Gayness Hereditary but not a "gene" (New Theory)

[Stella_Omega]

*goes off to find an image of a broken hornet's nest to use in threads like these*

Some people can't stop themselves from posting stuff that leads to stirring up the virtual hornet's nest of trouble...

*enjoys an evil laugh*

I think people are being pretty decent on the whole.

 

[njlauren]

I believe that whether or not someone will be homosexual is determined upon a multitude of factors like background, culture one is raised in, etc. I also believe that a bad sexual experience with the opposite sex could turn one homosexual.

Nothing a good therapist couldn't cure...

You can believe that all you want, but no one has been able to come up with 'gay factors', that is more stuff the religious wrong and the idiots try to promote, the absent father, the domineering mother, it all falls. Claims that gays 'create' gays has been broken by the fact that most gay kids grew up in straight families, and kids being raised by gays are no more likely to be gay then kids raised by straights.

Stella is right, what those things could do is allow someone to come out as gay rather then stay closeted (wanna know how many gay people get married to straight people, have families, and are still gay? A lot......see, little secret, gays and lesbians can have sex with women and men, respectively, just wont be much of a turn on for them, it will be play acting, same way husbands in a marriage without love can father kids, it is all mechanical). Likewise, someone who is on the bi part of the spectrum can switch, it is a matter of what it would take to switch, a bi woman who has been raped might end up with a woman, a bi male who had a cold, abusive bitch for a wife might end up with a guy...but that doesn't change their orientation. Studies have shown, including a massive one recently, that women are a lot more fluid then men sexually, I suspect a lot more women, because of culture (where two women are hot and two guys are not in a lot of people, especially men's minds) are able to explore, whereas men stay in rigid roles, in fear of what people will think and such (doesn't mean gay women have it easy, just saying it is easier on them IME, same way a butch woman has it easier then a femme man and so forth).

As to believing people turn gay because of abuse, a great statement I think covers that. If even a fraction of the women who were sexually abused in their lifetime turned gay, given the numbers of women that suffer domestic abuse and rape and incest and so forth during their lives, dyke bars would be some of the most crowded places around and lesbians would literally be bursting out of the woodwork....abuse and such can play a role in tipping someone with middle orientations certain ways, but convert them? If so, then a lot of gay men would be out there with men who had had a marriage go south in a brutal way, all those men screwed in divorces, had wives who were cruel, cheaters, you name it, should only be too glad to switch, but they can't. My dad had a shitty marriage, and sometimes he joked about trying men, but it was a joke, my dad wasn't homophobic in the least bit (rare for someone of his generation), but when my mom died he dated women, not men.......

 

[topace]

You can believe that all you want, but no one has been able to come up with 'gay factors', that is more stuff the religious wrong and the idiots try to promote, the absent father, the domineering mother, it all falls. Claims that gays 'create' gays has been broken by the fact that most gay kids grew up in straight families, and kids being raised by gays are no more likely to be gay then kids raised by straights.

Stella is right, what those things could do is allow someone to come out as gay rather then stay closeted (wanna know how many gay people get married to straight people, have families, and are still gay? A lot......see, little secret, gays and lesbians can have sex with women and men, respectively, just wont be much of a turn on for them, it will be play acting, same way husbands in a marriage without love can father kids, it is all mechanical). Likewise, someone who is on the bi part of the spectrum can switch, it is a matter of what it would take to switch, a bi woman who has been raped might end up with a woman, a bi male who had a cold, abusive bitch for a wife might end up with a guy...but that doesn't change their orientation. Studies have shown, including a massive one recently, that women are a lot more fluid then men sexually, I suspect a lot more women, because of culture (where two women are hot and two guys are not in a lot of people, especially men's minds) are able to explore, whereas men stay in rigid roles, in fear of what people will think and such (doesn't mean gay women have it easy, just saying it is easier on them IME, same way a butch woman has it easier then a femme man and so forth).

