Personal Views: The search for the gay gene - PMC

Contents:

• MANY GEN INFLUENCE SAME-SEX SEXUALY, NOT A SGLE ‘GAY GENE’
• THERE IS NO ‘GAY GENE.’ THERE IS NO ‘STRAIGHT GENE.’ SEXUALY IS JT PLEX, STUDY NFIRMS
• THE LIFE OF THE GAY GENE: OM HYPOTHETIL GEIC MARKER TO SOCIAL REALY
• THERE’S (STILL) NO GAY GENE
• THE SEARCH FOR THE GAY GENE
• REARCH NFIRMS 'GAY GENE' DISVERY
• THE REAL STORY ON GAY GEN
• THE GAY GENE: UNRSTANDG HUMAN SEXUALY REARCH PAPER
• STOP SEARCHG FOR THE ‘GAY GENE’

MANY GEN INFLUENCE SAME-SEX SEXUALY, NOT A SGLE ‘GAY GENE’

Muny there said they were worried the fdgs uld give ammunn to people who seek to e science to bolster bias and discrimatn agast gay ncern is that evince that gen fluence same-sex behavr uld e anti-gay activists to ll for gene edg or embryo selectn, even if that would be technilly impossible.

“That right there is the big issue wh lookg for the geics of sexual orientatn — social ntext uld be a big part of the exprsn of the tra, ” said Jeremy Yor, an assistant profsor of blogy at California State Universy, Northridge, who is gay and follows geic rearch the field. He and others noted that olr participants me of age when homosexual behavr was crimalized Bra and that for much of their life homosexualy was classified as a psychiatric Reilly and others said such stark differenc between olr and younger participants show the tricks of tryg to draw reprentative blogil rmatn om a study populatn so strongly fluenced by society’s changg attus. Dean Hamer, a former Natnal Instut of Health scientist who led the first high-profile study intifyg a geic lk to beg gay 1993, said he was happy to see such a large rearch effort.

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

More about Pam BelluckA versn of this article appears prt on, Sectn A, Page 1 of the New York edn wh the headle: Rearch Fds Not One ‘Gay Gene, ’ but a Multu of Influenc. 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. 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. “[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.

However, spe such tenuo provenance, the gay gene has persisted as a reference science news, popular science wrgs, and prs releas and edorials about bmedil rearch. 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 LIFE OF THE GAY GENE: OM HYPOTHETIL GEIC MARKER TO SOCIAL REALY

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. 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.

THERE’S (STILL) NO GAY GENE

“We know that smell has a strong tie to sexual attractn, but s lks to sexual behavrs are not clear, ” said -thor Andrea Ganna, an stctor at HMS and Massachetts General Hospal om the Instute for Molecular Medice study is part a rponse to gay, lbian, and bisexual people’s cursy about themselv, said Fah Sathirapongsasuti, a senr scientist at 23andMe and -thor on the study, who is himself gay. Michael Bronski, profsor of the practice media and activism wh the mtee on studi of women, genr, and sexualy, and thor of A Queer History of the Uned Stat, says the allure of a “gay gene” grew om the flourishg gay-rights movement the after the Stonewall rts 1969.

THE SEARCH FOR THE GAY GENE

’77, then a rearcher at the Natnal Instut of Health, published rults showg a rrelatn between male homosexual behavr and a clter of gen, lled Xq28, at the tip of the X chromosome. Exactly which gene this clter may be volved has proven elive—the current study found no signifint associatn between the X chromosome and same-sex sexual behavr—but the ia that a “gay gene” might lie somewhere Xq28—or elsewhere—was ptivatg.

REARCH NFIRMS 'GAY GENE' DISVERY

Zeke Stok, chief programs officer of the LGBTQ advocy anizatn GLAAD, ncurred an emailed statement: “This new study 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. Others have warned that the search for a geic e would pathologize homosexualy the same way psychology did the twentieth century: efforts by psychoanalysts such as Irvg Bieber led to the cln of homosexualy the Amerin Psychiatric Associatn’s Diagnostic and Statistil Manual of Mental Disorrs until 1972. As noted above, the gen that rrelated wh same-sex sexual behavr also rrelated wh willgns to take risks, a nnectn that might not hold up cultur where homosexualy is ls stigmatized and those who are ls risk tolerant would therefore feel more able to act openly.

THE REAL STORY ON GAY GEN

Social opn the back-ground of this rearch remas divid about s meang and mentators worry that fdg geic aspects to sexual orientatn will make thgs worse for gay men and women around the world. Geic rearch might further normalise homosexualyFor all the ncern that sexual orientatn rearch provok, there is no sgle master narrative about what fdg a “gay gene” would mean. On the ntrary, many gay men and women wele the ia that their orientatn is rooted the 19th century, Karl Herich Ulrichs, history's first pneerg gay rights activist, believed that homosexual people had a unique blogil make up, and he lled on society to acmodate this difference.

For example, the Uned Stat the Catholic Medil Associatn and the Natnal Associatn for Rearch and Therapy of Homosexualy have taken pas to cricise the rearch lkg sexual orientatn and blogy. Rears would do well to discern and distst every variety of psdo-science, whether voked to jtify a relig philosophy (as evolutn for philosophil humanism), a polil iology (as evolutn for both Nazism and Socialism), or a qutnable human behavr (as the ‘gay gene’ myth for homosexual nduct).

THE GAY GENE: UNRSTANDG HUMAN SEXUALY REARCH PAPER

In an effort to affect public policy and ga acceptance, the assertn often is ma that homosexuals serve equal rights jt as other mory groups—and should not be punished for, or forbidn om, exprsg their homosexualy. E., full and equal cizenship of racial mori), social liberals, femists, and homosexual activists were provid wh the perfect “at tail” to ri to advance their agenda.

The perceptn is that the dividuals share the same apartment buildgs, offic, clubs, etc., wh heterosexual people, and that we need to realize jt how prevalent homosexualy is. If we were to start a new televisn s, and wanted to accurately portray homosexual rats society, we would need 199 heterosexual actors before we fally troduced one homosexual actor.

STOP SEARCHG FOR THE ‘GAY GENE’

Prr to 1973, homosexualy appeared the Diagnostic and Statistil Manual of Mental Disorrs (DSM), the official reference book ed by the Amerin Psychiatric Associatn for diagnosg mental disorrs Ameri and throughout much of the rt of the world. Today, there is no mentn of homosexualy the DSM-IV (asi om a sectn scribg genr inty disorr), ditg that dividuals wh this ndn are not suable ndidat for therapy (see Amerin Psychiatric Associatn, 2000).

Several thors have argued that clicians who attempt to help their clients change their homosexual orientatn are vlatg profsnal ethil s by providg a “treatment” that is effective, often harmful, and rerc their clients the false belief that homosexualy is a disorr and needs treatment (2003, 32:403). The first “signifint” published study that dited a possible blogil role for homosexualy me om Simon LeVay, who was then at the Salk Instute for Blogil Studi San Diego, California. LeVay measured a particular regn of the bra (the terstial nuclei of the anterr hypothalam—INAH) postmortem tissue of three distct groups: (1) women; (2) men who were prumed to be heterosexual; (3) and homosexual men.