Homosexualy is blogil, suggts gay sheep study | New Scientist

Contents:

• HOMOSEXUALY IS BLOGIL, SUGGTS GAY SHEEP STUDY
• FARMER SUTRA! ARE GAY RAMS REALLY A PROBLEM THE SHEEP DTRY?
• GAY SHEEP? LET'S GET THE FACTS STRAIGHT
• OF GAY SHEEP, MORN SCIENCE AND BAD PUBLICY
• YEP, THEY'RE GAY
• U.S. STUDY OF GAY SHEEP MAY SHED LIGHT ON SEXUALY
• GAY SHEEP, FORBIDN SCIENCE?
• OF GAY SHEEP, MORN SCIENCE AND THE PERILS OF BAD PUBLICY - HEALTH & SCIENCE - INTERNATNAL HERALD TRIBUNE
• ALL BIGHORN RAMS THAT MATE WH EW PARTICIPATE GAY URTG & PULATN MOST OF THE YEAR. (GENR SHOWSE, 9-12)
• THE GAY SHEEP AND SOUND SCIENCE (1 LETTER)
• IT’S GAY RIGHTS, NOT GAY GEN, THAT MATTER
• GAY SHEEP SHOULD LOOK TO J, NOT SCIENCE FOR CURE
• GAY FURRY HACKERS ARE TARGETG US STAT FOR PASSG ANTI-TRANS LEGISLATN

HOMOSEXUALY IS BLOGIL, SUGGTS GAY SHEEP STUDY

A study of gay sheep appears to nfirm the ntroversial suggtn that there is a blogil basis for sexual preference. The differenc are almost intil to those intified by the nroscientist Simon LeVay his studi of the bras of gay men.

Sheep are particularly tertg, he says, bee bis humans, they are the only animal where the mal may naturally exprs exclively gay sexual preferenc. But Lark suggts there may also be the fluence of gen at work, at least predisposg the animals to homosexualy.

This is bee selective breedg seems to have been rponsible for the high proportn of gay sheep pared wh other animals. “Unfortunately, he’ll have to go to the food cha, ” said Dewi Jon, the chief executive of the sheep-breedg pany Innovis, speakg on a Channel 4 documentary, My Gay Dog and Other Animals, which will be broadst on Thursday. Campaigners raised money to send him to a sanctuary stead (although emerged the followg year that he may not be “gay” after all, “judgg by what he was tryg to do the other day wh one of the ws, ” said his new owner) preferenc sheep have been studied by Charl Roselli, a profsor of physlogy and pharmalogy at the Oregon Health & Science Universy, whose work suggts their sexualy is termed by blogy and has said that the rearch – prevly reported by the webse Slate unr the headle “Brokeback Mutton” – may “allow better selectn of rams for breedg and as a nsequence may be enomilly important to the sheep dtry”.

FARMER SUTRA! ARE GAY RAMS REALLY A PROBLEM THE SHEEP DTRY?

Apparently Profsor Charl Roselli is nductg gome experiments on sheep the name of eraditg homosexualy. "By varyg the hormone levels, " ntu, "maly by jectg hormon to the bra, they have had 'nsirable succs' alterg the rams' sexualy, wh some prevly gay animals beg attracted to ew. The only siar work pleted and published by them was about tryg to make "straight" animals "gay" (they avoid those terms) and any se, that experiment was negative: failed to achieve this aim.

" most bizarre is the suggtn that the rearch was somehow ultimately about makg gay people straight. The assertn is at the top of the article: "Scientists are nductg experiments to change the sexualy of 'gay' sheep a programme that crics fear uld pave the way for breedg out homosexualy humans. Even if you uld tervene to make a gay human straight, you might reasonably expect this to make any hered tenncy towards homosexualy more prevalent, not all the misrmatn and misunrstandgs this ST piece appeared first a Peta (People for the Ethil Treatment of Animals) mpaign.