As to believing people turn gay because of abuse, a great statement I think covers that. If even a fraction of the women who were sexually abused in their lifetime turned gay, given the numbers of women that suffer domestic abuse and rape and incest and so forth during their lives, dyke bars would be some of the most crowded places around and lesbians would literally be bursting out of the woodwork....abuse and such can play a role in tipping someone with middle orientations certain ways, but convert them? If so, then a lot of gay men would be out there with men who had had a marriage go south in a brutal way, all those men screwed in divorces, had wives who were cruel, cheaters, you name it, should only be too glad to switch, but they can't. My dad had a shitty marriage, and sometimes he joked about trying men, but it was a joke, my dad wasn't homophobic in the least bit (rare for someone of his generation), but when my mom died he dated women, not men.......

Where's that hornet's nest?

*evil laugh*

 

[voluptuary_manque]

The fact that the self righteous church goer's feel that it is immoral behavior and should be thought of as a sin, makes it important. If it is proven to be genetic, than it is not a choice, it becomes an imposed behavior. God made you that way, you are blameless.

So discovery of 'The Gay Gene' would be the disarming of the church.

Bigotry abounds in all viewpoints. There are any number of churches that don't feel that it is immoral behavior or a sin, that have and will quite happily perform marriage ceremonies whenever and wherever it's legal. Several of them approve of gay clergy. Please avoid stereotyping, it doesn't reflect well.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Topace--
No need to troll here, there's lots of action over to the GB.

Bigotry abounds in all viewpoints. There are any number of churches that don't feel that it is immoral behavior or a sin, that have and will quite happily perform marriage ceremonies whenever and wherever it's legal. Several of them approve of gay clergy. Please avoid stereotyping, it doesn't reflect well.

They better speak the fuck up then.

And, in fact, they are starting to do so. I am SO happy to see it!

 

[njlauren]

Being that no scientific study has ever found any evidence that pheromones have any effect on human behavior whatever, I think you're either speculating desperately or just plain confused.

Hey, cmon, I see this miracle stuff in the back of car magazines made by the woman who discovered human pheremones that guarantees you if you use it, you will be rolling in dates *lol*..what they don't tell you is it is the fruit dates, that you will attract huge flocks of egyptian ibises who will scent it from 8000 miles away, and will bring the dates as offerings

 

[njlauren]

The fact that the self righteous church goer's feel that it is immoral behavior and should be thought of as a sin, makes it important. If it is proven to be genetic, than it is not a choice, it becomes an imposed behavior. God made you that way, you are blameless.

So discovery of 'The Gay Gene' would be the disarming of the church.

It prob would, but not for the reason you think. I think with the gay gene you would see der pope and the telebullies and the rest of the pro life crowd calling for an exemption to banning abortion if the fetus had the gay gene....

 

[topace]

It prob would, but not for the reason you think. I think with the gay gene you would see der pope and the telebullies and the rest of the pro life crowd calling for an exemption to banning abortion if the fetus had the gay gene....

Or they'd hire scientists to find a way to cure it.

You never know how they'd react.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

Topace--
No need to troll here, there's lots of action over to the GB.


They better speak the fuck up then.

And, in fact, they are starting to do so. I am SO happy to see it!

Indeed. One of our family friends and former pastors finally married her partner during that short opening in California law and another (now sadly deceased) friend, a bishop, spoke out in favor of gay clergy for years before the church finally agreed. For what it's worth, one of his son's (they had six) is both an ordained pastor and gay.

The haters just scream louder and it attracts media attention. Evil always does whereas benevolence hardly raises eyebrows, nor does it sell airtime and newsprint.

 

[njlauren]

Androgen insensitivity is much rarer than are gay men. Tons of dudes have all of their testosterone production intact, and prefer other dudes.


Gender-- the inner sense of who you are-- is NOT the same thing as sexual preference-- the inner sense of who you want.

Orthogonal, baby!

Androgen insensitivity is what can cause someone with XY chromosomes to be born and grow up as a female in body type. Far as I know, all fetuses are female then a bath of hormones timed at different times during the natal period cause the changes that differentiate the fetus into male or female. If the fetus cannot react to androgens, it never develops as a male physically and will be born female.

