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  LiveWire / Teen Forums / The Intellectual Forum / Viewing Topic

Is homosexuality doomed?
the fate of the gay gene
Replies: 6Last Post April 18 1:22pm by Moridin
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( Anonymous )

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Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that homosexuality is primarily a genetic predisposition.

It cannot be chosen by conscious thought, and is not shaped by environmental forces (this is, after all, the most widely accepted view today).

Is it not inevitable that homosexuality will eventually end, or at least decrease in frequency?

Throughout the ages, homosexuality, or at least the homosexual act, has been considered taboo. Therefore, gays have traditionally been forced into marriage, and consequently procreate with, a member of the opposite sex. Hence the "gay gene" or set of interacting genes, if such exist, would be passed on to the next generation.

Only in recent decades have attitudes begun to change. Homosexuality is becoming accepted as norm, and save some religious fundamentalists there is virtually no opposition to this.

But Adam and Steve cannot make a baby. Unless they find a woman to have it for them, which a small minority may decide to do, the genes which predispose for homosexuality will eventually disappear from the gene pool. But in principle, as homosexuality becomes increasingly normalized, the pressure on gays to enter into a relationship with a member of the opposite sex will decrease significantly.

Isn't homosexuality basically doomed?

Or could it be that homosexuality is developed "by accident" in the womb during pregnancies, with no genetics involved?

Note - if you think homosexuality is nurtured by environmental forces or otherwise, please explain why.


4:06 am on April 16, 2008
senorita smirnoff


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looking at the frequency, id say its a recessive gene, or a commonmutatiio to a gene that would cause it, so its just not expressed in people, but 2 straight ppl can make a gay baby

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4:12 am on April 16, 2008 | Joined Oct. 2005 | 639 Days Active
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Moridin


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Is it not inevitable that homosexuality will eventually end, or at least decrease in frequency?

No, you have a primitive view of genetics and assume no intermediate forms or multiple contributions from different alleles, which are faulty assumptions in this case.

There is something called sickle-cell anemia. Two sickle-cell alleles gives you sickle-cell anemia, which makes you all damaged, and this reduces or hinders your reproductive ability strongly. This might lead you to conclude that sickle-cell anemia might go extinct per natural selection and the process of evolution, yet sickle-cell anemia, which is genetic, persists even if no individual with sickle-cell anemia reproduces. This is because if you only have one allele for sickle-cell anemia, you don't get sickle-cell anemia, but you get an increased resistance to malaria, so natural selection favors heterozygous individuals in this case (which in the case of a homogeneous heterozygous population results in 1/4 of the offspring having sickle-cell anemia), even if no individual with sickle-cell anemia reproduces at all. So sickle-cell anemia is completely determined by genetics, yet individuals with sickle-cell anemia persists to exist even if few or none individuals with sickle-cell anemia have any children.

So evolutionary thinking is compatible with homosexuality being completely genetically determined.

http://sickle.bwh.harvard.edu/malaria_sickle.html
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/01/2/l_012_02.html

However, homosexuality is probably not completely genetically determined, since there is probably an environmental factor that contributes as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6zPh97qYd4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_bfVvo3dd8

Post edited at 4:52 am on April 16, 2008 by Moridin

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4:45 am on April 16, 2008 | Joined April 2006 | 498 Days Active
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Blackadder


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well, mora pretty much said what I was going to.

but I'll add the following thought: If "the gays" knew of such fate, they could react against it.

for example, donate a huge wad of sperm to spermbanks...

(( humans are in an odd position where, to some extent, we can control our own evolution ))

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9:06 am on April 16, 2008 | Joined Oct. 2004 | 891 Days Active
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Atti


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(I intended this to be one or two paragraphs, but the topic intrigued me, and as I have nothing to do for a while, I decided to do some real research on it.)

I don't believe that homosexuality will ever be eradicated from society. No matter how much some wish that it were.

First off, most estimates place the numbers of homosexual persons as anywhere from 6-10% of the total population in the US. As Britain is smaller (but curiously, statistics on homosexuality are higher here), I'll use the US. For my purpose, we'll go with 7.5%.

There's about 300 million people in the US. This means that assuming 7.5% of all people, not including people who do not *know* they are homosexual or haven't come to this conclusion yet, there would be 22,500,000. However, as only 70% of the population are adults and adult sexuality is what we want to focus on.

That leaves 210,000,000 adults in the US, of which we'll assume 7.5% are homosexual and conscious of it. This comes to 15,750,000 homosexuals, both men and women, and I do not believe this accounts for bisexuality. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Now, only about 33% of lesbian (female-female) households and 22% of gay (male-male) households in the US (source: 2000 US Census) have a child - natural or adopted was not listed - under the age of 18.