But sce last fall, when People for the Ethil Treatment of Animals started a mpaign agast the rearch, has drawn a torrent of outrage om animal rights activists, gay advot and ordary cizens around the world — all of based, Dr. The story of the gay sheep beme a textbook example of the distortn and vuperatn that n rult when science meets the global news cycle. The news media storm reached s zenh last month, when The Sunday Tim London published an article unr the headle “Science Told: Hands Off Gay Sheep.

GAY SHEEP? LET'S GET THE FACTS STRAIGHT

Roselli had worked succsfully to “cure” homosexual rams wh hormone treatments, and add that “crics fear” that the rearch “uld pave the way for breedg out homosexualy humans.

”Marta Navratilova, the tennis star who is both openly gay and a PETA ally, wrote an open letter that the rearch “n only be surmised as an attempt to velop a prenatal treatment” for sexual ntroversy spilled to the blog world, wh attacks on Dr. Gala, who asked that he be intified as openly gay, ced the news release for a 2004 paper the journal Endocrology that showed differenc bra stcture between homosexual and heterosexual sheep.

OF GAY SHEEP, MORN SCIENCE AND BAD PUBLICY

” The prospect of parents’ eventually beg able to choose not to have children who would bee gay is a real ncern for the future, Dr. But he add, “This ncern is bt addrsed by tryg to change public perceptns of homosexualy rather than stop basic science on sexualy. Although I’m nflicted about llg myself a gay sheep, bee I don’t like to thk that my sexualy f me; let’s jt say that I’m a sheep who happens to be gay.

Beg gay is jt a simple blogil fact, like havg a fleecy unrat or bleatg while you’re beg shorn, or gettg aroed whenever you see a bulky turtleneck I was growg up, I assumed that I’d be jt like everybody else, and that someday I’d be bred wh a ewe and slghtered.

I had some terrific long talks wh a wise old mounta goat, who told me, “Look, you n be anythg you want to be—gay, straight, pashma, whatever. And at the Last Supper there was long last, I found the strength to e out to my fay, my iends, and even my -workers, to say right out loud, I’m Troy and I’m gay, but I hope that isn’t the most tertg thg about me.

YEP, THEY'RE GAY

) But I was surprised to learn recently that male sheep exhib homosexualy at least as often as humans: roughly 8% of rams turn out to have sex exclively wh other rams.

This ltle piece of fnal ephemera might otherwise have gone unnoticed outsi the rarely tersectg subcultur of gays and shepherds. The sheep rearchers—Charl Roselli of Oregon Health and Science Universy and Fred Stormshak of Oregon State Universy—are vtigatg blogil factors homosexualy.

U.S. STUDY OF GAY SHEEP MAY SHED LIGHT ON SEXUALY

In fact, he has said that studi suggtg a blogil basis for homosexualy tend to enurage tolerance.

He do this not to promote homosexualy but to fd out whether the mechanism he’s ttg—privatn of trogen durg fetal velopment—acunts for homosexualy. PETA has ma hay of a 2000 paper which Stormshak posed that gay rams “may not be exposed to the same levels” of trogen as straight rams. ” And that’s what the study exam: All the rams, not jt the gay on, are strated and given trogen.

For stance, most people who regard homosexualy as a s assume you n regulate your sexual orientatn.

GAY SHEEP, FORBIDN SCIENCE?

What if science mak possible to chemilly rce the prevalence of homosexualy whout opprsg anyone? Lookg back at the wretched history of hormone therapy for homosexualy, ’s easy to say, “Never aga.

If you don’t regard the human fet as a person—precisely bee s bra hasn’t fully formed—n you really say was ever gay? You might fd yourself the odd posn of pleadg for acceptance of homosexualy as a natural ndn while at the same time nouncg Catholic bishops who plead for acceptance of fertily as a natural ndn. But if doctors learn to spot emergg gay bras and are unable to alter them, parents who are termed not to raise gay children will do what’s already done to female fet much of the world: abort them.