There are theories that variations in the same hormone bath may be partly responsible for gender identity and may be behind why some are transgender and possibly with sexuality as well, but no one knows, that is speculation with some tantalizing bits of experimental data with rats that implies it does have that effect...but that is a different story.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Androgen insensitivity is what can cause someone with XY chromosomes to be born and grow up as a female in body type. Far as I know, all fetuses are female then a bath of hormones timed at different times during the natal period cause the changes that differentiate the fetus into male or female. If the fetus cannot react to androgens, it never develops as a male physically and will be born female.

There are theories that variations in the same hormone bath may be partly responsible for gender identity and may be behind why some are transgender and possibly with sexuality as well, but no one knows, that is speculation with some tantalizing bits of experimental data with rats that implies it does have that effect...but that is a different story.

Yes indeed. that's what Androgen insensitivity is, all right. Just like wikipedia said!

However, once more-- gender is who you are. sexuality is who you want.

Two different things. Plenty of effminate- seemeng men are perfectly heterosexual plenty of butch women likewise. Lots and lots of extremely feminine women in my lesbian group.

 

[3113]

*goes off to find an image of a broken hornet's nest to use in threads like these*

Some people can't stop themselves from posting stuff that leads to stirring up the virtual hornet's nest of trouble...

*enjoys an evil laugh*

So you want to be put on ignore? See, we're not as stupid here as the GB. When someone stirs up hornet nests and laughs evilly, we simply put them on ignore, laugh evilly, and go back to having the interesting and intelligent conversations we want to have.

JBJ is on just about everyone else's ignore list, which is why he stirred up absolutely nothing until he was read by someone who didn't have him on ignore. Speaking of which....

njlauren's, put JBJ on ignore. And if you're not going to, please don't quote him. No one wants to know what he thinks of anything.

 

[mikey2much]

I just go by what I read

Bigotry abounds in all viewpoints. There are any number of churches that don't feel that it is immoral behavior or a sin, that have and will quite happily perform marriage ceremonies whenever and wherever it's legal. Several of them approve of gay clergy. Please avoid stereotyping, it doesn't reflect well.

But I see that the church, it doesn't matter which one, was trying to get laws passed making being gay a capitol offense. This was over in the Congo I think, but the good baptist that fill the churches around where I live would vote for it here in a minute.

It seems that most of the laws against gay marriages are spearheaded by 'church groups'. I don't think I was being unfair toward them.

I agree with Stella that it makes me happy to see some of them come around but it is such a small portion.

 

[Cruel2BKind]

Or they'd hire scientists to find a way to cure it.

You never know how they'd react.

The only one I see trying to kick the hornet's nest is you.

You happen to love incest, which, if I remember correctly, is something that the church also frowns on. and incest actually DOES hurt people. Unlike loving gay relationships. Let he who is without non-heteronormative sexual desires cast the first stone, and all that.

 

[njlauren]

Bigotry abounds in all viewpoints. There are any number of churches that don't feel that it is immoral behavior or a sin, that have and will quite happily perform marriage ceremonies whenever and wherever it's legal. Several of them approve of gay clergy. Please avoid stereotyping, it doesn't reflect well.

There area number of churches like that, the UCC, the Unitarian fellowship, reform and reconstructionist and conservative jews, the episcopal church is close on the national scale, the elca, all have come out in support.

