Homosexuality -- nature or nurture?

[danaeris]

Two articles of note:

Mothers' genetic skew linked to gay sons

and

Homosexuality is biological, suggests gay sheep study

Nothing conclusive so far, but it is looking to be genetic at this point.

What does this mean for our future, as queer people? Is being queer a defect? I personally don't see how it is in a modern world, although it is arguable that queer subcultures have not stabilized adequately to be a stable element in society (although, much of that is because of the persecution we suffer).

Inevitably, though, there are those who will wish to preemptively screen out children affected by genetic skew which will lead to them being gay. There are those who would love to live in a state where such filtering were mandatory. And at that point, what would it take to immigrate to such a state or country? Borders have been slowly becoming less and less meaningful. I feel, perhaps naively, that there is a growing feeling of international brotherhood and community which would be destroyed by a country which routinely alters certain genetic things.

Regardless of all that, I do feel a prick of concern. Will we be hurt by the progress of science in this category (not that we can stop it)?

Also, what do their findings mean for bisexuality?

Comments

[elf]

Most scientific studies of "gays," especially animals, include bisexuals: what they mean is "a person/animal that engages in sexual behavior with members of its own gender." Whether they also engage in sexual behavior with the opposite gender is irrelevant. (And in much of the animal kingdom, hard to track; some groups are so split up that you can't tell the difference between "gay" and "bi" because only a single male gets to mate with females; whether the rest of them want to or not, it ain't happening.)

[fyfer.livejournal.com]

1. Why assume it has to be one or the other, genetic or choice/environment/what-have-you? It seems likely that both contribute. It's cool that there's more specific evidence about the genetic basis now though.

2. A good, easy book that discusses the range of manifestations of sex, gender, and sexual interactions across the animal kingdom is Evolution's Rainbow (the author is herself a transgendered biologist). It's pretty fascinating how wide the range is. (I liked it mostly for all the examples. I think that overall the book is trying too hard to prove a point and she makes some of the same mistakes as the biologists she criticizes, by anthromorphizing or making value judgements, but it's still interesting.)

3. (Tongue mostly in cheek) Luckily, the people who are most vehemently opposed to gays are also vehemently opposed to abortion or IVF or genetic screening of fetuses.

[benndragon.livejournal.com]

The first point you make is very important, as it points to what I've taken to calling the Marder Principle, after the person who I learned it from. This principle states that if there are two opposing theories in biology, they will both eventually be shown to be true (in which case a new theory that combines the two comes into being). For example, it was long argued whether neurons communicate electrically or chemically. They actually do both - internal signals use an ion gradient while communication between neurons occurs via chemical neurotransmitters.

For a very long time I've figured it was a combination of genetics and environment, just like IQ and hair color (OK, the latter was tongue in cheek, but think of how many people with hair color they weren't born with that you know - don't forget people whose hair has gone grey/white). Which is fine by me, because it means they can't do eugenics-variants effectively (which is what questioner is talking about), nor can they argue that queers simply need to be "convinced" of the "proper" way of doing things. Sorry homophobes, there's no easy way out of this one, looks like you'll just have to shut up and deal.

[auros]

Considering that historically, the vast majority of those whose orientation was most firmly hom have tended to breed less, it seems pretty clear that it's not a pure, single-gene-makes-you-absolutely-gay sort of thing -- if it were, it would've died off. Even if it were recessive, the descendants of carriers would be more likely to not breed.

[benndragon.livejournal.com]

Mmm, I think that fails to take into account the fact that evolution works on the scale of the group, rather than on the scale of the individual. Even if a homosexual individual does not have children, their brothers and sisters and cousins very well might. If homosexuality has some benefit for the survival of a group (I've heard a few theories about that tossed about), then it makes sense for a genetic basis for homosexuality to be passed through people related to the homosexual individual, which continues the manifestation of homosexuality even if it doesn't directly lead to offspring in and of itself.

There's even the case where something as simple as a single dominant-recessive has enough evolutionary advantage to be carried along, even (especially?) in a small population, even when a full-on recessive leads to inability to breed. Partial sickle-cell helps prevent malaria, and carriers of Tay-Sacks are less likely to get trichonosis.

[earthdog.livejournal.com]

1. Why assume it has to be one or the other, genetic or choice/environment/what-have-you? It seems likely that both contribute. It's cool that there's more specific evidence about the genetic basis now though.

I have to agree with this idea. If you look at the people in the world there is a good chance we are looking at an 'and/or' situation. That means tests will not accomplish anything.

[auros]

As it happens, I've just been arguing this point over here. I think it's probably more complicated than just one factor. Otherwise it's very hard to make sense of the variability of the distribution of orientation in different cultures.

[brian1789.livejournal.com]

It would be interesting to see whether the anti-choice proponents, who are often also homophobic, would trade one vs. the other in that case (say, find some skewed rationale that made abortion "moral" only for screened-gay fetuses)...

[plymouth.livejournal.com]

I think I agree with an earlier comment that we will find out that it is a combination of nature and nuture. Not only that, but we will find that it is not one but several genes and that various combinations of these can create ganess. Homosexuality and bisexuality in various forms have been around for a long damned time, and as such they must serve a purpose (I mean that in an evolutionary, not a spiritual sense). I don't see how a genetic condition can be considered a defect unless it causes direct pain to the individual (I don't think gay-bashing counts for this as it is cultural and not related to genetics) or causes the society to be unable to continue to reproduce. An all-homosexual society would indeed be defective and would die out, but the liklihood of that seems slim.

Were some kind of eugenics initiated to weed out queers I believe we would find more popping up in unexpected places. Nature is resiliant that way.