Are gay born
Massive Study Finds No Single Genetic Produce of Same-Sex Sexual Behavior
Few aspects of human biology are as complex—or politically fraught—as sexual orientation. A clear genetic link would advise that gay people are “born this way,” as opposed to having made a lifestyle preference. Yet some dread that such a finding could be misused to “cure” homosexuality, and most research teams own shied away from tackling the topic.
Now a new research claims to dispel the notion that a single gene or handful of genes make a person prone to same-sex behavior. The analysis, which examined the genomes of nearly half a million men and women, found that although genetics are certainly involved in who people pick to have sex with, there are no specific genetic predictors. Yet some researchers question whether the analysis, which looked at genes associated with sexual activity rather than attraction, can illustrate any real conclusions about sexual orientation.
“The message should persist the same that this is a complex behavior that genetics definitely plays a part in,” said study co-author Fah Sathirapongsasuti, a computational biologist at genetic testin
The evolutionary puzzle of homosexuality
These figures may not be high enough to sustain genetic traits specific to this group, but the evolutionary biologist Jeremy Yoder points out in a blog post, external that for much of up-to-date history gay people haven't been living openly lgbtq+ lives. Compelled by culture to enter marriages and have children, their reproduction rates may have been higher than they are now.
How many same-sex attracted people have children also depends on how you define being "gay". Many of the "straight" men who have sex with fa'afafine in Samoa travel on to get married and have children.
"The category of same-sex sexuality becomes very diffuse when you take a multicultural perspective," says Joan Roughgarden, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Hawaii. "If you go to India, you'll find that if someone says they are 'gay' or 'homosexual' then that immediately identifies them as Western. But that doesn't mean there's no homosexuality there."
Similarly in the West, there is evidence that many people go through a phase of homosexual activity. In the 1940s, US sex researcher Alfred K
The claim that homosexual men share a “gay gene” created a furore in the 1990s. But brand-new research two decades on supports this claim – and adds another candidate gene.
To an evolutionary geneticist, the idea that a person’s genetic makeup affects their mating preference is unsurprising. We see it in the animal society all the time. There are probably many genes that affect human sexual orientation.
But rather than thinking of them as “gay genes”, perhaps we should consider them “male-loving genes”. They may be shared because these variant genes, in a female, predispose her to mate earlier and more often, and to have more children.
Likewise, it would be surprising if there were not “female-loving genes” in womxn loving womxn women that, in a male, predispose him to mate earlier and own more children.
Evidence for ‘gay genes’
We can detect genetic variants that produce differences between people by watching traits in families that display differences.
Patterns of inheritance reveal variants of genes (called “alleles”) that affect normal differences such as hair colour, or disease states such as sickle cell anaemia.
Quantitative traits, such as height, are affected by many differen
By Justin Lehmiller
A growing amount of research suggests that sexual orientation has a genetic basis. In truth, scientists recently identified two specific genes that manifest to differ between lgbtq+ and straight men [1].
If sexual orientation is indeed genetically determined, it would be tempting to believe that identical twins would always have the matching orientation, right? If they have the exact matching genes and our genes control our sexuality, this would seem like a pretty logical conclusion. As it turns out, however, it’s not accurate.
Identical twins sometimes have different orientations. For example, one may be straight while the other is gay. So why is that?
In cases like this, some might argue that perhaps both twins are actually same-sex attracted, but one just hasn’t come out yet. In other words, maybe there isn’t a true discrepancy. This idea has been refuted scientifically, though.
In a study where scientists looked at the sexual arousal patterns of identical twins with different sexualities—specifically, where one was gay and the other was straight—they found that gay twins demonstrated more genital arousal in response to queer images, wh
Other liberation movements possess rejected the concept that biology is destiny. So why should gay rights depend on it?
Last month, the US Supreme Court affirmed the rights of same-sex couples to marry. The judgment was a major achievement for a liberation movement that began nearly half a century ago. Throughout the strife for marriage equality, supporters drew parallels with the oppression of African Americans, be that anti-miscegenation laws or legalised segregation. Yet one stark difference between these civil rights movements has escaped notice.
African-American activists aggressively called out arguments about genetic and biological differences as legacies of racist, Nazi science. By contrast, the marriage-equality movement has embraced biological determinism. Lgbtq+ and lesbian activists have led the way popularising the idea that persona is biologically determined.
The proffered perspective is that sexuality is not a selection, but a way we are born. Getting Americans to believe this was a struggle. In 1977, according to the first Gallup poll on the question, only 13 per cent of Americans believed people were born queer . Even in 1990, only 20 per cent thought of sexuality as bio