Homosexuality: Chosen or Genetic?

"Mom's Genetics Could Produce Gay Sons" Ker Than

The arrangement of a mother's genes could affect the sexual orientation of her son, according to a new study.

The finding, detailed in the February issue of the journal Human Genetics, adds fuel to the decade-long debate about whether so-called "gay genes" might exist.

The researchers examined a phenomenon called "X chromosome inactivation" in 97 mothers of gay sons and 103 mothers whose sons were not gay.

X and Y

Chromosomes are large thread-like molecules that contain an organism's genetic instructions. Humans have 23 chromosome pairs. The X chromosome is one of two sex chromosomes in mammals; the other is the Y chromosome. Females have two X chromosomes and no Ys, while males have one X and one Y.

Even though women have two X chromosomes, only one is functional because the other is inactivated through a process called "methylation."

Big Difference

Normally, X chromosome inactivation occurs at random: half of the cells in a woman's body will have one X chromosome inactivated, while the other half inactivates the other chromosome.

However, when the researchers in the current study examined cells from the 42 mothers who had at least two gay sons, they found that about a quarter of the women in this group showed something different.

"Every single cell that we looked at in these women inactivated the same X chromosome," Bocklandt told LiveScience. "That's highly unusual."

In contrast, only 4 percent of mothers with no gay sons and 13 percent of those with just one gay son showed this type of extreme skewing.

Bocklandt thinks this suggest that a mother's X chromosomes partly influences whether her son is gay or not.

"We think that there are one or more genes on the X chromosome that have an effect on the sexual orientation of the sons of these mothers, as well as an effect on the cells we were looking at," Bocklandt said.

Other Chromosomes Implicated

Bocklandt was also involved in an earlier study that looked at the entire human genome of men who had two or more gay brothers. The researchers found identical stretches of DNA on three chromosomes—7, 8 and 10—that were shared by about 60 percent of the gay brothers in the study.

That study also found mothers to have an unusually large role in their son's sexual orientation: the region on chromosome 10 correlated with homosexuality only if it was inherited from the mother.

The results from these two studies suggest that there are multiple genetic factors involved in determining a person's sexual orientation and that it might vary depending on the person.

"We think that there are going to be some gay men who are X chromosome gay men and some who are chromosome 7 gay men or chromosome 10 gay men or some combination," Bocklandt said in a telephone interview.

Most researchers now think that there is no single gay gene that controls whether a person is homosexual or not. Rather, it's the influence of multiple genes, combined with biological influences, which ultimately determine whether a person is gay.

A Touchy Subject

Research into the genetics of sexual orientation is controversial. Religious leaders who believe that sexual orientation is a choice argue that such research is an attempt to legitimize homosexuality; others worry that a detailed knowledge of the genetics underlying homosexuality will open the door to genetic engineering that prevents it.

But Bocklandt doesn't think these concerns should prevent scientists from asking the basic question of whether homosexuality has an underlying genetic component to it or not.

"I have no doubt that at some point we'll be able to manipulate all sorts of aspects of our personality and physical appearance," Bocklandt said. "I think if there's ever a time when we can make these changes for sexual orientation, then we will also be able to do it for intelligence or musical skills or certain physical characteristics—but whether or not these things are allowed to happen is something that society as a whole has to decide. It's not a scientific question."

No matter how you look at it, choice does not factor into the equation.

Thanks for the Research Adam Poe

As for the question of whether or not it's a choice: Nearly every single Gay or Lesbian person you will talk to will tell you they never chose to be Gay. I don't understand why the debate isn't already dead by now.

Originally posted by inimalist
Science 23 April 1999:
Vol. 284. no. 5414, p. 571

Discovery of 'Gay Gene' Questioned
Ingrid Wickelgren

Six years ago, molecular geneticist Dean Hamer and his colleagues at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) announced to great fanfare that they had found a genetic link to male homosexuality. Their work indicated, they said, that an as yet unidentified gene on the X chromosome influences who develops the trait (Science, 16 July 1993, p. 321). Researchers were excited by the possibility of one day learning the biological basis for sexual orientation but also wary, given that initial reports of genetic linkages for other complex traits, such as manic depression and schizophrenia, had fallen apart under further scrutiny. Now the "gay gene" linkage may be suffering a similar fate.

