Identical twin studies show that homosexuality is not genetic

[Manseau]

Ok, time to come out on martial talk I suppose. I am absolutely sure in my case it is genetic. And most of the people I knew when I was active in the GLBT community felt the same way. But I have known some people where it was a choice.

It shouldn't matter. Freedom of religion is a choice, yet protected by our laws (in America.) The whole idea that we have to prove it is genetic to some people for them to be behind us having equal rights frankly annoys me. As long as it is a consenting adult, and I am not abusing some power structure (boss, teacher, etc.) it really shouldn't matter.

And I don't care if someone wants to flip the finger or approve of being gay or lesbian. You don't have to like me or approve of my life. But when you feel your opinion should affect MY life by denying me the same rights you enjoy - MY life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, then I will fight you with activism or any way I legally can. And I don't need to flip the finger back at you, because I am laughing with joy for every bit of progress I have seen in my lifetime. And yeah, if my gaining equal rights annoys your bigotry, I admit I enjoy the salt in your wound. I should be above feeling that way, but nobody's perfect.

As for people being gay because it is cool. That is just an ignorant statment. If you knew how difficult it still is for many of us, you would realize how ridiculous this statment is. Being Gay Lesbian is one of the leading , if not the leading, reasons teens kill themselves. People still get fired, beaten, and kicked out of their families for being gay/ lesbian/ bi. I could go on about this, but I hope this is enough for people to get the point.

Things I NEVER thought possible in my lifetime have happened. Gay marriage, boy scouts, societal attitudes, military - it's astounding to me that I get to live to see these things.

As for activists. There are a lot of activists that people never hear about. They shouldn't all be lumped in together. I used to be active in the San Diego Gay and Lesbian Historical Society. There is the Log Cabin Republican Club. Sometimes, in any group, the loudest most obnoxious people get the most air time with the media. No group should be judged solely by that. Some of the people supposedly representing me make me cringe with embarrrasment. I know some African American Co-workers who expressed the same opinion to me on people like Al Sharpton supposedly representing them.

Activities. Straight people have similar celebrations like Mardi Graw that get pretty raunchy. If you are going to object, object to all of them. I think I went to the Fulton street thing years ago, or something close to it. Certainly not my thing. Too raunchy for me personally. But it was late at night and it was an adult crowd.

And again, the media harps on the wildest part of our community. Look at news media coverage of our Gay Lesbian etc. parades. They show the leather boys in their umm, backless chaps, and the wildest drag queens and the bar floats. But you never see all the Church organizations, the historical societies, the stamp clubs.....

Boy Scouts - If the Boy scouts want to become completely private, with no special status, money, or special benefits from the goverment, then I don't care who they exempt from their organization. But as long as they benefit from the government, then they should not be allowed to be exclusionary to gay people. And activism to this end gets my full support.

Hate Crimes - I actually do not support the idea of hate crimes. If you kill someone for their wallet or because they are gay, they are still just the same amount of dead. However, let's remember why hate crimes developed. It was to counteract unjustices coming from bigotry in our court system. I remember reading stories of gay people being beaten to death and the perpetraters getting light or no sentences. They would claim the person came on to them, so they had every right to beat them to death and they would get away with this defense!

Finally, as on another MA forum I am on, it is awesome to see so many people be supportive of gay rights. And when I say "you" in this post, I am talking about society in general- for the most part I am not referring to members of this forum.

Ok, this lesbian is getting off of her soapbox now. :soapbox:

Hi aaradia, I just wanted to let you and all the folks on this thread know how very sorry and embarrassed I am for my poor contribution to this thread. I read through your post and very much appreciate your candor and perspective. You have graciously addressed a lot of things giving me a great deal to think about and apologize for. My initial post was poorly framed and really did not contribute to the quality of this thread or the focus of this topic. I should have realized that from the initial response but my ego got the better of me. Again, I sincerely and humbly apologize to you and to anyone in this thread that my thoughtless words have offended. I guarantee that it will not happen again. Regards, David

 

[DennisBreene]

As I noted before, the study is flawed and doesn't really demonstrate anything. Natural selection tends to favor any genetic change that does not reduce the individuals survival to reproductive years and therefore would have a reduced tendency to extinguish a predisposition for homosexuality; as would the possibility of new mutation recurring in a population. Aaraadia, thank you for your frank and open discussion. You are my new hero. My homosexual friends have all commented at some time or other that they were always gay, their issues were more related to coming to terms with that awakening knowledge. Thankfully, society seems to be becoming more capable of accepting all manner of individuals these days and judging people on their humanity rather than on isolated characteristics (and we all have our share of those). Maybe there is hope that mankind will grow up before it kills itself off.

 

[Makalakumu]

As I noted before, the study is flawed and doesn't really demonstrate anything.

