Startling Study Says People May Be Born Gay

HealthDayNews ^ | October 6, 2003 | Amanda Gardner

[AntiGuv]

I'm posting this primarily to make two relevant observations (aside from the fact that it just hit at least Yahoo's frontpage news):

1) Without going into boring detail, Qazi Rahman has come under some question for misrepresenting other researchers work. While I do not mean to cast doubt on this study of its own accord and on its own merits, Rahman's characterization of the results is open to valid objection, IMHO. Rahman is clearly an adherent to the biased agenda of proving that sexual orientation is an inborn trait in both men & women.

2) It must be emphasized - as Rahman does not and as the 3 media reports I've seen on the matter do not - that the difference between straight men and gay men was not statistically significant. These results actually point toward one of the conclusions which are the subject of a much broader work that I've been engaged in for some while now (to be published some day or other):

That sexual orientation is largely predetermined amongst females but not so amongst males - or, more accurately, that biological factors exert a much stronger influence on the sexual preferences of women than of men (where the influence is marginal, at best). In short, that the mechanisms of sexual orientation are not directly comparable mirror processes between men and women (as most researchers have tended to assume - incorrectly, IMHO) or necessarily uniform within either.

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[Saundra Duffy]

Oh, I see - a generational curse.

[Temple Drake]

The testing was done on adults. Nature vs. nurture is not addressed. Basically he is saying what can be seen without any tests at all: "Look, queer men are girly! queer women are mannish!" What he has not shown is how they got that way .. and when.

[sirchtruth]

CHOICE...

[sirchtruth]

Let me rephrase that...Perverted Choice!

[txzman]

Garbage! I bet I can find an opposite conclusion in studies done with outdoor bathroom lights in camp sites.

[liberallarry]

Robert Kagan has been doing a lot of work on the biological basis of basic personality traits. While not directly bearing on the question of inborn sexual orientation it is interesting.

[cavtrooper21]

I like this idea.
Now that it is "OK to be Gay", there will be little or no pressure for the gay population to reproduce / produce viable offspring.
They have caused their own extinction by "winning equal rights"
Yes, I know there are gays that have children, but the number is so low as to be statisticly nil...
Now that the sodomites have won the right to NOT knuckle under to the pressures of family, church and culture to engage in "normal relationships", there is a good chance that they will sodomize themselves out of the picture.
So although there are fears that the homos are "taking over" they are really just a flash in pan and will soon be departing for the home of the Dodo and the dinosaurs.
Bye bye....

[Paleo Conservative]

The testing was done on adults. Nature vs. nurture is not addressed. Basically he is saying what can be seen without any tests at all: "Look, queer men are girly! queer women are mannish!" What he has not shown is how they got that way .. and when.

But straight women tend not to be promiscuous while gay males tend to be extremely promiscuous. If anything male homosexuals exaggerate the male tendency to be promiscuous.

[LPM1888]

I am firmly convinced that genetics is a major factor in sexual determination. One of my friends who is a lesbian has bodily features that are so obviously male that she alone constitutes a very strong proof of genetic disposition. Anyone she meets knows immediately that she is a lesbian and that she didn't have any choice, she's built like a Mack Truck.

I also had a male cousin who was almost a full double cousin (ours fathers were brothers and our mothers are first cousins). On his side, the only genetic lineage we do not share included an uncle who was definitely homosexual and a concert musician. My double cousin was homosexual and he said he never had a desire for a female in his life, he also was an accomplished musician and had a brief career in ballet. I on the other hand am completely straight and tone deaf. Those two people have completely convinced me about the genetic aspects of homosexuality. I am proud to have both of them as family members.

These are obviously anecdotal instances but they are also cases of which I am extremely familar.

[Mark]

IF a gene can be discovered showing a future gay person, the liberals wouldn't complain if a couple chose aborting the "tissue" would they?

[Rodney King]

So, if they are born that way, does that make them genetic defects?

[CodeMonkey]

Have any of the people who think that it's not biological in many, if not most, cases ever stopped to ask why a man would prefer a man instead of a woman? I'm attracted to women and when I look at another man I feel nothing along the lines of what a heterosexual man feels when looking at an attractive woman. The only nature versus nurture here is involved in those too indoctrinated to see the simple, rational explanation for most cases of homosexuality.

[weegee]

People are born poor (an inherited condition that often is associated with the father). We do not ebrace "poor culture" and strive to see that the poor are proud of who they are and that they remain true to their poor roots.

We seek to bring them into the norm of society so that they can better themselves.

[AntiGuv]

There are two additional points worth making about this study. A fairly consistent feature of biological research into sexual orientation has been a clear divergence in the results within females and those within males. By the relevant measures, lesbians tend to situate clearly separate from straight women while by any measure there is overlap between straight men and gay men.

In other words, with this study, whereas you might expect all lesbians to evidence a more 'masculine' startle response than other women, you would expect some straight men to evidence a less 'masculine' startle response than some gay men. In fact, what you often tend to see is two distinct subgroups of men - one best described as 'effeminate' and one best described as 'hypermasculine' - with the rest just intermixed amongst the straight men.

This is consistent with studies of prenatal androgen exposure, adult circulating testosterone, brain structure size differentials, secondary sex characteristics, and otoacoustic emission studies (off the top of my head).

I strongly argue that one of the frequent conceptual errors promulgated by researchers is this idea that if you establish a biological basis for sexual orientation amongst, say, women, then that establishes a biological basis amongst men as well (or vice versa). Many of these studies that proclaim evidence of inborn sexuality (actually, near all of them) really only evidence a strong biological component to female sexual preferences, but not to male sexual preferences.

[AntiGuv]

See my post #17.

[sirchtruth]

Anyone she meets knows immediately that she is a lesbian and that she didn't have any choice, she's built like a Mack Truck.

Are you seriously saying she had NO choice, she HAD to become a butch dike lezbo?

[AntiGuv]

Make that: "what you often tend to see is two distinct subgroups of gay men"...