On page 665, clinical neurologists George Rice and George Ebers at the University of Western Ontario in London and their colleagues report failing to find a link between male homosexuality and Xq28, the chromosomal segment implicated by the NCI team's study. In addition, unpublished work from a group led by psychiatrist Alan Sanders at the University of Chicago does not provide strong support for a linkage. Taken together, Rice says, all the results "would suggest that if there is a linkage it's so weak that it's not important." He adds that genetics may still contribute to homosexuality, but researchers should be looking elsewhere for the genes.

Hamer disagrees that the Xq28 linkage is weak, citing possible problems with how Rice's team selected their study subjects. And other observers say that the jury is still out. Elliot Gershon, a psychiatric geneticist at the University of Chicago, calls the Ontario team's finding "interesting and important" but cautions that more data are needed. "Failure to find linkage in this study does not mean it doesn't exist," he says.

That genes may contribute to homosexuality in males became clear in 1991 when psychologist Michael Bailey of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, found that fully 52% of the identical twins of gay men were also gay, compared to just 22% percent for fraternal twins. Then in 1993, Hamer's team pointed to a place where a putative "gay gene" might reside.

They homed in on the X chromosome, which males inherit only from their mothers, because they noticed a preponderance of gay relatives on the maternal side of the families of the gay men they studied. When the researchers took a closer look at the X chromosomes of 40 pairs of gay brothers from the families with maternal gay relatives, they saw that the brothers were far more likely to share certain DNA signposts, or markers, on the Xq28 region of the chromosome than would be expected by chance. The team confirmed the linkage in a second study of 33 new families with gay brothers, published in Nature Genetics in 1995. In this X chromosome snippet, the researchers concluded, lay a gene that could nudge males toward homosexuality.

Meanwhile, intrigued by the initial report, Rice and Ebers undertook their own study to see if the result would hold up. They recruited families with two or more gay brothers through ads in Canadian gay news magazines. The families responding to the ads included 52 pairs of brothers willing to donate blood, which the researchers examined for the presence of four markers in region Xq28, using methods similar to those employed by Hamer's group.

But the Ontario team found that gay brothers were no more likely to share the Xq28 markers than would be expected by chance. And although a statistical analysis of the data could not rule out the existence of a gene in this region with a small influence on the trait, it could exclude the possibility of any gene in Xq28 with a major genetic influence, say, doubling a male's chances of being gay. Ebers interprets all these results to mean that the X linkage is all but dead. "What is troubling is that there is no hint or trend in the direction of the initial observation," he says.

Hamer, however, thinks that the way the Ontario researchers selected the families would tend to hide the Xq28 contribution. He always said, he points out, that the gene does not influence all cases of male homosexuality but only those that are transmitted maternally. And in contrast to his group, Hamer says, the Ontario team did not select families based on the presence of maternal transmission. "Maybe there was an X chromosomal linkage in some families, but those families weren't analyzed," Hamer says.

Ebers says they didn't select their families based on maternal transmission because they found no convincing evidence for such transmission in the family pedigrees. What's more, even after his group removed two families that might wash out an X chromosome effect because there were signs of the trait in females or in the father, the results remained the same. Nor was the effect evident in a study led by Sanders, which he reported last June at a meeting of the American Psychiatric Association. His team had found only a weak hint--that wasn't statistically significant--of an Xq28 linkage among 54 gay brother pairs.

A much larger study, using, say, 200 gay brother pairs, could probably resolve the issue, researchers say, but funding for such a project has been hard to obtain. So could any successful efforts to pluck out a gene in Xq28, something Hamer's group is pursuing. But the Ontario team doubts that route will pay off. "We're looking for a link on other chromosomes," Rice says.

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/284/5414/571

Interesting. Thanks.

It doesn't do much to change my thesis, however. And I didn't claim that the research was infallible (very little is with such a new subject). It's likely that genetic factors play a role in sexual preference. But they are far from the only cause, and it still remains a person's choice to pursue that lifestyle or not. As I stated before, we aren't our genes, and are capable of performing acts that are counter-intuitive to our evolutionary programming (and do so regularly). I'd like to see it studied further to wash away some of the uncertainty. The figures about twins' sexual preference seems convincing, but is still anecdotal, not empirical.

Originally posted by inimalist
Perspectives on Psychological Science 2 (2), 142–161.
June 2007

Lisa M. Diamond

A Dynamical Systems Approach to the Development and Expression of Female Same-Sex Sexuality

I've encountered the systems approach to social phenomenon before. My only problem it is that it dilutes social interaction into such vague terms that you can describe literally any social interaction using a systems explanation, but it doesn't really tell you anything important. I think it's better left to economic models that it was originally intended for.

