10 Anti-Gay Myths Debunked | Southern Poverty Law Center

Contents:

• WHY ARE PEOPLE GAY? GAY BY CHOICE OR IS BEG GAY GEIC?
• THERE IS NO ‘GAY GENE.’ THERE IS NO ‘STRAIGHT GENE.’ SEXUALY IS JT PLEX, STUDY NFIRMS
• IS BEG 'GAY' A CHOICE? SCIENCE SAYS Y (BUT NOT THE WAY YOU'RE THKG)
• BEG GAY IS A CHOICE
• WHY WOULD PEOPLE 'CHOOSE' TO BE GAY?
• THE 'GAY GENE' IS A MYTH BUT BEG GAY IS 'NATURAL,' SAY SCIENTISTS
• ‘I AM GAY – BUT I WASN’T BORN THIS WAY’
• ARE YOU BORN GAY OR IS A CHOICE? SCIENTISTS MIGHT HAVE FOUND THE ANSWER
• DO GAYS HAVE A CHOICE?
• BEG GAY NOT A CHOICE: SCIENCE CONTRADICTS BEN CARSON
• BEG GAY IS NOT A CHOICE
• IS A PERSON ‘BORN GAY’, OR IS BEG GAY A LEARNED BEHAVR?
• Y, GAY IS A CHOICE. GET OVER .
• 10 ANTI-GAY MYTHS DEBUNKED
• IS BEG GAY A CHOICE OR FROM BIRTH?
• CAN A PERSON BE BORN GAY?

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

If we fe beg gay as engagg homosexual behavr (the ncept of “gay” as an inty is a Wtern cultural ncept – people who have sex wh both men and women may ll themselv gay, straight or bisexual, pendg on the l of their culture or subculture), then people stop beg gay as soon as they stop engagg this behavr.

If sexual preference n be altered, then people who support gay rights n’t rely on the argument that gay people should be protected om discrimatn bee gay people have no choice but to be gay – an argument that seems like an apology for homosexualy, as if homosexualy is a disease for which there is no cure. Normally heterosexual characters sudnly displayg homosexual leangs when a boost viewg figur are need is a mon trope the days, so you n sort of see how this might make some people thk ’s a “choice”, if they lack more realistic sayg that sexualy is set stone om birth is also not que right, the ma emphasis of those g the choice argument is that homosexuals have weighed up their optns and nscly cid “I am gog to be gay om now on”. Comedian Todd Glass mak a brilliant pot his book (which is great, I got for Christmas), which is that if you genuely believe sexualy is a choice, then you’re not actually straight, you jt haven’t met anyone persuasive enough those who argue that homosexualy is a choice variably assert that is a wrong choice.

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

The news this week that the largt study of s kd failed to nfirm the existence of a "gay gene" is not so much a disappotment for those lookg to unrstand the LGBTQ muny, as is an acknowledgement that science do not need to tell what should be plaly obv: gays, lbians, bisexuals and pansexuals are who they are. You so obvly nnot be gay, was her implitn, bee this is good was 2006, a full five years before Lady Gaga would set the Born This Way argument atop s unassailable cultural perch, but even then the popular unrstandg of orientatn was that was somethg you were born wh, somethg you uldn’t change. Throughout the same perd, the number of Amerins who believe homosexualy is “due to someone’s upbrgg/environment” fell om jt unr 60% to ias reached cril mass pop culture, first wh Lady Gaga’s 2011 Born This Way and one year later wh Macklemore’s Same Love, the chos of which has a gay person sgg “I n’t change even if I tried, even if I wanted to.

