There’s no evince that a sgle ‘gay gene’ exists

Contents:

• THERE IS NO ‘GAY GENE.’ THERE IS NO ‘STRAIGHT GENE.’ SEXUALY IS JT PLEX, STUDY NFIRMS
• SCIENTISTS QUASH IA OF SGLE 'GAY GENE'
• THE 'GAY GENE' IS A TOTAL MYTH, MASSIVE STUDY CONCLUS
• NO ‘GAY GENE’: MASSIVE STUDY HOM ON GEIC BASIS OF HUMAN SEXUALY
• WHAT DO THE NEW ‘GAY GEN’ TELL ABOUT SEXUAL ORIENTATN?
• THE 'GAY GENE' IS A MYTH BUT BEG GAY IS 'NATURAL,' SAY SCIENTISTS
• THE REAL STORY ON GAY GEN
• WHY ARE PEOPLE GAY? GAY BY CHOICE OR IS BEG GAY GEIC?
• SEARCH FOR 'GAY GEN' COM UP SHORT IN LARGE NEW STUDY
• THERE’S NO EVINCE THAT A SGLE ‘GAY GENE’ EXISTS
• THE LIFE OF THE GAY GENE: OM HYPOTHETIL GEIC MARKER TO SOCIAL REALY
• THERE’S (STILL) NO GAY GENE

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

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.

“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. 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.

SCIENTISTS QUASH IA OF SGLE 'GAY GENE'

“[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. Those who nsir beg gay a disadvantage life (which still is, certa societi), might regard gay people differently if they knew that beg gay was an hered tra, rather than a nsequence of life events, such as a particular type of upbrgg, or mixg wh certa sorts of iends or even a liberate cisn. An early study claimed that if one pair of (male) intil tws (who have intil geic patterns) was gay, there was a 100 percent chance of the other one also beg gay.

It was quickly shown that, fact, the real chance of two intil tws beg gay was around 40-50 percent, whereas was ls non-intil on, though still somewhat greater than the general populatn. There was another, much smaller, group who said they were entirely gay (about 6 percent), and a stterg of even smaller numbers who claimed to be bisexual. A vast new study has quashed the ia that a sgle “gay gene” exists, scientists say, stead fdg homosexual behavur is fluenced by a multu of geic variants which each have a ty rearchers pare the suatn to factors termg a person’s height, which multiple geic and environmental factors play rol.

THE 'GAY GENE' IS A TOTAL MYTH, MASSIVE STUDY CONCLUS

“The rults suggt we shouldn’t be measurg sexual preference on a sgle ntuum om straight to gay, but rather two separate dimensns: attractn to the same sex and attractn to the oppose sex.

It also relied on self-reported ia that geics might play a role same-sex attractn was propelled to the spotlight 1993 when Dean Hamer, a scientist at the US Natnal Cancer Instute, and his team found lks between DNA markers on the X chromosome and male sexual fdgs ed nsirable ntroversy, wh the media dubbg the disvery the “gay gene”. No dividual gene alone mak a person gay, lbian or bisexual; stead, thoands of gen likely fluence sexual orientatn, a massive new study of the genom of nearly half a ln people human societi and both sex, between 2% and 10% of people report engagg sex wh a member of the same sex, eher exclively or addn to sex wh a member of the oppose sex, the rearchers said.

Related: 5 Myths About Gay People Debunked"Bee is a ntroversial topic, fundg has historilly been limed and recment of participants was difficult, " study -thor Fah Sathirapongsasuti, a senr scientist and putatnal blogist at the geic ttg pany 23andMe, told Live Science. However, the fdg that there's no sgle gay gene do not mean that sexual orientatn is not geic or blogil, and is therefore a liftyle choice.

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

13 Facts on the History of Marriage51 Sultry Facts About Sex10 Milton Gay Rights HistoryOrigally published on Live Science. “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.

We have known for s that sexual orientatn is partly herable men, thanks to studi of fai which some people are straight and some people are gay. In 1993, geic variatns a regn on the X chromosome men were lked to whether they were heterosexual or homosexual, and 1995, a regn on chromosome 8 was intified. Grave’s disease is more mon gay than straight men, and some rearch suggts that gay men tend to be thner – which might possibly be a rult of thyroid overdrive.

There have been studi suggtg that there is a geic element to homosexualy women, but more rearch has been done men, says Sanrs. The latt fdgs open the prospect to intifyg the whole pathway of gen volved both homosexual and heterosexual orientatn, says Dean Hamer at the US Natnal Instut of Health, who led the study that ppoted chromosome X back 1993.

WHAT DO THE NEW ‘GAY GEN’ TELL ABOUT SEXUAL ORIENTATN?

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. But here's the quote that will light opponents of LGBTQ rights, some of whom sist they n "nvert" gay people to choose to be straight by prayg the gay away:. "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.

