Posted on 12/29/2005 10:21:24 AM PST by Dane
Tracking a genetic link to sexuality BY FAYE FLAM Knight Ridder Newspapers
Geneticist Dean Hamer says he never chose to be attracted to men. As we talked inside the renovated Washington, D.C., townhouse he shares with his partner and two dogs, the scientist popularly associated with so-called "gay genes" told me he knew he was gay since he was about 5.
That's what partly motivated Hamer, 54, to switch from basic molecular genetics to studying sexual orientation in 1992. When he told his colleagues at the National Cancer Institute what he was doing, they were puzzled. "It was pretty far out there," he says. Others thought the answer was too obvious - that of course it was genetic.
But outside the scientific community, Hamer says, it's still widely believed that gay people somehow choose their orientation and this further fuels discrimination. (Bush was asked in the presidential debates whether being gay was a choice. He said he didn't know.)
But will studying sexual orientation fight hatred or give it new tools? If scientists identify a "gay gene," will expectant parents use it for selective abortion?
"That scares some straight people away from studying this," says Hamer. "They're afraid of offending someone or causing harm." Most of the leaders in the field are gay, he said, for the same reason female researchers dominate the study of sex differences in the brain.
That limits study of what he considers to be one of the most important aspects of biology and human health. "We have the worst epidemic out there since the plague," he says. "It's spread by sex." Hamer said he was inspired to switch his focus by several studies in the late 1980s, especially one that looked at twins - a standard genetics technique.
If a trait is shared more often by identical twins than by fraternal twins it means there's some genetic component. For men, if one identical twin is gay there's about a 50 percent chance the other will be too. That falls to about 20 percent if they're fraternal. For women, the story is more complicated though science shows biology matters there, too.
Hamer realized he might be able to use the tools of molecular genetics to isolate specific genes. He studied 40 pairs of gay brothers and found a particular marker on the X chromosome that was shared more often when both brothers were gay. When he published his result in 1993 it became known as the "gay gene", but he said this label oversimplified the science. Many straight people have the "gay" version of the marker.
Scientists now know sexual orientation can't be detected from testing any single gene - it's set by a complicated combination of genes and environmental factors.
Only a few studies attempted to replicate Hamer's finding. It remains unresolved. Hamer said other gene findings are followed by hundreds of follow-up studies but the gay gene is not popular subject matter.
Neuroscientist Charles Wysocki and his colleagues at the Monell Chemical Senses Institute investigated the way male body odor caused spikes in women's hormones. They found the effect only in straight women but not lesbians. Intrigued, he followed up with a study suggesting sexual orientation influences not only how you react to the scents of others but how you yourself smell.
Other startling insights have come from studies of animals. By altering a single gene in fruit flies, researchers in Austria created males who courted and tried to mate with males, females with females. And in Oregon, researchers are finding brain differences between straight and exclusively gay rams.
Scientists say it's next to impossible to get federal funding to research anything related to sex, and especially homosexuality. And yet our political and cultural debates often hinge on such issues. Should we allow gay marriage? How do we prevent HIV? How do we educate our children so they don't contract and spread this epidemic? How can we deal with anti-gay discrimination?
Science may not have all the answers, but if given the chance, it could at least inform these debates.
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Also this from a London Times article from today about Lord Tennyson's great-grandson.
"Margo and I had a tremendously happy marriage and our sexual relations were adequate. Indeed, my wife thought they were more than adequate."
Insanity is hereditary. You get it from your kids.
Which idol will they remain beholden to when people start aborting babies with the gay gene for that reason alone. Will they hold true to the abortion at all costs crowd, or will they hold true to the gay activists?
It is going to be fun to watch how they try to straddle that fence.
Either there is no "gay gene" or evolution as a theory is wrong. Pick one, libs, and wake me up when you decide what you believe.
Oh, you mean, this guy isn't working toward that goal? His agenda is not to help, but to justify this tragic ailment? Drat.
Of course sexuality is genetic. Teenagers have always been tryin' to get in each others jeans...........
Since gay activists also tend to be pro-abortion-for-any-reason activists, I wonder what their stance would be if straight couples started to routinely abort fetuses with the "gay gene" markers?
It is going to be fun to watch how they try to straddle that (spiked) fence.
Great minds...
It seems like many people think the "genetics vs choice" issue will answer all questions regarding "gay rights" policies. I say, not so fast!
Many behaviors may indeed have a genetic component - left-handedness, obesity, alcoholism, etc. Some behaviors are discouraged, others tolerated. Some are deemed to be health risks.
Let's say there's a "gay gene." That does not necessarily answer the many questions currently being discussed. Not by a longshot.
And I'm uncomfortable with the idea that our behavior (whatever it is) is largely the sum of our genetic makeup. Apart from the generalized desire for self-preservation, etc. - don't we have brains for a reason? What about personal responsibility?
"Either there is no "gay gene" or evolution as a theory is wrong. Pick one, libs, and wake me up when you decide what you believe."
Or the 'gay gene' is a genetic mutation and thus, a disease.
I'm not sure that Homosexuals carry the gene for that [personal responsibility].
I remember Rush Limbaugh saying something like this also - although he may not have been the first. he took heat for even thinking of the idea.
Funny how the same people who claim it's "only a lump of tissue" suddenly get so upset when someone like Rush or Bill Bennett uses abortion in a hypothetical, to show how disgusting it sounds. The critics are usually the same people who advocate it for real!
I didm't know lesbians were big on anal sex.
Why does it seem that in such discussions, the other half of the equation is almost always left out?
And gay men aren't the only ones who enjoy anal sex.
And in heterosexual desires, is liking a big butt a learned behaviour? Large breasts? Fat women? Skinny women? A man with chest hair? A man with a six pack? Facial hair?
Are those learned behaviors? Choices? Or is someone born with a predisposition to be attracted to certain things?
I just want to know how they went about deciding which Oregon rams were exclusively gay?
"Or the 'gay gene' is a genetic mutation and thus, a disease."
...and since, according to The Thoery of Evolution, all of mankind exists as a result of a series of genetic mutations from apedom, we are all therefore diseased apes. /s
Now go get your own banana!
R3
Even if you believe the numbers in this statistically insignificant study, it still shows the environment plays an equally important role as genetics.
"....If enough independent phenomena are studied and correlations sought, some will of course be found. If we know only the coincidences and not the enormous effort and many unsuccessful trials that preceded their discovery, we might believe that an important finding has been made. Actually, it is only what statisticians call 'the fallacy of the enumeration of favorable circumstances'....
Carl Sagan - Norman Bloom, Messenger of God - from Broca's Brain
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