We may know why younger brothers are more likely to be gay | New Scientist

Contents:

• MEN WH OLR BROTHERS ARE MORE LIKELY TO BE GAY, STUDY SUGGTS
• MEN WH OLR BROTHERS MORE LIKELY TO BE GAY
• HOW TO TELL IF YOUR SON IS GAY
• A PROBABILY SAMPLE OF GAY MAL
• GAY GEICSMOST OF BELIEVE THAT WE WERE BORN THAT WAY, BUT IS SEXUAL ORIENTATN OUR DNA? JV CHAMARY GO SEARCH OF THE GAY GENEJV CHAMARYPUBLISHED: MAY 31, 2009 AT 11:00 PMGAY GEICS
• WE MAY KNOW WHY YOUNGER BROTHERS ARE MORE LIKELY TO BE GAY
• ARE YOUNGER BROTHERS MORE LIKELY TO BE GAY?

MEN WH OLR BROTHERS ARE MORE LIKELY TO BE GAY, STUDY SUGGTS

How Olr Brothers Influence HomosexualyHomosexualy might be partly driven by a mother’s immune rponse to her male fet—which creas wh each son she MacGregor / RtersHere’s what we know: Homosexualy is normal. Between 2 and 11 percent of human adults report experiencg some homosexual feelgs, though the figure vari wily pendg on the survey. Homosexualy exists across cultur and even throughout the animal kgdom, as the thors of a mammoth new review paper on homosexualy wre.

MEN WH OLR BROTHERS MORE LIKELY TO BE GAY

Female Japane maqu will even pete tersexually wh mal for exclive accs to female sexual ’s what we don’t know: What, specifilly, someone to bee gay, straight, or somethg between. Part of the explanatn is geic, but bee most intil tws of gay people are straight, heredy don’t expla “why” qutn is important bee “there is a strong rrelatn between beliefs about the origs of sexual orientatn and tolerance of non-heterosexualy, ” acrdg to the report thors, who are om seven universi spanng the globe.

HOW TO TELL IF YOUR SON IS GAY

(When Atlantic ntributor Chandler Burr proposed his 1996 book, A Separate Creatn, that people are born gay, Southern Baptists lled to boytt Disney films and parks prott agast the publisher, Disney subsidiary Hypern. ) It shouldn’t matter whether people “choose” to be gay, but polilly, do—at least for of the most nsistent environmental explanatns for homosexualy is lled the “aternal birth orr effect. Studi have found that a man whout olr brothers has about a 2 percent chance of beg gay, but one wh four olr brothers has a 6 percent chance.

A PROBABILY SAMPLE OF GAY MAL

Average prevalence 2013 (Sav-Williams and Vrangalova)Acrdg to the report, Blanchard now plans to tt mothers of gay and straight men for the prence of the antibodi. If proved out, fetal birth orr uld do a lot to fill the missg explanatns for homosexualy.

But gaps will rema, such as why some firstborn sons are gay, why some intil tws of gay sons are straight, and why women are gay, to name jt a review-paper thors do le out one explanatn for homosexualy, however: That tolerance for gay people enurag more people to bee gay. “Homosexual orientatn do not crease equency wh social tolerance, although s exprsn ( behavr and open intifitn) may do so, ” they reasong—that a tolerant society somehow enurag homosexualy to flourish—has been ed to support anti-gay legislatn Uganda, Rsia, and elsewhere. Men wh olr brothers are more likely to be gay, acrdg to a study published Wednday the journal Proceedgs of the Royal Society B.

GAY GEICSMOST OF BELIEVE THAT WE WERE BORN THAT WAY, BUT IS SEXUAL ORIENTATN OUR DNA? JV CHAMARY GO SEARCH OF THE GAY GENEJV CHAMARYPUBLISHED: MAY 31, 2009 AT 11:00 PMGAY GEICS

This new report builds upon prev rearch regardg male birth orr and homosexualy, though there is still no cisive ncln as to why there’s a lk between the cross-analyzg data om 10 scientific studi wh more than 5, 000 subjects, rearchers found that men wh olr brothers were 38 percent more likely to intify as gay.

”The study, which pared the probabily of the youngt brother a two-son fay beg gay as pared to the olst son, did not clu female subjects, as prev rearch has tablished that women do not fluence the sexual orientatn of their younger siblgs, acrdg to this study did not terme a ncrete reason for the rrelatn between a man havg an olr brother and intifyg as gay, Blanchard said that “pots toward the need for more rearch on the 'maternal immune hypothis'” — a theory Blanchard troduced 1996 that suggts that a mother is exposed to “male-specific substanc” durg pregnancy wh or the birth of a son. Acrdg to proponents of the theory, the mother’s immune rponse is changed durg the pregnancy of a boy, creasg the likelihood that a subsequent male child would be gay.

WE MAY KNOW WHY YOUNGER BROTHERS ARE MORE LIKELY TO BE GAY

Specifilly, many aspects of the velopment of homosexualy (both the male and female varieti) are not as well unrstood as they should be to make some of the claims that many people felt nfint exprsg.

ARE YOUNGER BROTHERS MORE LIKELY TO BE GAY?

There's a lot to discs regardg the rults of the paper (Skorska et al, 2016): The rearchers were examg the possibily that a maternal immune rponse might play a key role the velopment of a homosexual orientatn mal.

Effectively, then, the mother's immune system would (sometim) treat certa male protes produced by the fet as a foreign pathogen and attempt to attack , rultg out that uld clu a homosexual orientatn, but also fetal loss if the reactn was strong enough (i. Already there is a lot to like about this hypothis on a theoretil level, as don't pos any hidn adaptive benefs for a homosexual orientatn (as such proposed benefs have not received sound empiril support historilly).