I don't have an ideological dog in this race, but would someone with more specific knowledge than myself enumerate some reasons why this study is flawed?

 

[ballen0351]

Unless it's Nature's way of helping with overpopulation.

Perhaps but that's not really how nature works. Every species main goal from fruit fly to blue whale and everything in between is to mate and ensure the survival of the species. I'm also not saying its not genetic I just said it made sense as a theory. Since it is possible to choose to be gay its prob hard to do a true an accurate study on the topic and quite frankly in my opinion is a waist of time money and resources. Who cares why or why not someone's gay. I'd rather cure cancer or something.

 

[DennisBreene]

I don't have an ideological dog in this race, but would someone with more specific knowledge than myself enumerate some reasons why this study is flawed?

I guess it would be more accurate to say that the report on the study leaves out critical information as I have not read the actual study. I would like to know what control groups were used in the study. The controls would tell a lot about whether there was truly a statistically significant difference in orientation and for a statistician (I'm not) provide the ability to calculate whether the study even had adequate numbers to detect a statistical difference. I made an assumption based on what was given in the article and should have been more specific. I apologize for not being clear enough on that matter.

 

[jezr74]

I don't have an ideological dog in this race, but would someone with more specific knowledge than myself enumerate some reasons why this study is flawed?

The premise is flawed, the article is saying that twins are genetically the same. This may be false.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=identical-twins-genes-are-not-identical

So now street cred comes into it. Scientific America or Holland Davis spin on other peoples work. Thats before scrutinising who he is trying took represent.


via Nexus 7 w/Tapatalk - please ignore predictive text spelling errors

 

[crushing]

Perhaps but that's not really how nature works. Every species main goal from fruit fly to blue whale and everything in between is to mate and ensure the survival of the species. I'm also not saying its not genetic I just said it made sense as a theory. Since it is possible to choose to be gay its prob hard to do a true an accurate study on the topic and quite frankly in my opinion is a waist of time money and resources. Who cares why or why not someone's gay. I'd rather cure cancer or something.

Many species have subsets of their respective populations that do not engage in mating. They have taken on other productive roles to help ensure the survival of their genes (or species, if you want to look at it from a different level). Granted, in many of these species the non-mating members tend to be much more related to mating members (ie colonies that have a brood 'queen"). But that doesn't mean there isn't a possible evolutionary advantage for some of the population to not be involved in reproduction.

I think Arnisador made the point much more eloquent than I at post 53 in this thread.

http://www.martialtalk.com/forum/sh...exuality-is-not-genetic?p=1576847#post1576847

 

[ballen0351]

Many species have subsets of their respective populations that do not engage in mating. They have taken on other productive roles to help ensure the survival of their genes (or species, if you want to look at it from a different level). Granted, in many of these species the non-mating members tend to be much more related to mating members (ie colonies that have a brood 'queen"). But that doesn't mean there isn't a possible evolutionary advantage for some of the population to not be involved in reproduction.

I think Arnisador made the point much more eloquent than I at post 53 in this thread.

http://www.martialtalk.com/forum/sh...exuality-is-not-genetic?p=1576847#post1576847

I'm not sure I agree that being gay is a subset of "regular" humans only made to take care of our kids

 

[crushing]

I'm not sure I agree that being gay is a subset of "regular" humans only made to take care of our kids

Interesting interpretation of my comments. But now that you suggest it and when you think about it; humans taking care of humans, doesn't that help ensure the survival of the species?

 

[Aiki Lee]

I don’t think human evolution wasprogramed that way. Evolutionarily speaking each member of a species should belooking to pass off its own genes, hence why there is competition for mates.Sexual orientation is likely bio-psycho-social. It is equal parts genetics,psychology, and environmental factors. Human beings are incredibly complex, thereis never just one reason something is the way it is when it comes to us.

 

[ballen0351]

Interesting interpretation of my comments. But now that you suggest it and when you think about it; humans taking care of humans, doesn't that help ensure the survival of the species?

Yeah which is why we live in families.

 

[granfire]

I don't think being gay has an evolutionary advantage.

but there are many changes in the population that may or may not be of some use. (aside from being gay does not keep a person from reproducing). I am thinking of situations where people are just differently wired (like 'high functioning autism' while supposedly broken and not normal, many of these individuals have a good bit to contribute. Or it's just a dead end on the evolutionary track)

But I find it interesting that we can't just accept that some people swing for the other team.
but then again we can't accept that some people have different skin color....and THAT is easily understood where that comes from, and the obvious evolutionary benefits....

