What Science Knows About Why People Are Gay

Contents:

• WHY ARE PEOPLE GAY? GAY BY CHOICE OR IS BEG GAY GEIC?
• HOW TO KNOW IF YOU ARE GAY
• WHAT SCIENCE KNOWS ABOUT WHY PEOPLE ARE GAY
• TOP TEN THGS THAT PROBABLY MA ME GAY
• WHY ARE THERE GAY MEN?
• HOW TO ACCEPT THAT YOU ARE GAY
• AM I GAY?
• BORN TO BOTTOM? REARCHERS REPORT BLOGIL CORRELATNS ANAL SEX ROLE GAY MEN
• THERE IS NO ‘GAY GENE.’ THERE IS NO ‘STRAIGHT GENE.’ SEXUALY IS JT PLEX, STUDY NFIRMS

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

” Many people, cludg sex rearchers and scientists, believe that sexual orientatn is like a sle wh entirely gay on one end and entirely straight on the other.

In other words, 5-10% of people experience same-sex sexual attractn or behavr; of urse, this don't speak to what mak people gay. It very much appears that same-sex sexual attractn is not a choice but actg on is; so if you fe gay as the mere prence of same-sex attractn, then om everythg we unrstand, beg gay is not a choice. If, on the other hand, you nsir someone to be gay only if they act on their same-sex attractn then beg gay n be nsired a choice pendg on an dividual's behavr.

Whether science n ultimately prove the blogy of beg gay or not, 's important to support all adults their choic no matter how they intify.

HOW TO KNOW IF YOU ARE GAY

Keep md that even if you have a sexual experience wh someone of the same genr or another genr, that don’t necsarily mean that you’re gay.

That means, for example, that you n be transgenr but also straight (for stance, you might intify as a woman and feel attracted to men) or gay (e.

WHAT SCIENCE KNOWS ABOUT WHY PEOPLE ARE GAY

If you have had romantic experienc or fantasi volvg people who are the same genr as you, then there is a good chance you are gay or bisexual, but 's okay if you're a ltle nfed. 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. 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.

(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.

TOP TEN THGS THAT PROBABLY MA ME GAY

) 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.

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. 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.

Scientists may have fally solved the puzzle of what mak a person gay, and how is passed om parents to their children.A group of scientists suggted Tuday that homosexuals get that tra om their oppose-sex parents: A lbian will almost always get the tra om her father, while a gay man will get the tra om his mother.The heredary lk of homosexualy has long been tablished, but scientists knew was not a strictly geic lk, bee there are many pairs of intil tws who have differg sexuali.

WHY ARE THERE GAY MEN?

Scientists om the Natnal Instute for Mathematil and Blogil Synthis say homosexualy seems to have an epigeic, not a geic lk.Long thought to have some sort of heredary lk, a group of scientists suggted Tuday that homosexualy is lked to epi-marks — extra layers of rmatn that ntrol how certa gen are exprsed.

In homosexuals, the epi-marks aren't erased — they're passed om father-to-dghter or mother-to-son, explas William Rice, an evolutnary blogist at the Universy of California Santa Barbara and lead thor of the study."There is pellg evince that epi-marks ntribute to both the siary and dissiary of fay members, and n therefore feasibly ntribute to the observed faial herance of homosexualy and s low nrdance between [intil] tws," Rice not.Rice and his team created a mathematil mol that explas why homosexualy is passed through epi-marks, not geics. Evolutnarily speakg, if homosexualy was solely a geic tra, scientists would expect the tra to eventually disappear bee homosexuals wouldn't be expected to reproduce. But bee the epi-marks provi an evolutnary advantage for the parents of homosexuals: They protect fathers of homosexuals om unrexposure to ttosterone and mothers of homosexuals om overexposure to ttosterone while they are gtatn."The epi-marks protect fathers and mothers om excs or unrexposure to ttosterone — when they rry over to oppose-sex offsprg, n e the masculizatn of femal or the femizatn of mal," Rice says, which n lead to a child beg gay.

Rice not that the markers are "highly variable" and that only strong epi-marks will rult a homosexual offsprg.Though scientists have long spected some sort of geic lk, Rice says studi attemptg to expla why people are gay have been few and far between."Most mastream blogists have shied away om studyg bee of the social stigma," he says.

HOW TO ACCEPT THAT YOU ARE GAY

Well there are many exampl of homosexualy nature, 's very mon." Homosexual behavr has been observed black swans, pengus, sheep, and other animals, he says.Rice's mol still needs to be tted on real-life parent-offsprg pairs, but he says this epigeic lk mak more sense than any other explanatn, and that his team has mapped out a way for other scientists to tt their work."We've found a story that looks really good," he says.

AM I GAY?

Recently, scientists announced that they found some gen that might be associated wh sexual orientatn and a blogil explanatn for the reason gay men tend to have olr the field of sexual orientatn rearch is far broar and more plited than two studi—and Lisa Diamond, a psychologist and sexual orientatn rearcher at the Universy of Utah, knows that better than most.

BORN TO BOTTOM? REARCHERS REPORT BLOGIL CORRELATNS ANAL SEX ROLE GAY MEN

I n't guarantee you that at age 18, if you child hasn't exprsed same-sex attractns that they won't the future—and ankly ma'am, I n't guarantee you that you are not gog to end up gay eher. So while heterosexuals fd femal trigug and posssn of somethg they do not have, so is that pre-homosexual boys fd members of the same sex trigug.

” He also stat that “homosexual behavr is really a symbolic attempt to bee faiar wh their own bodi through other male bodi. Even though homosexualy is beg more socially acceptable and even promoted as an attractive and preferable way of life… most boys junr high and high school do not want to be gay.

Wh an even lower self-teem, they plunge ahead to their futur, tryg to accept that they mt be gay and, as such might as well fulfill the sire and act out homosexual behavr…. The last step the velopment of a homosexual inty ually the years after high school, when all kds of optns bee available. Leavg the nstrats and fluenc of home and church, a young man will often disver a world eager to her him to the homosexual muny.

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

Wh the availabily of gay bars, gyms, beach, even the Inter, numero opprotuni beckon a nfed young man to be sought out or to seek out relatnships wh men.