Problem is, they are swamped by the numbers of those who are loudly and out there promoting the bigotry, the catholic church has 60 million members, and while its membership actually leans slightly over the hump favoring same sex marriage , their leadership is viruntly anti gay, they have Bishops telling people to vote based strictly on abortion and same sex marriage, and unfortunately, idiot politicians see 60 million and figure the droolers represent their people (they don't, obviously, look at the numbers voting for obama). Then we have the evangelicals, who have taken over the GOP, a party that once stood for fiscal conservatism and a strong libertarian streak, and turned it into evangelical Christian version of Hezbollah, where suddenly everything became infused with social issues most people don't care about, and those forces represent most practicing Christians in this country (the UCC is about 2 million, the episcopals about 2, rest a couple of million..whereas as many as 50 million are evangelical Christian, and they vote, and overwhelmingly it is the anti gay line...take a look at North carolina, that not only banned same sex marriage, they banned any rights of marriage....a

and all the arguments of same sex marriage boil down to religious belief based in some scant references to the bible, all the talk about good of society, harm to society, is bogus, it comes down to the catholic obsession with marriage=making babies (it doesn't, but why let facts get in the way), it boils down to 'sex is between a man and a woman' (which isn't true, genesis says it is between a man and one or more women, but what the hell) and is sacred (stopped being sacred when the law recognized it as a legal contract), that children need to be raised with a man and a woman and benefits are based on that (absolutely zero proof of that one, more religious twaddle).

As far as the 30 million plus catholics who are supportive, then show it, don't vote for candidates who are anti same sex marriage, and if your local bishop starts up the anti gay bs, as a church tell him either he shuts up or your church stops sending money to the diocese and keeps it for the church, if the priest tells you it is wrong, tell him to keep it to himself. Speak out, and say they are wrong.......I have a lot of respect for the church in its charity work, and i can understand the feeling of belonging, of this being a long term family thing, but if someone can support a church, its leaders, financially , sit there and say nothing while the bishops in the uS bray as if they speak for the whole flock, if people don't put their money where their mouth is, then they are helping promote a view that they themselves don't believe in, they are violating individual conscience to belong to somethijng, and that is wrong. I am glad most catholics are cafeteria catholics, that they chose to believe what works for them, the 80% that use birth control and so forth, but what they have to realize if they let their church promote the view this is what all catholics believe and vote on, if they dont speak with their voices and pocketbooks, the bishops are going to keep up hurting gays, helping pass things like prop 8 (and don't get me going on the mormons, people might thing they are funny people in a funny musical on broadway, they aren't so nice, they were one of the prime forces in getting prop 8 passed in california, to the tune of 30-40 milion bucks spent).

Ya can't sit back and say "I am not like that", it just doesn't work, if you truly believe your church is wrong then you damn well speak up and say so.

BTW, financial threats work. JPII steadfastly refused to remove his good, dear pal, Cardinal Law, from his office after it was found he covered up hundreds and hundreds of abuse by priests, including several hundred by Fr. Geoghan. The Boston Diocese was literally buried under lawsuits, they were for all intent and purposes being financially put out of business, they faced so many lawsuits. Several rich catholics, most notaly peter Lynch of Fidelity fame, told the vatican they would straighten it out, help get things settled, but basically they wouldn't do so unless he removed Law, who on top of everything else was a major liability for more lawsuits, plus they told the vatican it was an affront to leave him there...JPII finally agreed, realizing they had no choice.

Among other things, a large percentage of the vatican's operating budget, something like 350 million, comes from the US.......

 

[njlauren]

Yes indeed. that's what Androgen insensitivity is, all right. Just like wikipedia said!

However, once more-- gender is who you are. sexuality is who you want.

Two different things. Plenty of effminate- seemeng men are perfectly heterosexual plenty of butch women likewise. Lots and lots of extremely feminine women in my lesbian group.

Totally agree, and gender identity and sexual identity are two different orbits....it does get funky for trans folks at times, but I think that has to do with being comfortable with norms, that m to f transwoman who were with women suddenly jump to men, when many of them claim or never had sex with guys before...I think that has to do with context, they are bi, could be with a woman, but once they changed, it was 'okay' to be with guys since they wanted to have woman to guy sex...(and less guilt, too, sadly....)

 

[sr71plt]

I think that "gayness" comes from being beautiful and creative, having naturally curly hair, and being smart enough to realize that everyone is basically bi.

 

[njlauren]

But I see that the church, it doesn't matter which one, was trying to get laws passed making being gay a capitol offense. This was over in the Congo I think, but the good baptist that fill the churches around where I live would vote for it here in a minute.