 

[Steve]

Perhaps but that's not really how nature works. Every species main goal from fruit fly to blue whale and everything in between is to mate and ensure the survival of the species. I'm also not saying its not genetic I just said it made sense as a theory. Since it is possible to choose to be gay its prob hard to do a true an accurate study on the topic and quite frankly in my opinion is a waist of time money and resources. Who cares why or why not someone's gay. I'd rather cure cancer or something.

Consider the difference between being something and doing something. I can choose to do many things. My grandmother lived life as a right handed person because she was forced to. She was born a lefty and I'd argue she remained a lefty regardless of how she lived her life.


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[ballen0351]

Consider the difference between being something and doing something. I can choose to do many things. My grandmother lived life as a right handed person because she was forced to. She was born a lefty and I'd argue she remained a lefty regardless of how she lived her life.


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Yeah that's kinda what I ment. It would be hard to study because I could say im gay and mess up the results. There is no gay test. Like if I study Cancer I can tell thru tests if you do or don't have it. You can't test if your gay or not and then how do Bi-sexuals fit? So its hard to study it. I'm just not sury why there even is a study on this. Its like where studying it to cure it or something. I just think we could spend that money elsewhere.

 

[granfire]

Yeah that's kinda what I ment. It would be hard to study because I could say im gay and mess up the results. There is no gay test. Like if I study Cancer I can tell thru tests if you do or don't have it. You can't test if your gay or not and then how do Bi-sexuals fit? So its hard to study it. I'm just not sury why there even is a study on this. Its like where studying it to cure it or something. I just think we could spend that money elsewhere.

Like many facets of human behavior, it is interesting, and researchers want to know.

Of course, with humans having the moral hangup of what is acceptable behavior in society, there is the cure aspect, too (which the article seems to be touching on, in regard of the people who 'changed' their preference during therapy)

I think - aside from the gayness of it (bah, bad pun) it does also allow insights of what actually is fixed on our genes, since 'Identical' is by all accounts not 100%.

 

[Flying Crane]

Since it is possible to choose to be gay...

I think that statement is really really REALLY iffy. It suggests that you can also choose to be straight. I know that for me, there was never a choice in the matter. I've always known who I am attracted to, from the time I was very young. I think people may confuse "choosing" with coming to terms with it and coming out of the closet. It's definitely not the same thing.

 

[ballen0351]

I think that statement is really really REALLY iffy. It suggests that you can also choose to be straight. I know that for me, there was never a choice in the matter. I've always known who I am attracted to, from the time I was very young. I think people may confuse "choosing" with coming to terms with it and coming out of the closet. It's definitely not the same thing.

Not how I ment it. I could if I wanted to claim to be a gay man live as a gay man. There is no test to say your gay or not. Gay men have lived as straight men raised families etc. Straight men and woman in prison enter homosexual relationships then when released return to living straight. so getting a true scientific study could be a problem. Its kinda like people thatsay i knew i was gay as a child. How? I think its more a case of letting your current status influencing your past memory. When I was 5 girls had cooties and were yucky. Now I love woman but if I was gay now id could say see i knew at 5. I olny had a sister growing up so sonetimes as a kid i played woth dolls if I were gay i couls say see i knew then ect ect ect. Kids are kids they are not thinking in terms of sex. Only as adults do we put that behavior on kids.

 

[ballen0351]

Sorry about the spelling I'm using my cell and my thumbs are fatter then the keys.

 

[Flying Crane]

Not how I ment it. I could if I wanted to claim to be a gay man live as a gay man. There is no test to say your gay or not. Gay men have lived as straight men raised families etc. Straight men and woman in prison enter homosexual relationships then when released return to living straight. so getting a true scientific study could be a problem. Its kinda like people thatsay i knew i was gay as a child. How? I think its more a case of letting your current status influencing your past memory. When I was 5 girls had cooties and were yucky. Now I love woman but if I was gay now id could say see i knew at 5. I olny had a sister growing up so sonetimes as a kid i played woth dolls if I were gay i couls say see i knew then ect ect ect. Kids are kids they are not thinking in terms of sex. Only as adults do we put that behavior on kids.

ah, I see your points, but I'll also say that yes girls had cooties when I was five, at the same time I was intensely interested in the physical differences between boys and girls. I never would have admitted that to my guy friends because to a five year-old, girls had cooties. But inside the workings of my brain, I knew what I found interesting.

As to the other issues, behaviors while in prison, etc., well perhaps that just illustrates examples of how fluid sexuality can be (er, no pun intended there...) and there are a variety of ways in which sexuality gets expressed. In my mind, it reinforces homosexuality as a very real and very legitimate sexual orientation.

 

[ballen0351]

Its definitely real and valid which is why the study is just silly to me and a waist of time and energy. Its like studying what is love. Love is love who cares how or why. It just is. If I'm gay who cares why I just am. To research it to me is a means to try to devalue it.