that gay upl nnot reproduce. "K therefore pass on more of the gen which they would share wh their homosexual relativ, " said evolutnary psychologist Pl Vasey of the Universy of Lethbridge Canada, a past Live Science article. Gay nversn therapy is effective, several studi have found, and the Amerin Psychologil Associatn now says such treatment is harmful and n worsen feelgs of men, studi suggt that orientatn is fixed by the time the dividual reach puberty.