It seems that most of the laws against gay marriages are spearheaded by 'church groups'. I don't think I was being unfair toward them.

I agree with Stella that it makes me happy to see some of them come around but it is such a small portion.

It was Uganda, which is heavily Catholic country, and they were set to pass a law that would make homosexual sex a capitol offense (this is a country, mind you, that lobbied the church to be allowed to conduct witch hunts and the vatican was seriously considering the request *snort*. In 2009 they proposed the same law and the vatican did respond, they said it violated church teaching and that promoting it violated the basic dignity of gay and lesbians, and they told their bishops promoting the law was out of synch with teaching, all fair and good, and the law died.

This year the law was re-launched and the bishops in the country have been actively promoting it, and the vatican has said ....nothing. Snarky catholic types ask me if I think the vatican's stance on church teaching has changed, I said no, but the fact that they are letting the bishops promote such a law and are not calling them to task with threats of punishment tells the whole story. Bishops and clergy have been silenced and excommunicated for 'violating' church teaching, but these clowns are allowed to promote a law they said was vile and violating church teaching? basically, it means they are tacitly endorsing it...

From what I know, the law has been amended and the death penalty has been removed, but it still is very vile, it has long stretches in jail (which in uganda is a death sentence) for being caught having gay sex, and it also has stiff penalties for 'promoting homosexuality' and any lobbying for gay rights is also a legal issue. And the church still has said nothing about it..doesn't surprise me, given the decline in the church, given that a lot less then 50% of Catholics bother to go to church each week and in Europe they can't even get Italians to go to church each week at more then 15%, they are too afraid of alienating the Ugandans and other such places, and that is pathetic.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

Uh-huh. Now you are getting specific and that's more like it. I happen to belong to the ELCA, to a congregation that states boldly in its website that we are supportive and loving to the gay community. We make no bones about it. Homophobes will be disageed with vehemently. As to what we think of the current Curia . . . well go back to Martin Luther's hymn "A Mighty Fortress". The Enemy can be interpreted just as easily as the Vatican as it can Satan.

JPXXIII is old, feeble and soon to be replaced. What should be of more worry is the contingent of octogenarians among the Cardinals who will elect the next pope. Look what they gave us last time.

And looking down the pike, I see the GOP leadership starting to realize that their rabid Evangelical houndpack is a greater liability than an asset. Progress is made one funeral after another.

 

[sr71plt]

Would a "capitol" offense be an attack on a building with a dome?

 

[voluptuary_manque]

Would you hit a building with a dome? Waa-waa-waaaaah . . .

 

[Stella_Omega]

Totally agree, and gender identity and sexual identity are two different orbits....it does get funky for trans folks at times, but I think that has to do with being comfortable with norms, that m to f transwoman who were with women suddenly jump to men, when many of them claim or never had sex with guys before...I think that has to do with context, they are bi, could be with a woman, but once they changed, it was 'okay' to be with guys since they wanted to have woman to guy sex...(and less guilt, too, sadly....)

Hopefully some of that is easing up-- there is a lot more support these days and it's easier to find.

But you know, I think there is a certain type of person who is same sex or opposite sex oriented, too. I know FTMs who were lesbians in their female bodies, became gay after transitioning.

 

[Bramblethorn]

The fact that the self righteous church goer's feel that it is immoral behavior and should be thought of as a sin, makes it important. If it is proven to be genetic, than it is not a choice, it becomes an imposed behavior. God made you that way, you are blameless.

So discovery of 'The Gay Gene' would be the disarming of the church.

Not hardly :-/

There are already plenty of churches spouting the line that it's not sinful to be gay, you're just not allowed to act on it. There are others that are already making a fortune offering ineffective "cures" for homosexuality - something like this would just encourage them.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

So are a lot of things, some good and some bad, some neutral. What you are leaving out is why those things are bad. Violence for violence sake hurts someone, cannibalism besides often denying someone their life to feed someone's habit also has the possibility of spreading disease and mutating diseases, and incest has all kinds of potential harms around it,emotional and psychological.

