Do you sound gay? What our voic tell – and what they don’t | David Shariatmadari | The Guardian

Contents:

• ASK POLLY: WHY DO PEOPLE ALWAYS THK I’M GAY?
• PEOPLE THK I'M GAY... BUT I'M NOT
• THIS IS WHY SOME MEN ‘SOUND GAY’ – EVEN IF THEY’RE NOT
• I LIKE GUYS BUT I DON’T WANT TO BE GAY. HOW DO I STOP BEG GAY?
• DO YOU SOUND GAY? WHAT OUR VOIC TELL – AND WHAT THEY DON’T
• THE SOLUTN TO "GAY" INSULTS: FREEDOM OF SPEECH

ASK POLLY: WHY DO PEOPLE ALWAYS THK I’M GAY?

”Dear Polly, I fally garnered the urage to wre to you about my particular problem, and I hope you n shed some of your wisdom on the sce the 6th gra, people have been askg me if I’m gay.

Back then, the other kids thought any person who was any b different om them was gay, and attached a bad meang to the word. I found a great girl sophomore year and we dated up until senr year, but the askg still ntued, some of which was g om my clost high school, I tried as hard as I uld to rid myself of the label people had given me.

Some of the women are hopg you’ll be the gay nfidant of their dreams, or maybe they want to be the one who gracefully hers you out of the closet. You have to five yourself for not livg up to your ternal fantasy of what you “should” ask, “If there’s nothg I n do to nvce people I’m not gay, then am I really gay?

PEOPLE THK I'M GAY... BUT I'M NOT

You uld rent When I Knew, the documentary where gay men and women expla how they figured out they were or no duck, somethg feels unsettled to you about your inty right now. 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.

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). The rearchers reced approximately 130 mothers and classified them on the basis of what kd of children they had: those who had at least 1 gay son (n = 54), and those who only had heterosexual sons (n = 72). The mothers were then classified further to one of five groups: those wh gay male only-children (n = 8), those wh gay male offsprg that had no olr brothers (n = 23), those wh gay male offsprg wh olr brothers (n = 23), those wh heterosexual male only-children (n = 11), and those wh heterosexual male offsprg wh siblgs (n = 61).

THIS IS WHY SOME MEN ‘SOUND GAY’ – EVEN IF THEY’RE NOT

As predicted, the average number of fetal loss were higher the first group (mothers of gay male only-children; M = 1. When nsired terms of the rat of misrriag to live to births, a siar picture emerged: mothers of gay male only-children reported more misrriag to live births (M = 1. As birth weight tends to crease over succsive pregnanci, the parisons were limed to first live-born sons only (n = 63); this left 4 gay male only-children, 7 gay mal wh no olr brothers, 14 heterosexual mal wh gay younger brothers, 10 heterosexual male only-children, and 28 heterosexual mal wh siblgs.

The rults mirrored those of the fetal-loss data: mothers of gay male only-children tend to give birth to fants that weighed signifintly ls (M = 2970 grams), than all other groups (d = 1.

In sum, then, mothers of gay male only-children tend to have a greater number of misrriag and give birth to signifintly lighter offsprg than mothers of other kds. While 's important to not get rried away wh this fdg given the relatively small sample size (I wouldn't put too much stock an N of 8), there is some suggtive evince here worth pursug further that somethg is atypil fetal velopment the se of gay male offsprg. The first qutn that to md is why this effect seemed to be specific to gay male only-children, rather than gay male children wh siblgs?

I LIKE GUYS BUT I DON’T WANT TO BE GAY. HOW DO I STOP BEG GAY?

Skorska et al (2016) pos that this might have somethg to do wh some mothers showg a greater immune rponse agast male offsprg, rultg more fetal loss, the rult beg that such mothers are both ls likely to have any children at all and more likely to have gay male children particular. In other words, mothers wh gay male offsprg should be expected to have proportnately more female children owg to a greater male fetal loss. If mothers of gay men do not tend to have a greater rat of female-to-male offsprg, this would st some doubt on the explanatn (and, sce the only data I've heard reports that gay men tend to have more olr brothers, seems they would have noticed the sister pot by now if existed).

DO YOU SOUND GAY? WHAT OUR VOIC TELL – AND WHAT THEY DON’T

On the other hand, if this is a more general immune reactn agast fetal bodi, regardls of their sex, we would not expect such a pattern ( might also predict that mothers takg immunosupprsants would be ls likely to have gay offsprg/misrry, but thgs are unlikely to be that simple owg to the fact that other effects would rult too).

THE SOLUTN TO "GAY" INSULTS: FREEDOM OF SPEECH

Intil male tws—those who share both their geics and maternal fetal environment—only show a nrdance rate of homosexualy of approximately 30%. As far as I'm aware, homosexual preferenc (not the ocsnal behavr) do not appear to be well documented nonhuman speci; the only exceptn I'm aware of is Rams. If is tly the se that maternal immune rpons are the drivers of homosexual velopment humans, would be very cur that siar out don't appear to obta across at least other mammalian speci.

Mothers more-chronilly affected might have fewer children general and more gay male children particular, potentially explag the current pattern of rults. As a byproduct of that fectn, if acquired durg a particular cril velopmental wdow, the child to velop a homosexual orientatn (or is misrried by the mother).

Sce 1975, APA has lled on psychologists to take the lead removg the stigma of mental illns that has long been associated wh lbian, gay, and bisexual orientatns. The prejudice and discrimatn that people who intify as lbian, gay, or bisexual regularly experience have been shown to have negative psychologil effects. This page provis accurate rmatn for those who want to better unrstand sexual orientatn and the impact of prejudice and discrimatn on those who intify as lbian, gay, or bisexual.