Originally posted by DigiMark007
It doesn't do much to change my thesis, however. And I didn't claim that the research was infallible (very little is with such a new subject). It's likely that genetic factors play a role in sexual preference. But they are far from the only cause, and it still remains a person's choice to pursue that lifestyle or not. As I stated before, we aren't our genes, and are capable of performing acts that are counter-intuitive to our evolutionary programming (and do so regularly). I'd like to see it studied further to wash away some of the uncertainty. The figures about twins' sexual preference seems convincing, but is still anecdotal, not empirical.

I agree.

The majority of the homosexuals I have known were homosexual because that is the way they were born...not the way they just all of a sudden decided to be. (Meaning, they have had homosexual urges their entire life and the opposite sex was never sexually appealing for them.)

Originally posted by DigiMark007
It's likely that genetic factors play a role in sexual preference.

More than likely, however they wouldn't be the only part. I think certain behaviors and/or experiences may "trigger" the growth of homosexual desire in some, while others are born that way.

Originally posted by DigiMark007
But they are far from the only cause, and it still remains a person's choice to pursue that lifestyle or not.

This is the statement I disagree with 👇

When you say "pursue that lifestyle", it sounds like you are saying homosexuality is nothing more than a behavior. Which it is not.

There are plenty of homosexual men who have gotten married and lived the "heterosexual lifestyle" for decades, still carrying there homosexual attractions and desires, simply refusing to act on them, but still having them. Sooner or later, they all crack and these men end up cheating on thier wives with other men, not "coming out" until much later in thier life.

Same with Lesbian women.

What makes a person a homosexual isn't simply who they have sex with. We already know this, as many marriages are frauds because thier nothing more than a "cover up".

What makes a person a homosexual is thier attraction to the same sex. Nothing more, nothing less.

***There are GAY VIRGINS. And you are forgetting that. ***
There are young boys who have sex with girls, but masturbate over the thought of other boys, simply because it arouses them.

Are you going to tell me that masturbating to the thought of other men is a lifestyle ? 😬

And tell me..... who chooses what they are aroused by ?

Originally posted by SpearofDestiny
Thanks for the Research Adam Poe

As for the question of whether or not it's a choice: Nearly every single Gay or Lesbian person you will talk to will tell you they never chose to be Gay. I don't understand why the debate isn't already dead by now.

Because if it isn't a choice, then (certain) people do not have valid ground for denying gays equal rights... that and it would show that a certain view of God is flawed. Why would God make people gay, if homosexuality if a sin.

Originally posted by Robtard
that and it would show that a certain view of God is flawed. Why would God make people gay, if homosexuality if a sin.

That one is easy really easy to answer...but I am not a petty religion preacher who crams religion down people's throats.

Originally posted by inimalist
Science 23 April 1999:
Vol. 284. no. 5414, p. 571

Discovery of 'Gay Gene' Questioned
Ingrid Wickelgren

Six years ago, molecular geneticist Dean Hamer and his colleagues at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) announced to great fanfare that they had found a genetic link to male homosexuality. Their work indicated, they said, that an as yet unidentified gene on the X chromosome influences who develops the trait (Science, 16 July 1993, p. 321). Researchers were excited by the possibility of one day learning the biological basis for sexual orientation but also wary, given that initial reports of genetic linkages for other complex traits, such as manic depression and schizophrenia, had fallen apart under further scrutiny. Now the "gay gene" linkage may be suffering a similar fate.

On page 665, clinical neurologists George Rice and George Ebers at the University of Western Ontario in London and their colleagues report failing to find a link between male homosexuality and Xq28, the chromosomal segment implicated by the NCI team's study. In addition, unpublished work from a group led by psychiatrist Alan Sanders at the University of Chicago does not provide strong support for a linkage. Taken together, Rice says, all the results "would suggest that if there is a linkage it's so weak that it's not important." He adds that genetics may still contribute to homosexuality, but researchers should be looking elsewhere for the genes.

Hamer disagrees that the Xq28 linkage is weak, citing possible problems with how Rice's team selected their study subjects. And other observers say that the jury is still out. Elliot Gershon, a psychiatric geneticist at the University of Chicago, calls the Ontario team's finding "interesting and important" but cautions that more data are needed. "Failure to find linkage in this study does not mean it doesn't exist," he says.

That genes may contribute to homosexuality in males became clear in 1991 when psychologist Michael Bailey of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, found that fully 52% of the identical twins of gay men were also gay, compared to just 22% percent for fraternal twins. Then in 1993, Hamer's team pointed to a place where a putative "gay gene" might reside.

