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

Contents:

• THERE IS NO ‘GAY GENE.’ THERE IS NO ‘STRAIGHT GENE.’ SEXUALY IS JT PLEX, STUDY NFIRMS
• NO ‘GAY GENE’: MASSIVE STUDY HOM ON GEIC BASIS OF HUMAN SEXUALY
• THERE’S NO EVINCE THAT A SGLE ‘GAY GENE’ EXISTS
• SEARCH FOR 'GAY GEN' COM UP SHORT IN LARGE NEW STUDY
• 'GAY GEN': SCIENCE IS ON THE RIGHT TRACK, WE'RE BORN THIS WAY. LET’S AL WH .
• NEWS: 'GAY GEN': SCIENCE IS ON THE RIGHT... (THE GUARDIAN) - BEHD THE HEADL
• THE 'GAY GENE' IS A MYTH BUT BEG GAY IS 'NATURAL,' SAY SCIENTISTS
• THERE’S NO ONE ‘GAY GENE,’ BUT GEICS ARE LKED TO SAME-SEX BEHAVR, NEW STUDY SAYS

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

There is no sgle gene rponsible for a person beg gay or a lbian.

The study of nearly a half ln people clos the door on the bate around the existence of a so-lled “gay gene. In s stead, the report fds that human DNA nnot predict who is gay or heterosexual.

It is worth keepg md that this study only vers some typ of sexualy — gay, lbian and cis-straight — but don’t offer many sights to genr inty. 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.

NO ‘GAY GENE’: MASSIVE STUDY HOM ON GEIC BASIS OF HUMAN SEXUALY

“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. “We worried a lot about volunteer bias, ” said Bailey, whose rearch clus a wily publicized study on Xq28 and gay brothers om 2018.

Sanrs llaborated wh Bailey on those earlier studi and said their work had always admted that there was no sgle “gay gene. 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.

In other words, tri to judge if a person leans gay, straight or bisexual.

THERE’S NO EVINCE THAT A SGLE ‘GAY GENE’ EXISTS

“[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. “There is no ‘gay gene’, ” says lead study thor Andrea Ganna, a geicist at the Broad Instute of MIT and Harvard Cambridge, and his lleagu also ed the analysis to timate that up to 25% of sexual behavur n be explaed by geics, wh the rt fluenced by environmental and cultural factors — a figure siar to the fdgs of smaller studi.

the rol of gen homosexual behavr is fanng the bate over whether. beg gay is due to gen or environment. “There is no ‘gay gene’ that term.

SEARCH FOR 'GAY GEN' COM UP SHORT IN LARGE NEW STUDY

geics acunt for about 32 percent of herabily of homosexual behavr. om pletely heterosexual to homosexual after all.

In an terview, she said the study is further evince that prev reports of a "gay gene" on the X chromosome are wrong. And bee the rearchers didn't fd gene variants that rrelated wh a gradient of sexual behavr, she says, unrcuts Aled Ksey's s-old sle, which ranked people on a spectm of sexualy, om exclively heterosexual to exclively homosexual. 2% of women and men, rpectively, intify as gay.

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

Dpe the numbers, many people still nsir homosexual behavr to be an anomalo 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. The hunt for ‘gay gen’.

The 2019 study is the latt a hunt for “gay gen” that began 1993, when Dean Hamer lked male homosexualy to a sectn of the X chromosome.

As the ease and affordabily of genome sequencg creased, addnal gene ndidat have emerged wh potential lks to homosexual behavr. 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. Wh multiple gene ndidat beg lked to homosexualy, seemed highly unlikely that a sgle “gay” gene exists.

NEWS: 'GAY GEN': SCIENCE IS ON THE RIGHT... (THE GUARDIAN) - BEHD THE HEADL

In rats, manipulatn of hormon durg pregnancy produc offsprg that exhib homosexual behavr.

Why do homosexual behavr exist? Several hypoth have been advanced to expla how homosexualy n be beneficial perpetuatg faial gen. Gay uncl and nts, for example, are “helpers the nt” that help raise other fay members’ children to nurture the fay tree.

Another ia suggts that homosexualy is a “tra-off tra. ” For example, certa gen women help crease their fertily, but if the gen are exprsed a male, they predispose him toward homosexualy.

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

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. In a recent Guardian article, Simon Copland argued that is very unlikely people are born gay (or prumably any other sexual orientatn). Fdg evince for a blogil basis should not sre or unrme gay, lbian and bisexual (LGB) rights (the studi I refer to do not clu transgenred dividuals, so I’ll nfe my ments to lbian, gay and bisexual people).

THERE’S NO ONE ‘GAY GENE,’ BUT GEICS ARE LKED TO SAME-SEX BEHAVR, NEW STUDY SAYS

Evince om pennt rearch groups who studied tws shows that geic factors expla about 25-30% of the differenc between people sexual orientatn (heterosexual, gay, lbian, and bisexual). Tw studi are a first look to the geics of a tra and tell that there are such thgs as “gen for sexual orientatn” (I hate the phrase “gay gene”). Three gene fdg studi showed that gay brothers share geic markers on the X chromosome; the most recent study also found shared markers on chromosome 8.

For example, plex psychologil tras have many al gen (not simply “a gay gene”). Perhaps this is due to the stereotype that female sexualy is “too plex” or that lbians are rarer than gay are far om the whole story. Gen uld themselv nudge one towards a particular sexual orientatn or gen may simply teract wh other environmental factors (such as sex hormon the womb environment) to fluence later sexual bras of gay and heterosexual people also appear to be anised differently.