Are you born gay or do you turn gay
In a poll released on Wednesday, Gallup found that 42% of Americans think homosexual people are born homosexuals, rather than becoming so due to factors such as upbringing and environment. 37% voiced the other side opinion, and another 21% didn’t answer. Nobody asked me, but if they had, I’d have responded with some questions of my own: why are those the only options? How come you’re asking random strangers of unknown sexual orientation rather than actual queer people? And don’t you think that’s kind of a loaded question?
Via Gallup. I looked for the corresponding “why are straight people straight” poll, but for some reason, I couldn’t come across it.
Gallup has a drawn-out history of polling the general public about gay issues, sometimes problematically. In the case of this particular question, it fits into the larger narrative being told by a particularly vocal set of gay rights activists. That narrative goes something enjoy this: gay rights are the civil rights battle of our time. As we know, it’s erroneous to discriminate on the basis of race, because people are born that way. Similarly, it’s incorrect to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation, because p Late last month, a team of MIT and Harvard scientists published a landmark study of the genetic basis for sexual orientation in the journal Science. The investigate, which was based on an examination of the genetic material of almost half a million individuals, definitively refutes the concept that being gay is an innate condition that is controlled or largely compelled by one’s genetic makeup. The study contained two key findings. First, it found that the influence of the genes we inherit from our parents (known as “heritability”) on same-sex orientation was very weak, at only .32 on a scale from 0 (none) to 1 (total) heritability. This means that a person’s developmental environment—which includes diet, family, friends, neighborhood, religion, and a host of other life conditions—is twice as influential on the probability of developing same-sex action or orientation as a person’s genes are. Second, rebutting decades of widespread doctrine, the study established that “there is certainly no single genetic determinant (sometimes referred to as the ‘gay gene’ in the media)” that causes gay sexual behavior. On the contrary A few years ago I was giving a seminar on issues around sexuality at New Wine summer conference. During the questions at the end of the seminar, someone near the advocate asked ‘Are people born gay?’ I was aware that this can be a loaded ask, so I offered a very diligent answer, highlighting what I knew of research but also pointing out that the answer to that question (in either direction) did not offer an immediate answer to questions of sexual ethics, and that for many people (on all sorts of issues) the question of ‘Am I born this way?’ is personal, loaded and sensitive. I thought I had done a reasonable job—until the end of the seminar when I woman pushed through the group waiting to talk to me and started shouting, waving her hands. ‘I brought a group of gay teenagers here from my church—and you have told them God hates them!’ I hadn’t done that at all—in fact, quite the opposite—but it confirmed to me that the doubt of causation is one that is felt strongly and personally within this debate. So, at one level, it was not that surprising that there was quite a bit of coverage of a piece of research published in August 2019 in Sc Being male lover is not a choice for people. Instead, it appears to be a fundamental part of who someone is. It is not a learned action. Which also means that people cannot “unlearn” their sexual orientation. Of course just because we understand it isn’t usually a learned conduct, that doesn’t intend that we own a good explanation for what is going on biologically. We don’t. What we do know is that there isn’t one single gene that explains homosexuality. Something as complicated as sexual orientation is going to involve lots of genes. And not only that, but it will involve the environment too. Now by the environment I don’t just mean an overprotective mom or a domineering dad. “Environment” is a catchall for everything that isn’t a gene. For instance, what the fetus experienced while in the mother’s womb can affect its progress and influence conduct later on in life. So even though you might anticipate that the environment only causes temporary changes, that’s not always the case. The environment can cause brains to be wired in a certain way as it develops. This wiring can’t be changed easily. Right now the Massive Study Finds No Solo Genetic Cause of Gay Sexual Behavior Few aspects of human biology are as complex—or politically fraught—as sexual orientation. A clear genetic link would suggest that gay people are “born this way,” as opposed to having made a lifestyle choice. Yet some fear that such a finding could be misused to “cure” homosexuality, and most research teams acquire shied away from tackling the topic. Now a recent study claims to dispel the notion that a single gene or handful of genes make a person prone to queer behavior. The analysis, which examined the genomes of nearly half a million men and women, create that although genetics are certainly involved in who people choose to possess sex with, there are no specific genetic predictors. Yet some researchers doubt whether the analysis, which looked at genes connected with sexual activity rather than attraction, can tug any real conclusions about sexual orientation. “The message should remain 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
“Born That Way” No More: The New Science of Sexual Orientation
Is a person ‘born gay’, or is being gay a learned behavior?