They homed in on the X chromosome, which males inherit only from their mothers, because they noticed a preponderance of gay relatives on the maternal side of the families of the gay men they studied. When the researchers took a closer look at the X chromosomes of 40 pairs of gay brothers from the families with maternal gay relatives, they saw that the brothers were far more likely to share certain DNA signposts, or markers, on the Xq28 region of the chromosome than would be expected by chance. The team confirmed the linkage in a second study of 33 new families with gay brothers, published in Nature Genetics in 1995. In this X chromosome snippet, the researchers concluded, lay a gene that could nudge males toward homosexuality.

Meanwhile, intrigued by the initial report, Rice and Ebers undertook their own study to see if the result would hold up. They recruited families with two or more gay brothers through ads in Canadian gay news magazines. The families responding to the ads included 52 pairs of brothers willing to donate blood, which the researchers examined for the presence of four markers in region Xq28, using methods similar to those employed by Hamer's group.

But the Ontario team found that gay brothers were no more likely to share the Xq28 markers than would be expected by chance. And although a statistical analysis of the data could not rule out the existence of a gene in this region with a small influence on the trait, it could exclude the possibility of any gene in Xq28 with a major genetic influence, say, doubling a male's chances of being gay. Ebers interprets all these results to mean that the X linkage is all but dead. "What is troubling is that there is no hint or trend in the direction of the initial observation," he says.

Hamer, however, thinks that the way the Ontario researchers selected the families would tend to hide the Xq28 contribution. He always said, he points out, that the gene does not influence all cases of male homosexuality but only those that are transmitted maternally. And in contrast to his group, Hamer says, the Ontario team did not select families based on the presence of maternal transmission. "Maybe there was an X chromosomal linkage in some families, but those families weren't analyzed," Hamer says.

Ebers says they didn't select their families based on maternal transmission because they found no convincing evidence for such transmission in the family pedigrees. What's more, even after his group removed two families that might wash out an X chromosome effect because there were signs of the trait in females or in the father, the results remained the same. Nor was the effect evident in a study led by Sanders, which he reported last June at a meeting of the American Psychiatric Association. His team had found only a weak hint--that wasn't statistically significant--of an Xq28 linkage among 54 gay brother pairs.

A much larger study, using, say, 200 gay brother pairs, could probably resolve the issue, researchers say, but funding for such a project has been hard to obtain. So could any successful efforts to pluck out a gene in Xq28, something Hamer's group is pursuing. But the Ontario team doubts that route will pay off. "We're looking for a link on other chromosomes," Rice says.

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/284/5414/571

Originally posted by dadudemon
That one is easy really easy to answer...but I am not a petty religion preacher who crams religion down people's throats.

Even though it wasn't really a question, please go on. Because according to religious dogma, God doesn't make people sin, people choose to sin, because we're flawed.

Originally posted by Robtard
Because if it isn't a choice, then (certain) people do not have valid ground for denying gays equal rights... that and it would show that a certain view of God is flawed. Why would God make people gay, if homosexuality if a sin.

I know. It would become the moral equivalent of Racism in the eyes of the religious, if it was concluded that homosexual was in fact genetic.

However, keep in mind. Racism a few centuries back wasn't exactly condemned by many religious officials. It was only much later when Catholics and Protestants decided it was unfair.

Sooner or later, Christians will accept Gays as one of thier own. Probably won't be for another few centuries though, since the "issue" of homosexuality just arised the past few decades.

Originally posted by Robtard
Even though it wasn't really a question, please go on. Because according to religious dogma, God doesn't make people sin, people choose to sin, because we're flawed.

The reason I didn't want to go there is I like people with apparent "flaws".

But to answer your question......everyone who thinks God doesn't create people with flaws is in one form or another, ignorant of God's nature, imo. He creates us with flaws so "that you may learn wisdom". If God created us as perfect...why they hell were we born here in the first place? I believe God gives us weaknesses to work on or endure to become better people and appreciate the world around us better. This is, according to my beliefs, a preparatory estate for the next life.

Originally posted by SpearofDestiny
I know. It would become the moral equivalent of Racism in the eyes of the religious, if it was concluded that homosexual was in fact genetic.

However, keep in mind. Racism a few centuries back wasn't exactly condemned by many religious officials. It was only much later when Catholics and Protestants decided it was unfair.

Sooner or later, Christians will accept Gays as one of thier own. Probably won't be for another few centuries though, since the "issue" of homosexuality just arised the past few decades.