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. This new rearch also renfirms the long tablished unrstandg that there is no nclive gree to which nature or nurture fluence how a gay or lbian person behav.

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.

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

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 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. ” For example, certa gen women help crease their fertily, but if the gen are exprsed a male, they predispose him toward homosexualy. 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.

THE REAL STORY ON GAY GEN

Still others, backg the same e, disurage any vtigatn to the blogil origs of sexual orientatn, fearful that posive rults will lead to attempts to rid the world of potential homosexuals. For them, the disvery of how an dividual be gay is likely to shed light on how sexualy-related gen build bras, how people of any persuasn are attracted to each other, and perhaps even how homosexualy evolved. Hamer had jt published a study that claimed not only to have fally proved that male homosexualy was at least partially geic but also to have ppoted the stretch of chromosome where one of the gen volved rid.

Hamer and his lleagu nducted extensive terviews wh 76 pairs of gay brothers and their fay members and found that homosexualy seemed to be hered through the maternal le. Studi have shown that women rpond to all typ of sexual pictns—not only heterosexual and homosexual imag but even those of chimpanze havg sex.

For a long perd NIH grant proposals that clud words like “gay, ” “ndom, ” or even “sexualy” were turned down, much to the ire of rearchers like Hamer.

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

Shortly after he published his gay brothers study, Hamer pleted a siarly signed fay study lookg to a geic e for a certa kd of anxiety.

Yet Hamer ntends that his rults suggt there is a lk to Xq28 and that the Rice study was biased bee one of the thors told Hamer that he didn’t believe a gay gene uld exist. Whether or not a gay gene, a set of gay gen, or some other blogil mechanism is ever found, one thg is clear: The environment a child grows up has nothg to do wh what mak most gay men gay. Ially, Bocklandt would sn the genome of each dividual, lookg for a methylatn pattern anywhere on any chromosome that shows up repeatedly the gay member of each tw pair.

Alan Sanrs, an associate profsor of psychiatry at Northwtern, will be lookg at the whole genome of about 1, 000 gay brothers g the geic marker technique that Hamer ed.

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

By settg up a stand at Gay Pri paras and approachg “gay iendly” groups like PFLAG (Parents, Fai and Friends of Lbians and Gays), Sanrs has found more than 4, 000 gay men wh a brother who are terted participatg. He has already started mappg the first 500 and timat that by mid-2008 the world will know where—if anywhere—to fd the gay gene. ” The qutn of whether there is a gay gene—and if so, where ris—is hardly the only qutn about sexual orientatn that remas unanswered.

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

If eher Bocklandt or Sanrs is lucky enough to spot the gen rponsible for homosexualy, there will most likely be more qutns raised than answered.

Even if social prsur through the ag led some gay men to have some children, the signifintly lower rate of reproductn would eventually lead to the disappearance of the gene (as Hamer do note his book, The Science of Dire: The Search for the Gay Gene and the Blogy of Behavr). Perhaps, the theory go, some gen, when found men, make them more likely to be gay and when found women make them more likely to have children.

) The creased number of grandchildren that a parent might have through such a superfertile dghter would offset whatever loss of geic postery om havg a gay son. Whatever the mechanism, turns out that an Italian study found that women wh gay fay members have more children than women wh all straight relativ.

THE LIFE OF THE GAY GENE: OM HYPOTHETIL GEIC MARKER TO SOCIAL REALY

Andrea Camper-Ciani, a profsor of ethology and evolutnary psychology at the Universy of Padua, terviewed 98 gay men and 100 straight men and found that the mothers of gay men had an average of 2. ”Another way to pass on the seemgly nonreproducg gay gene would be for a nonreproducg gay man to have an extra tert seeg that the offsprg of his siblgs survive. Wilson first put forward this ia of k selectn as an explanatn for homosexualy 1978, but for some time now has been nsired an unlikely scenar.

THERE’S (STILL) NO GAY GENE

Michael Bailey nducted a study 2001 to fd out if gay uncl treat their nephews and niec any better than straight uncl treat theirs.

In addn to lookg at how they spent their money, Rahman tried to see if gay men had some kd of extra psychologil generosy by askg qutns like, “Assumg you had a ln pounds, would you buy gifts for your fay?

But 21st-century Wtern society, and the homosexuals there, uld be somethg of an anomaly human history, acrdg to Pl Vasey, an associate profsor of psychology at the Universy of Lethbridge Alberta. “The kd of gay men and lbian women we are faiar wh Wtern culture exprs their homosexualy as egalarian—they’re not differentiated as far as genr. Another problem wh kship selectn studi that look only England and, particular, the Uned Stat, is that kship ti for homosexuals might not be as strong as they would be elsewhere.