OF GAY SHEEP, MORN SCIENCE AND THE PERILS OF BAD PUBLICY - HEALTH & SCIENCE - INTERNATNAL HERALD TRIBUNE

Science told: hands off gay sheepIsabel Oakhott and Chris GourlayExperiments that claim to ‘cure’ homosexual rams spark anger SCIENTISTS are nductg experiments to change the sexualy of “gay” sheep a programme that crics fear uld pave the way for breedg out homosexualy humans.

The technique beg veloped by Amerin rearchers adjts the hormonal balance the bras of homosexual rams so that they are more cled to mate wh ew.

ALL BIGHORN RAMS THAT MATE WH EW PARTICIPATE GAY URTG & PULATN MOST OF THE YEAR. (GENR SHOWSE, 9-12)

It rais the prospect that pregnant women uld one day be offered a treatment to rce or elimate the chance that their offsprg will be homosexual. Marta Navratilova, the lbian tennis player who won Wimbledon ne tim, and scientists and gay rights mpaigners Bra have lled for the project to be abandoned. She said: “How n be that the year 2006 a major universy would host such homophobic and cel experiments?

By varyg the hormone levels, maly by jectg hormon to the bra, they have had “nsirable succs” alterg the rams’ sexualy, wh some prevly gay animals beg attracted to ew. In fact, several studi have shown that people who believe homosexualy is blogilly based are ls homophobic than people who thk that this orientatn is acquired. Udo Schlenk, Profsor of Bethics at Glasgow Caledonian Universy, who has wrten to the rearchers prsg them to stop, said: “I don’t believe the motiv of the study are homophobic, but their work brgs the terrible possibily of exploatn by homophobic societi.

THE GAY SHEEP AND SOUND SCIENCE (1 LETTER)

” Peter Tatchell, the gay rights mpaigner, said: “The experiments echo Nazi rearch the early 1940s which aimed at eraditg homosexualy. There is a danger that extreme homophobic regim may try to e the experimental rults to change the orientatn of gay people.

IT’S GAY RIGHTS, NOT GAY GEN, THAT MATTER

The tts on gay sheep are the latt a long le of experiments seekg to alter the sexualy of humans and animals. Günther Dorner, a scientist the former East Berl, rried out hormone-alterg tts on ronts the 1960s the hope of fdg a way to eradite homosexualy.

In 2002, Simon LeVay, an Amerin nrologist, claimed to have disvered that homosexual and heterosexual men had physilly different bras.

GAY SHEEP SHOULD LOOK TO J, NOT SCIENCE FOR CURE

A 1991 study of human bras of AIDS victims showed a siar hypothalam size difference between gay and heterosexual men. "This lends further support to the ia that homosexualy has blogil unrpngs, " Charl Roselli, a profsor of physlogy and pharmalogy, said an terview wh the Corvallis Gazette-Tim. Profsor Stormshak believ that "unrstandg sexual driv and the ntuum of sexual behavr uld possibly help expla the scientific basis of sexual asslt [and] put an end to assertns that homosexualy is a liftyle choice.

Science told: hands off gay sheep: Scientists are nductg experiments to change the sexualy of "gay" sheep a programme that crics fear uld pave the way for breedg out homosexualy humans. There is a pretty obv and straightforward way for homosexuals to lm down their fears that straight parents will geilly engeer out their orientatn (ergo, muny): breed gay babi.

If scientists n unrstand homosexualy well enough to "cure" , then they uld certaly turn fet gay. Update: Jt to be clear, jt bee obligate homosexualy is likely of blogil orig do not necsarily mean that is geilly specified.

GAY FURRY HACKERS ARE TARGETG US STAT FOR PASSG ANTI-TRANS LEGISLATN

There is a hypothis that "gay uncl" may enhance the fns of their siblgs, but while the efficient of relatedns between a parent and child is 1/2, that between uncle and niece or nephew is 1/4.

Another mol for the blogil orig of homosexualy is somethg like Toxoplasma gondii, a pathogenic fectn which has a behavorial impact.

1 - There is an ia that homosexualy is a byproduct of another geilly ntrolled tra which has been unr selectn.