In fact, the homophobic and non-homophobic rponnts he studied shared siar levels of belief a Born This Way Samantha Allen not at The Daily Beast, the growg public support for gays and lbians has grown out of proportn wh the rise the number of people who believe homosexualy is fixed at birth; would be unlikely that this small change opn uld expla the spike support for gay marriage, for stance. The APA, for example, while notg that most people experience ltle to no choice over their orientatns, says this of homosexualy’s origs:“Although much rearch has examed the possible geic, hormonal, velopmental, social and cultural fluenc on sexual orientatn, no fdgs have emerged that perm scientists to nclu that sexual orientatn is termed by any particular factor or factors. ” Acrdg to LeVay’s rearch, a specific part of the bra, the third terstial nucls of the anterr hypothalam (INAH-3), is smaller homosexual men than is heterosexual as they might, scientists have stggled to inty any particular gen that nsistently predict the directns of our love and sire (Cred: Ignac Lehmann)Read moreYou n spot the problem wh this study a e away: were the gay bras LeVay studied born that way, or did they bee that way?

IS BEG 'GAY' A CHOICE? SCIENCE SAYS Y (BUT NOT THE WAY YOU'RE THKG)

Bis the dividual criqu leveled agast each new study announcg some gay gene disvery, there are major methodologil cricisms to make about the entire enterprise general, as Grzanka pots out: “If we look at the raveno pursu, particularly among Amerin scientists, to fd a gay gene, what we see is that the ncln has already been arrived at. “Limg our unrstandg of any plex human experience is always gog to be worse than allowg to be plited, ” he gay rights activists pared sexualy to relign - a ccial part of our life that we should be ee to practise however we like (Cred: Ignac Lehamann)So what are we to do wh the Born This Way rhetoric? We all face the same choice, to be thentic and te to your heart and md, or pretend to be someone you are by Kon Karampelas on UnsplashBy John PavlovzConfsn all of my Christian brothers and sisters who sist that homosexualy is a choice, I need to break down and fally adm somethg: I agree wh you.

When you say que matter-of-factly that homosexualy is a choice, I’m not sure you really know that moment, jt what you mean by “homosexualy” too often Christian, when you make the statement that beg gay is a s, what you’re really dog whout realizg is rcg all LGBT people down to a sex act; as if that alone f ’re nyg any emotnal ponent their liv; any pacy to feel real love or show genue affectn toward someone a gross oversimplifitn, you’re labelg a plex, fully formed human beg as merely a performer of ’s somethg you would never do wh heterosexualy, and pecially not wh your own sexualy, bee you unrstand implicly that your sexual orientatn is about much more than a physil act. In the 1968 edn of the Diagnostic and Statistil Manual of Mental Disorrs (DSM)—the dispensable diagnostic tool ed by therapists—homosexualy appeared the sectn on sexual viatns as an stance of an aberratn which sexual terts are “directed primarily toward objects other than people of the oppose sex.

BEG GAY IS A CHOICE

Bee of the enormo prsur phg all of toward the straight end of the Sexual Orientatn Contuum om the time we are very young, is reasonable to assume that most of the people who currently live as homosexuals were probably close to the gay end of the ntuum to beg wh; other words, they probably have strong geic tennci toward homosexualy. Ben Carson, a retired nrosurgeon and printial hopeful, recently apologized for a statement which he said beg gay is "absolutely" a an terview on CNN, the potential 2016 Republin printial ndidate mented that "a lot of people who go to prison, go to prison straight, and when they e out they're gay, so did somethg happen while they were there? And nearly 130 bird speci have been observed engagg sexual activi wh same-sex the evolutnary purpose of this behavr is not clear, the fact that animals routely exhib same-sex behavr beli the notn that gay sex is a morn human studi have found specific "gay gen" that reliably make someone gay.

WHY WOULD PEOPLE 'CHOOSE' TO BE GAY?

The panel clud one member om UNAS, and UNAS endorsed the rults, a report lled Diversy Human Sexualy which was prented on 6 Augt 2015 at a dialogue held Sandton, Teen pated red for beg gay The panel looked at rearch done this field over the last century, reviewg more than 500 studi and papers. Changg mdsPanel member Profsor Harry Dugmore, director of the Disvery Centre for Health Journalism, poted out that even though many societi are still discrimatory legally or socially, change public opn across the world has fact e remarkably swiftly: 15 years ago, no untri allowed gay marriage, now 19 do (the neteenth beg Catholic Ireland, which racked up a vote of 62% favour recently).

