There is no ‘gay gene.’ There is no ‘straight gene.’ Sexualy is jt plex, study nfirms | PBS NewsHour

Contents:

• THERE IS NO ‘GAY GENE.’ THERE IS NO ‘STRAIGHT GENE.’ SEXUALY IS JT PLEX, STUDY NFIRMS
• IS A PERSON ‘BORN GAY’, OR IS BEG GAY A LEARNED BEHAVR?
• CLIL STUDY CONFIRMS PEOPLE ARE NOT BLOGILLY “BORN GAY”
• WHY ARE PEOPLE GAY? GAY BY CHOICE OR IS BEG GAY GEIC?
• NEW TW STUDY: PEOPLE NOT BORN GAY
• THE 'GAY GENE' IS A MYTH BUT BEG GAY IS 'NATURAL,' SAY SCIENTISTS
• SCIENTISTS MAY HAVE FALLY UNLOCKED PUZZLE OF WHY PEOPLE ARE GAY

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

There is no sgle gene rponsible for a person beg gay or a lbian. The study of nearly a half ln people clos the door on the bate around the existence of a so-lled “gay gene.

In s stead, the report fds that human DNA nnot predict who is gay or heterosexual.

IS A PERSON ‘BORN GAY’, OR IS BEG GAY A LEARNED BEHAVR?

It is worth keepg md that this study only vers some typ of sexualy — gay, lbian and cis-straight — but don’t offer many sights to genr inty. 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.

“We worried a lot about volunteer bias, ” said Bailey, whose rearch clus a wily publicized study on Xq28 and gay brothers om 2018.

CLIL STUDY CONFIRMS PEOPLE ARE NOT BLOGILLY “BORN GAY”

Sanrs llaborated wh Bailey on those earlier studi and said their work had always admted that there was no sgle “gay gene. 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. In other words, tri to judge if a person leans gay, straight or bisexual.

“[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. A clear geic lk would suggt that gay people are “born this way, ” as opposed to havg ma a liftyle choice. Yet some fear that such a fdg uld be mised “cure” homosexualy, and most rearch teams have shied away om tacklg the topic.

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

They asked more than 477, 000 participants whether they had ever had sex wh someone of the same sex, and also qutns about sexual fantasi and the gree to which they intified as gay or straight. Dpe the associatns, the thors say that the geic siari still nnot show whether a given dividual is gay. “It’s the end of the ’gay gene, ’” says Eric Vila, a geicist at Children’s Natnal Health System Washgton, D.

NEW TW STUDY: PEOPLE NOT BORN GAY

“A lot of people want to unrstand the blogy of homosexualy, and science has lagged behd that human tert, ” says William Rice, an evolutnary geicist at the Universy of California, Santa Barbara, who also was not volved the work. The study will not be the last word on the vexg qutn of what homosexualy, however.

Natnal Cancer Instute and his lleagu published a paper suggtg that an area on the X chromosome lled Xq28 uld nta a “gay gene. His study, which analysed the genom of 40 pairs of gay brothers, looked exclively at people who intified as homosexual.

Beg gay is not a choice for people.

THE 'GAY GENE' IS A MYTH BUT BEG GAY IS 'NATURAL,' SAY SCIENTISTS

What we do know is that there isn’t one sgle gene that explas homosexualy.

The most nvcg data about the geic basis of homosexualy om lookg at tws. Beg gay has a lot to do wh geics. Some of the bt evince that homosexualy has a strong geic part om tw studi.

SCIENTISTS MAY HAVE FALLY UNLOCKED PUZZLE OF WHY PEOPLE ARE GAY

Tw studi of homosexualy have shown that intil tws are about twice as likely to both be gay pared to aternal tws. This means that beg gay is partly geic, and not simply somethg that a person learns or choos.

If the DNA sequence were the only thg termg whether someone is gay or not, we would expect intil tws to match 100% of the time. If one tw is gay, the other is gay about 50% of the time as well. What other factors might fluence whether someone is gay?

When lookg at large fai, scientists saw that men wh lots of olr brothers were more likely to be gay. Men wh lots of olr brothers are more likely to be gay. Of urse, this isn’t the only environmental explanatn for how people are born gay – there are plenty of men wh olr brothers who are not gay.