Are We Born Gay? | Psychology Today

Contents:

• ‘I AM GAY – BUT I WASN’T BORN THIS WAY’
• WHAT DO THE BIBLE SAY ABOUT BEG BORN GAY?
• ARE WE BORN GAY?
• WHY ARE PEOPLE GAY? GAY BY CHOICE OR IS BEG GAY GEIC?
• ARE GAYS ‘BORN THAT WAY’? MOST AMERINS NOW SAY Y, BUT SCIENCE SAYS NO
• 'GAY GEN': SCIENCE IS ON THE RIGHT TRACK, WE'RE BORN THIS WAY. LET’S AL WH .

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

Many homosexuals hold to the belief that they were born that way, and there are some rearchers who suggt, on the basis of several recent studi, that there may be a geic predisposn toward homosexualy some people.

WHAT DO THE BIBLE SAY ABOUT BEG BORN GAY?

In any se, other scientists have challenged the studi, and there is prently no generally accepted scientific evince that the homosexual clatn is born. It mt be emphasized that even if a blogil predisposn to homosexualy some people exists, would not change God’s opposn to the behavr. Scholars at the teemed Johns Hopks Universy studied the origs of homosexualy and found there is sufficient evince to say gay, lbian, or transgenr people are born this way (sexual orientatn or genr inty).

ARE WE BORN GAY?

The two scholars, Lawrence Mayer, and Pl McHugh examed whether homosexualy is an hered tra, and nclud that people are not simply “born that way. They also looked at the of the poor mental health associated wh gay and transgenr people, ncludg that social strs do not expla all of . “Studi of the bras of homosexuals and heterosexuals have found some differenc, but have not monstrated that the differenc are born rather than the rult of environmental factors that fluenced both psychologil and nroblogil tras, ” the report reads.

The three-part, 143-page report, which appeared the Fall 2016 edn of The New Atlantis, also challeng the ia that discrimatn and social stigma are the only reasons gays and transgenrs suffer higher rat of mental health problems an suicis. This is Gay Pri month and there are paras, flags wavg, monuments, but if people do choose this as a liftyle and are not born this way, what do mean for the movement?

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.

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

I me out at a nservative Christian llege the US and was a gay relatnship for around two years wh a basketball player who end up marryg a woman. Well, you mt have been gay the whole time, some might thk, and bee of some relig shame, you cid to lie to yourself and experiment wh a girl.

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.

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

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.

“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.

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

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.

“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.