Dugmore addrsed the qutn of whether is possible to ‘acquire’ homosexualy – and said the panel’s trawl through all available science had led to a roundg ‘No’ answer: “The ia that sexual orientatn n be acquired bee of greater ntact wh LGBTI [lbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual and tersex] people or that societi that are tolerant ‘promote’ an ‘uptake’ of non-normative sexuali has no basis science, ” he Bullyg begs early for gay children As for any evince that attempts through ‘therapy’ to ‘nvert’ someone om homosexualy to ‘normal’ heterosexualy worked, there was absolutely none, he said. The studi shows how you n show that they do what they n to clu every aspect of sexual thors also take on the popular bate over whether sexual orientatn is a choice, a qutn they say is thor stated that “People have often thought unclearly about sexual orientatn and the polil nsequenc of rearch, ” rultg “The qutn of whether sexual orientatn is ‘chosen’ has divid pro-and anti-gay forc for qutn of atn is mostly irrelevant to the culture wars.

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

The timele of events history that led to the propagatn of the “’s not a choice” unter-argument clearly shows that this is not herently a matter of gay-rights activism, but, rather, a necsary graspg unto somethg prented by a segment of the scientific muny that simultaneoly uld enable a need moment of relief om relentls attacks agast the soul.

If one is gog to fire Crystal Dixon for harmg gay men by remdg all of that no penis is beyond the executive cisns of s owner, then one might as well fire all the humani profsors the Uned Stat (startg wh me), bee seems that lennia of human civilizatn do not unt, and the most advanced natn the world now expects men to live like ttg, unntrolled short, 's time for gay rights activists to get off their high hors and let other people Osr Lopez is the thor of three new books based on his time the gay liftyle, to be published by the owner of the Runaway Pen 2013. But addn to hawkg that myth, the legns of anti-gay activists who followed have add a panoply of others, rangg om the extremely doubtful claim that sexual orientatn is a choice, to unalloyed li like the claims that gay men molt children far more than heterosexuals or that hate crime laws will lead to the legalizatn of btialy and necrophilia. The Amerin Amy of Child & Adolcent Psychiatry affirmed 2013 that “[c]urrent rearch shows that children wh gay and lbian parents do not differ om children wh heterosexual parents their emotnal velopment or their relatnships wh peers and adults” and they are “not more likely than children of heterosexual parents to velop emotnal or behavral problems.

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

The Amerin Psychiatric Associatn noted a 2000 fact sheet available on the Associatn of Gay and Lbian Psychiatrists, that alg wh gay, lbian and bisexual issu, that sexual abe do not appear to be any more prevalent among children who grow up and intify as gay, lbian or bisexual than children who grow up and intify as heterosexual. Siarly, the Natnal Organizatn on Male Sexual Victimizatn not on s webse that "experts the human sexualy field do not believe that premature sexual experienc play a signifint role late adolcent or adult sexual orientatn" and add that 's unlikely that anyone n make another person gay or heterosexual. Anti-gay groups have been adamantly opposed to allowg gay men and lbians to serve openly the armed forc, not only bee of their purported fear that bat reads will be unrmed, but bee the ary has long been nsired the purt merocracy Ameri (the armed forc were succsfully racially tegrated long before Amerin civil society, for example).

A report prented by the Council on Scientific Affairs to the AMA Hoe of Delegat Interim Meetg wh regard to reparative (“ex-gay”) therapy noted that most of the emotnal disturbance gay men and lbians experience around their sexual inty is not based on physlogil , but rather on “a sense of alienatn an unacceptg environment.

ARE YOU BORN GAY OR IS A CHOICE? SCIENTISTS MIGHT HAVE FOUND THE ANSWER

The Amerin Amy of Pediatrics stated 1993 (updated 2004) that “homosexualy has existed most societi for as long as rerd scriptns of sexual beliefs and practic have been available” and that even at that time, “most scholars the field state that one’s sexual orientatn is not a choice … dividuals do not choose to be homosexual or heterosexual. In the article wrten by the Newsweek staff, they monstrated a study by Simon LeVay that snned bras and showed that, “LeVay termed that a ty area believed to ntrol sexual activy was ls the size gay men than heterosexual […] evince of what some gay have long ntend that whether or no they choose to be different, they were born different” (2/14). The accatn of g outdated material and viatg to realms beyond the spe of one's expertise impli two thgs; first, impli that there actually is rmatn that is more up-to-date than what the nun prented on the topic of homosexualy, and sendly impli that there are credible experts who are more qualified to teach or speak on the topic of homosexualy.