There's a catch, how many times have you personnally heard a Christian/Religious person tell you, "God nor I do not hate you, we hate the sin."

Originally posted by dadudemon
The reason I didn't want to go there is I like people with apparent "flaws".

But to answer your question......everyone who thinks God doesn't create people with flaws is in one form or another, ignorant of God's nature, imo. He creates us with flaws so "that you may learn wisdom". If God created us as perfect...why they hell were we born here in the first place? I believe God gives us weaknesses to work on or endure to become better people and appreciate the world around us better. This is, according to my beliefs, a preparatory estate for the next life.

You're missing the point, people sin because we're flawed, but "sinning" is still our choice, as God doesn't make us sin. I.E., "God don't make gay babies!"

Originally posted by Robtard
Even though it wasn't really a question, please go on. Because according to religious dogma, God doesn't make people sin, people choose to sin, because we're flawed.

It's idiotic on thier part though, because they simply see Homosexuality as a behavior and nothing more. It's not simply a behavior. Homosexuality involves Attraction, just like Heterosexuality does.

A Virgin with Homosexual Attractions is still Homosexual, and nothing he or she does will suddenly make him or her "heterosexual". There are plenty of homosexuals who marry someone of the opposite sex, and sooner or later they crack. It doesn't work.

Originally posted by Robtard
You're missing the point, people sin because we're flawed, but "sinning" is still our choice, as God doesn't make us sin. I.E., "God don't make gay babies!"

No, I am not missing the point...everyone else is...God made us imperfect so that we would sin. FOR REALS dawg. How can you know light if you have never known darkness?

Originally posted by SpearofDestiny
There are plenty of homosexuals who marry someone of the opposite sex, and sooner or later they crack. It doesn't work.

I disagree..I am sure there have been many people who never acted on their homosexuality just because they thought it was wrong because of their religion...or they stopped doing homosexual activities because they thought it was wrong...but, you are correct, it doesn't really mean they stopped being homosexual.

Originally posted by dadudemon
No, I am not missing the point...everyone else is...God made us imperfect so that we would sin. FOR REALS dawg. How can you know light if you have never known darkness?

the Christian tradition is that man chooses to sin and to repent

its where political and individual freedoms come from in the western world

Originally posted by dadudemon
No, I am not missing the point...everyone else is...God made us imperfect so that we would sin. FOR REALS dawg. How can you know light if you have never known darkness?

Either way I figure.

Originally posted by dadudemon
No, I am not missing the point...everyone else is...God made us imperfect so that we would sin. FOR REALS dawg. How can you know light if you have never known darkness?

Everyone? So you're just that one "right" guy...

Sin is still a choice of man by your account, so I'm not exactly sure what you're debating against me.

Originally posted by Bardock42
Seems like two interpretations of a fictional character...that never defined them closely.

Either way I figure.

For the record, what I am saying is from accepted Christian dogma; not my own personal beliefs.

Originally posted by Robtard
Everyone? So you're just that one "right" guy...

Sin is still a choice of man by your account, so I'm not exactly sure what you're debating against me.

For the record, what I am saying is from accepted Christian dogma; not my own personal beliefs.

I don't think we are debating anything. I don't think either one of us believes being born homosexual is a sin.

True that most Christians believe that God does not give us weaknesses that cause us to sin...but I believe that directly contradicts the fundamental reason we are here in the first place: to grow and make ourselves better people.

You can be homosexual and not act on it...therefore avoiding the "sinning". However, it is not for me to judge what is a sin and what is not...I let homosexuals be homosexuals and unless I chose to be a religious counselor...it will never be my place to dissuade them from homosexuality...hence why I don't like to preach my religion...I hate how people use God against other people...I HATE IT. (Christians..Muslims...Jews...etc.)

Originally posted by dadudemon
I don't think we are debating anything. I don't think either one of us believes being born homosexual is a sin.

True that most Christians believe that God does not give us weaknesses that cause us to sin...but I believe that directly contradicts the fundamental reason we are here in the first place: to grow and make ourselves better people.

You can be homosexual and not act on it...therefore avoiding the "sinning". However, it is not for me to judge what is a sin and what is not...I let homosexuals be homosexuals and unless I chose to be a religious counselor...it will never be my place to dissuade them from homosexuality...hence why I don't like to preach my religion...I hate how people use God against other people...I HATE IT. (Christians..Muslims...Jews...etc.)

Baffling...

Those are your own personal views/interpretation of God, okay.

I don't like when people do that either, if you hate gays, just be honest and say you hate gays; don't hide behind a religious safety-net, imo.