Wanna know what we have according to the pedophiles who run the church (like, they should be making moral judgements?)...that homosexuality is 'unnatural', 'objectively disordered', a sin...but that fails the bullshit detector big time as proof of harm, because guess what, if it exists in the animal kingdom it is natural. Animals do commit violence, but in the scheme of the animal world it makes sense, they don't commit violence for fun the way humans do (and remember, chief, every church thinks violence is okay, as long as they approve it; the evangelicals think the death penalty is moral, all churches have blessed warfare, and so forth). Animals don't commit incest, they are wired against that because genetically it is a disaster area, and in terms of cannibalism animals only do that in times of duress, like when a mother rabbit will eat her young, and there is a definitive reason for doing so in terms of survival........nature doesn't operate on good and evil, thinks happen there for a reason, and no church teaches that animals are evil or can have sin..which means if they have homosexuality, there is a reason for it.

So morally the ban on homosexuality comes down to a what a bunch of bronze age nomads running around on camels thought of things.

Then we come to the legal, and no one can give a reason to be prejudiced against gays, time and again they come back to what the religious leaders spout out. Unable to procreate? Gays do, in a variety of ways, they use surrogates, they adopt kids, have kids from straight relationships, just like straight couples do (after all, don't the churches tell people adoption is the answer to abortion?) No scientiic, objective study of same sex couples raising kids show the kids to be any different, other then having to deal with jerks like the post I am responding to and maybe being a bit better educated and tolerant then kids raised by straight couples, no one has showed any harm to anything by gays being treated as people......so basically what the anti gay argument boils down to i believe what a bunch of ignorant jack offs in a place where people for the past 2000 years have been butchering each other willy nilly, can't figure out how to live like peaceful human beings, and we are supposed to follow what their even more ignorant ancestors said?
I say that with one caveat, ironically, a country that is a lot more progressive on gays has been Israel, the land that gave birth to much of this crap, and other then the ultra orthodox no one there cares, gays have been serving openly in the military for a lot of years, have been given a lot of rights, kind of says how stupid they think the OT is as basis for law.

If you own a dog you know that animals do sex with their siblings and progeny. Their motto is, ANY PORT IN A STORM.

Pedophilia didnt really exist in America till the 1920s. People made distinctions tween rape and birds & bees, cuz they hanged rapists and allowed preteen girls to marry adult males. Kids are sexually curious and active starting about age 5. Most States still allow 13-14 year old teens to marry. So! An argument can be made that sex before majority (sui juris) is natural, and that its a bad idea for many reasons.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Similar theories have been made about Schizophrenia. Please don't get me wrong, I would never compare gayness to a disease, but the fields of psychology, biology, and genetics approach a lot of stuff like a disease, especially when it relates to sexuality.

There is a fair amount of evidence that Schizophrenia and many other behaviors are affected by family relationships, non-genetic heredity, and other interfering psychological and genetic conditions.

On another note, I think the issue of gayness would ideally be left alone by the scientific community altogether, it is a sign of the reluctance to accept homosexuality. If searching for a gene linked to sexual orientation was purely for progress or scientific knowledge, or the eventual acceptance of homosexuality as an inherent characteristic in humanity, the hate would still continue if not escalate and spread after that was discovered. Why is it that every article on the topic frames it as a gene for gayness, instead of a gene for sexual orientation, or even heterosexuality?

P.S. "Gay gene" is a term that is beyond weird. It made me burst out laughing at first, and then made me kinda wonder why it is being used. Anyways, peace love and all that.

One theory asserts that everyone is schizophrenic, that, or everyone has multi-personalities. I vote for EVERYONE IS SCHIZOPHRENIC, cuz every child I've ever known is delusional and hallucinates, and the vestige of childhood schizophrenia is what cuzs adults so many problems. Its possible to blame your stars or your mom or retro-viruses for your schizophrenia, but the fact is schizophrenia is a problem.