DO GAYS HAVE A CHOICE?

Hence, is necsary to provi a summary and analysis of that purported up-to-date scientific evince which supports the claim that homosexualy is not a mental two groups that are typilly emed thorative and credible experts on mental disorrs the Uned Stat are the Amerin Psychologil Associatn (APA) and the Amerin Psychiatric Associatn; th, I will prent their stanc on homosexualy and then analyze the “scientific evince” that they claim supports their stanc.

BEG GAY NOT A CHOICE: SCIENCE CONTRADICTS BEN CARSON

As a rult of their ficienci, the credibily of the Amerin Psychiatric Associatn and the APA, at least their claims regardg human sexualy, is lled to Amerin Psychologil Associatn and the Amerin Psychiatric AssociatnI will beg by scribg the APA and the Amerin Psychiatric Associatn, and I will then prent their stanc on the topic of homosexualy. Dog so will provi more evince of the stance of both the APA and the Amerin Psychiatric Two Associatns’ Stance on HomosexualyThe APA wr:Same-sex sexual attractns, behavr, and orientatns per se are normal and posive variants of human sexualy— other words, they do not dite eher mental or velopmental disorrs.

)Aled KseyThe APA Task Force document proceeds by cg two books wrten by Aled Ksey 1948 and 1953 (Sexual Behavr the Human Male and Sexual Behavr the Human Female):At the same time that the pathologizg views of homosexualy Amerin psychiatry and psychology were beg dified, untervailg evince was accumulatg that this stigmatizg view was ill found.

Ford and Beach also “pot out that among non-human primat both mal and femal engage homosexual activy” (Gentile and Miller 2009), the APA thors suggt that bee two rearchers 1951 found that homosexual sex is observed some humans and animals then the ncln follows that there is “nothg unnatural about .

BEG GAY IS NOT A CHOICE

My foc for this paper is the irrelevant endpot—“adjtment”—ed by Hooker as scientific evince supportg the claim that homosexualy is normal; I foc on that endpot bee as of 2014 “adjtment” is still the endpot ced by the major associatns as scientific evince supportg the claim that homosexualy is a “normal variatn of human sexual orientatn. Gonsrek impli that if sexual orientatn is “related” to psychologil adjtment, then one uld nsir homosexually cled people to be mentally disorred; if, however, there is no difference adjtment measurements of heterosexuals and homosexuals, then (acrdg to Gonsrek) homosexualy is not a mental disorr. The brief then offers a few more catns of scientific evince supportg that claim; one article ced is a review study om 1978 which also looked at “adjtment” and “nclus that fdgs to date have not monstrated that the homosexual dividual is any ls psychologilly adjted than his heterosexual unterpart” (Hart et al.

” Gonsrek claims that bee homosexuals are siar to heterosexuals measur of prsn, self-teem, relatnship disrd, and sexual disrd, tomatilly follows that homosexualy is not a disorr, as he not: “The general ncln is clear: The studi overwhelmgly suggt that homosexualy per se is not related to psychopathology or psychologil adjtment” (Gonsrek 1991, 115–36). Hence, there are multiple mental disorrs which measurg adjtment has no relevance whatsoever to the mental disorr; this is a major ficiency the lerature ed as scientific evince to support the ncln that homosexualy is not a mental is a signifint fdg, although I am not the first to mentn the problem wh diagnosg mental disorrs by lookg at distrs, social functng, or other endpots that are clud unr the terms “adjtment” and “adaptatn.

