Cnchg The Numbers On Blacks' Views On Gays : Co Swch : NPR

Contents:

• ARE MORY MEN MORE LIKELY TO BE GAY? WHY?
• CNCHG THE NUMBERS ON BLACKS' VIEWS ON GAYS
• WHAT SCIENCE KNOWS ABOUT WHY PEOPLE ARE GAY
• ‘I AM GAY – BUT I WASN’T BORN THIS WAY’
• BEG BLACK AND GAY: HOW TERSECTNAL STIGMA IMPACTS ON THE UPTAKE OF PREP
• THE ANTI-GAY AGENDA

ARE MORY MEN MORE LIKELY TO BE GAY? WHY?

The view that sexual inty may change might be ed to support therapy geared towards "nvertg" homosexuals to heterosexuals, an approach which was outlawed recently California (for mors), legislatn that is likely to spread. On rerd, ” which Gallup asked more than 120, 000 Amerins if they personally intified as lbian, gay, bisexual or transgenr — reviewed the New York Tim by opn lumnist Charl Blow, are bafflg.

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.

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.

CNCHG THE NUMBERS ON BLACKS' VIEWS ON GAYS

(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.

WHAT SCIENCE KNOWS ABOUT WHY PEOPLE ARE GAY

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.

‘I AM GAY – BUT I WASN’T BORN THIS WAY’

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. 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.

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. 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.

BEG BLACK AND GAY: HOW TERSECTNAL STIGMA IMPACTS ON THE UPTAKE OF PREP

When Jason Colls, a journeyman NBA center, announced that he was gay, many mentators who appld his disclosure still nodd to the ia of heightened opposn to gay rights among black people.

"The hyper-mascule ials forced upon young black boys be wh the homophobia of the black church to create a perfect storm of shame and secrecy, " Rob Smh wrote at Salon, as he tailed his trmatic attempt to e out to his mother.

THE ANTI-GAY AGENDA

" "Homophobia the black muny — ed, even among the lears of the civil rights movement of the 1960s — was some of the most vilent and stubborn of all, and there are still some who rent the equatn of the gay rights movement wh their stggle, " wrote Charl P. You've got to hold a bunch of disparate ias your head at once; Lewis found that black folks are ls likely than whe people to believe that homosexualy is "not wrong at all" (25 percent to 40 percent).