Are people born gay? | SiOWfa16: Science Our World: Certaty and Controversy

Contents:

• IS A PERSON ‘BORN GAY’, OR IS BEG GAY A LEARNED BEHAVR?
• ARE WE BORN GAY?
• IS ANYONE BORN GAY?
• WHY ARE PEOPLE GAY? GAY BY CHOICE OR IS BEG GAY GEIC?
• WHAT DO THE BIBLE SAY ABOUT BEG BORN GAY?
• 'GAY GEN': SCIENCE IS ON THE RIGHT TRACK, WE'RE BORN THIS WAY. LET’S AL WH .
• THERE IS NO ‘GAY GENE.’ THERE IS NO ‘STRAIGHT GENE.’ SEXUALY IS JT PLEX, STUDY NFIRMS
• ARE SOME PEOPLE BORN GAY?
• CAN A PERSON BE BORN GAY?
• NEWS: 'GAY GEN': SCIENCE IS ON THE RIGHT... (THE GUARDIAN) - BEHD THE HEADL
• ARE PEOPLE BORN GAY?

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

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. 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. This uld mean that there are some gen that are passed down om the mother’s si that make women more fertile and make men more likely to be gay.

ARE WE BORN GAY?

But on the other, he totally wrtl wh the image produced by the ia that one might be "born gay, " of a ltle male neonate appearg wh illy pk diapers and graspg a Barbie doll. First, by ncentratg on the left si of the graphs, the rear n see that there is a segment of adult gay men who remember beg highly genr non-nformg as kids.

Maybe we n agree that the image evoked by "born gay"—that ltle girl neonate appearg wearg overalls and graspg a toy tck—do not help thk through qutns of sexual sire and inty. Gay nrologist Simon LeVay explas that sexual orientatn is “the tra that predispos to experience sexual attractn” (Gay, Straight, and the Reason Why, 1). Many homosexuals hold to the belief that they were born that way, and there are some rearchers who suggt, on the basis of several recent studi, that there may be a geic predisposn toward homosexualy some people.

IS ANYONE BORN GAY?

In any se, other scientists have challenged the studi, and there is prently no generally accepted scientific evince that the homosexual clatn is born.

It mt be emphasized that even if a blogil predisposn to homosexualy some people exists, would not change God’s opposn to the behavr. 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.

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

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.

So, let’s take the person who says, “I was born gay, ” and they mean they have some geic atn for their attractn to people of the same sex. Then there’s the person who says “I was born gay” and may mean “I have the sir for persons of the same sex and I didn’t nscly choose them.

” 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.

WHAT DO THE BIBLE SAY ABOUT BEG BORN GAY?

In a recent Guardian article, Simon Copland argued that is very unlikely people are born gay (or prumably any other sexual orientatn). Fdg evince for a blogil basis should not sre or unrme gay, lbian and bisexual (LGB) rights (the studi I refer to do not clu transgenred dividuals, so I’ll nfe my ments to lbian, gay and bisexual people). Evince om pennt rearch groups who studied tws shows that geic factors expla about 25-30% of the differenc between people sexual orientatn (heterosexual, gay, lbian, and bisexual).

Tw studi are a first look to the geics of a tra and tell that there are such thgs as “gen for sexual orientatn” (I hate the phrase “gay gene”). Three gene fdg studi showed that gay brothers share geic markers on the X chromosome; the most recent study also found shared markers on chromosome 8. Perhaps this is due to the stereotype that female sexualy is “too plex” or that lbians are rarer than gay are far om the whole story.

Gen uld themselv nudge one towards a particular sexual orientatn or gen may simply teract wh other environmental factors (such as sex hormon the womb environment) to fluence later sexual bras of gay and heterosexual people also appear to be anised differently. For example patterns of bra anisatn appear siar between gay men and heterosexual women and between lbian women and heterosexual men. Differenc bra anisatn mean differenc psychology and study after study show differenc gnn between heterosexual and gay people.

'GAY GEN': SCIENCE IS ON THE RIGHT TRACK, WE'RE BORN THIS WAY. LET’S AL WH .

The fluence of blogy ns throughout our sexual and genred liv and those differenc, that diversy, is surely to be wrers tend to wave off the scientific evince by urgg to look to the history of sexualy or claim that homosexualy is a social nstctn (cue Michel Fouult and the like). Surely our choic are the rult of thgs we didn’t choose (our gen, personali, upbrgg, and culture) worry that scientific rearch will lead to “cur” for homosexualy (which is an odd worry to have if you don’t believe the “born this way” argument). We are who we are, and our sexuali are part of human worry about the claims of social nstctn, choice and such like is that plays to the hands of homophobic iology, to the hands of the “aversn therapists”, and to the hands of a growg culture which seeks to mimise gay differenc.

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

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.

ARE SOME PEOPLE BORN GAY?

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.

CAN A PERSON BE BORN GAY?

“[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. 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.

NEWS: 'GAY GEN': SCIENCE IS ON THE RIGHT... (THE GUARDIAN) - BEHD THE HEADL

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.

ARE PEOPLE BORN 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.