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

Ronald Bayer summarized the events surroundg the Amerin Psychiatric Associatn's (1973) cisn by notg that Spzer'srtricted fn of mental disorrs, articulated after he had cid that homosexualy had been appropriately classified, entailed two elements: For a behavr to be termed a psychiatric disorr, had to be regularly acpanied by subjective distrs and/or “some generalized impairment social effectivens or functng. In orr to be nsistent wh their logic ed to normalize homosexualy, they mt normalize all other sexual actns that stimulate one to the pot of asm that do not e bad measurements of “adjtment” or rult impaired social functng; is te that they also allow a diagnosis of a sexual disorr if a viance “harm” to another, but that is only if there is lack of nsent.

Y, GAY IS A CHOICE. GET OVER .

Unfortunately, fatally flawed reasong has served as the basis for “rigoro” and “scientific evince” supportg the claim that homosexualy is not a mental disorr but is rather a normal variant of human sexual nnot nclu (wh Aled Ksey) that a human behavr is normal simply bee is more mon than prevly assumed—otherwise all human behavrs, cludg serial killg, would have to be nsired normal. ” which wonred, skeptilly: If the study prov that homosexualy is related to the environment, above all, and not to heredy – why isn’t right and proper, scientific terms, to allow those who so sire to unrgo treatment orr to rce their same-sex sir, which have now been shown not to be geic? “In 1991, ” LeVay told Haaretz a phone nversatn, “I published a study that got a lot of media attentn, related to my observatn that there was a regn si the hypothalam that was different size between men and women, and also between gay and straight men… My addnal fdg was the difference size between gay and straight men this regn si the hypothalam that is volved the regulatn of sexual behavr.

Ksey had nducted a survey of men, which found that 37 percent of his subjects said they had unrgone a homosexual experience of some kd, and 10 percent said they had been exclively gay for three years of their adult life – a statistic which to this day is generally said to reprent the proportn of people engagg same-sex behavr. ”One of the lsons, and one of the most tertg pots arisg om the study has to do, says Ganna, wh the mo of measurement that had been e sce 1948, when Ksey’s sle ranked dividuals as beg between 0 (totally heterosexual) and 6 (totally homosexual) “Basilly, the tenncy is to lote dividuals on a ntuum. ”In recent years, “there have been many studi showg that people’s attus toward homosexualy are closely tied to their beliefs about what mak people gay, ” says LeVay, cg a survey that showed there was a high probabily that people who thk homosexualy is a choice will object to a gay person beg their children’s teacher – which a way might make sense, he adds: “If you thk beg gay is somethg fect, socially ntag, and you didn’t want your kid to be gay, then you wouldn’t want their teacher to be gay...

10 ANTI-GAY MYTHS DEBUNKED

Even though the program achieved relatively imprsive rults, the study as such drew wispread cricism – not unual for rearchers engaged such Stanford “gays intifitn” program may be an extreme example, this rpect, but ’s also a byproduct of the nsirable surge studi this field, a trend that began the early 1990s. The latt survey, om the end of last year, showed this trend ntug: More than half of the Amerin public believ that gay people are born wh their sexual orientatn, whereas only 30 percent attribute to environmental factors (10 percent said both factors play a part, 4 percent ced other factors and 6 percent said they weren’t sure).

Wh this ia md, an ternatnal team of rearchers led by Brendan Zietsch of the Universy of Queensland, Atralia, gathered nearly half a ln geic profil om the UK Bbank and the Californian pany 23andMe, and subjected them to a genome-wi associatn study (GWAS) to try to intify geic variants that uld be lked to homosexual behavur both men and women. Here, we will take a look at ten of the mont arguments lnched agast homosexualy and ced to oppose gay rights legislatn: (1) Marriage should be between a man and a woman, bee has always been this way; (2) Homosexualy is a choice; (3) The Bible nmns homosexualy; (4) Homosexualy is unnatural; (5) Homosexuals do not procreate; (6) All men n marry women, and all women n marry men, therefore there is no equaly; (7) If we legalize gay marriage, what's next?

IS BEG GAY A CHOICE OR FROM BIRTH?

CAN A PERSON BE BORN GAY?