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

Contents:

• WHY ARE PEOPLE GAY? GAY BY CHOICE OR IS BEG GAY GEIC?
• PHYSIL, BEHAVRAL, AND PSYCHOLOGIL TRAS OF GAY MEN INTIFYG AS BEARS
• 'GAY GEN': SCIENCE IS ON THE RIGHT TRACK, WE'RE BORN THIS WAY. LET’S AL WH .
• THE 'GAY GENE' IS A MYTH BUT BEG GAY IS 'NATURAL,' SAY SCIENTISTS

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

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. An troductn to a muddled and sometim ntent world of scientific rearch—one whose fdgs, now as tentative as they are suggtive, may someday shed light on the sexual orientatn of everyoneThe issue of homosexualy has arrived at the foreont of Ameri's polil nscns.

The issue of homosexualy has always been volatile, and is sure to ntue to flame polil is timely and appropriate that at this juncture a scientific disciple, blogy, has begun to ask the fundamental qutn What is homosexualy? Homosexuals have long mataed that sexual orientatn, far om beg a personal choice or liftyle (as is often lled), is somethg neher chosen nor changeable; heterosexuals who have ma their peace wh homosexuals have often done so by acceptg that premise. Rearchers n look back on two histori: a century-long, highly problematic psychologil vtigatn of homosexualy, and a short but extremely plex history of blogil rearch that started out as an examatn of ovulatn rats.

PHYSIL, BEHAVRAL, AND PSYCHOLOGIL TRAS OF GAY MEN INTIFYG AS BEARS

As Michael Bailey and Richard Pillard, the thors of one of the most important geic quiri to homosexualy, have observed, s of psychiatric rearch to possible environmental of homosexualy—that is to say, social and cultural —show "small effect size and are ally ambiguo. David Halper pots out One Hundred Years of Homosexualy that the term self first appeared German (Homosexualät) a pamphlet published Leipzig 1869; entered the English language two s later.

By the 1940s homosexualy was discsed as an aspect of psychopathic, paranoid, and schizoid personaly fed homosexualy as a pathology, psychiatrists and other doctors ma bold to "treat" . Jam Harrison, a psychologist who produced the 1992 documentary film Changg Our Mds, not that the medil profsn viewed homosexualy wh such abhorrence that virtually any proposed treatment seemed fensible. None of the uld be shown to change the sexual orientatn of the people those who looked to the matter was the sex rearcher Aled Ksey, whose 1948 report “Sexual Behavr the Human Male” showed homosexualy to be surprisgly mon across l of fay, class, and tnal and geographic background.

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

In his book Beg Homosexual, the psychoanalyst Richard Isay wr, Ksey and his -workers for many years attempted to fd patients who had been nverted om homosexualy to heterosexualy durg therapy, and were surprised that they uld not fd one whose sexual orientatn had been changed. "Psychiatry not only nsistently failed to show that homosexualy was a preference, a malleable thg, sceptible to reversal; also nsistently failed to show that homosexualy was a pathology. Today's psychiatrists and psychologists, wh very few exceptns, do not try to change sexual orientatn, and those aspirg to work the fields of psychiatry and psychology are now traed not to regard homosexualy as a homosexualy moved om the realm of psychiatric pathology to the realm of normal variants on human sexual behavr, rearch efforts took a new turn.

Whether the dimorphism found by De Laste-Utamsg and Holloway tly exists remas a matter of nsirable 1985, three years after the publitn of the De Laste-Utamsg and Holloway article, Dick Swaab, a rearcher at the Netherlands Instute for Bra Rearch, Amsterdam, reported that he, too, had found evince of sexual dimorphism human bras— the form of a human homologue of the sexually dimorphic nucls that Gorski had found announced an even more remarkable disvery five years later, 1990. Swaab said that the suprachiasmatic nucls was nearly twice as large homosexual men as was heterosexual te, this was somethg wholly new: an anatomil difference between homosexuals and Levay is a young nroblogist who at the time of Swaab's send disvery was nductg rearch at the Salk Instute, La Jolla, California. Specifilly, I hypothized that INAH 2 or INAH 3 is large dividuals sexually oriented toward women (heterosexual men and homosexual women) and small dividuals sexually oriented toward men (heterosexual women and homosexual men) dissected bra tissue obtaed om route topsi of forty-one people who had died at hospals New York and California.

There were neteen homosexual men, all of whom had died of AIDS; sixteen prumed heterosexual men, six of whom had been traveno dg abers and had died of AIDS; and six prumed heterosexual women. The data support the hypothis that INAH 3 is dimorphic not wh sex but wh sexual orientatn, at least rults were sufficiently clear to LeVay to allow him to state, "The disvery that a nucls differs size between heterosexual and homosexual men illtrat that sexual orientatn humans is amenable to study at the blogil level.

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

"The study, as LeVay himself readily adms, has several problems: a small sample group, great variatn dividual nucls size, and possibly skewed rults bee all the gay men had AIDS (although LeVay found "no signifint difference the volume of INAH 3 between the heterosexual men who died of AIDS and those who died of other "). Until his origal fdgs are nfirmed, the notn that homosexuals and heterosexuals are some way anatomilly distct mt hold the stat of tantalizg needs also to be remembered that, as noted earlier, the issue of dimorphism of any kd the bra is hotly ntted. The ia that the bras of heterosexuals and homosexuals may be different morphologilly is rived om the ia that the bras of men and women are different morphologilly—rell the rp llosum study by De Laste-Utamsg and Holloway.

No one, of urse, suggts that the sexualy of rats and that of human begs are strictly parable; some crics of nroblogil rearch on homosexualy qutn the utily of animal mols entirely. Nohels, was vtigatns volvg animals that got rearchers the scientists who have ncentrated on hormonal or psychoendocrologil studi of homosexualy, Günter Dörner, of Germany, is one of the bt known. In the 1970s Dorner classified homosexualy as a "central nervo psdohermaphrodism, " meang that he nsired male homosexuals to have bras wh the matg centers of women but, of urse, the bodi of men.