Assume, as your position stated, that homosexuality is 100% a genetic caused trait and these figures (averaging it out to 27.5% and assuming that there is only one child, which is often not the case, so this is likely a low estimate) are to be taken as a vague representation of the GLBT community in the US. If there are 15.75 million homosexuals and 27.5% of them have a child, that means that there are 4,331,250 children of homosexual couples in the US. Only about 5% of those children are adopted - as in, not the biological child of either adopting parent. Assuming the other 95% have at least one biological homosexual parent, 4,331,249 children have a biologically homosexual parent. Following your theory, this would present at least one parent being a genetic carrier of the "gay gene."

One thing I can concede to is that what we'll call the gay gene (which, for our purposes, we'll call G) appears to be recessive. If we have a homosexual biological parent (Gg or GG - for argument's sake, we'll go with Gg, meaning the person is heterozygous for homosexuality) and a heterosexual biological parent (gg - recessive for homosexuality) which would make their offspring (Gggg). This would mean any offspring would have a 25% chance of being gay. Going back to our number of biologically homosexuality factored children (4,331,249), this brings us to a new generation of 1 082 812 homosexual children.

Now, I realize this is a bit fishy science, but I'm going with the most simple understanding and interpretation of genetics. This statistic ignores that children of homosexuals are no more likely to be homosexual than children of heterosexual couples, and it ignores the fact that heterosexual couples have gay children all the time, even without any family history. However, it does illustrate my point - if homosexuality is, as you proposed, COMPLETELY genetic (which modern science does not suggest), it will still never be fully eradicated.

Your point that gays are freer to not marry heterosexually was an excellent one. Indeed, this could prove to be a factor in the future. However, the above statistics show that many, many gays and lesbians have natural children, thus passing on the carrier gene.

Now, a second point, with a lot fewer numbers. In historical context, homosexuality or homosexual practices have existed in almost every society. In ancient Greece, it was, indeed expected that the male nobility and ruling class engage in pederasty - a sacred relationship between an adult male and adolescent boy, often these were tutor-pupil relationships. Pederasty and homosexual affairs are also well documented in Asia, Europe, the middle east, and some African societies long before the advent of Christianity or western influence. Using the example of ancient Greece, men who had had pederastic relationships did often marry a female later on in life, producing children, as this was seen as an obligation.

With that gone in our society, we cannot be certain of the future of this "gay gene," but that brings me back to something I touched on earlier - there are many people who do not know that they are gay, or do not figure it out until later in life. Many of these people will have been in heterosexual relationships that produce children. There is also surrogacy and sperm donor programmes, and with society becoming more accepting of gays and lesbians, so too will these programmes become more accepted as an option for homosexual couples to have biological children, which will be factored for homosexuality themselves, thus perpetuating the gene.

A third point, also in historical context, is that if homosexuality was present since human history began, than this means that at some point in time, we were ALL infused with a "gay gene." Humans, interbreeding for thousands upon thousands of generations, will all have been exposed to this gene, which, even in a recessive form, could resurface in any of us, at any time. However recessive it may be, we will not be rid of this gene because it exists within all of us, in some small form. It's just like any other gene we can look at: a baby with blue eyes will occasionally be born to a Chinese family, which will have had brown eyes for hundreds of generations. Just because this is extremely recessive, does not mean that the gene simply disappears. It doesn't work that way. You can't just look at two parents and say: "Dad is straight, mum is straight, thus, neither are carriers of the homosexual gene." We've all seen two parents with blonde hair, and a kid that ends up with red hair; or that out of millions of dark-skinned people, suddenly an albino turns up.

You said that if we do not agree that homosexuality is completely genetic, to say so, so this is where statistics and historical context descend into my personal opinion - based upon casual research, as well as my own experience.

To me, there is absolutely no way that homosexuality is entirely genetic. Take, for example, that many heterosexual parents, who had heterosexual parents, who had (etc etc etc), can suddenly produce a gay child. You may also look at a twin study. There are many well-documented cases of identical twins - completely identical genetically and physically - where one is clearly homosexual, and one is clearly heterosexual. This leaves no room to say that it is genetic, since they have identical genetic coding, so either it isn't genetic, or one of them is extremely deep in the closet.

I personally believe that homosexuality is the end result of many different factors: biological, neurological, genetic, early environment, and even (though my GLBT contemporaries may be unhappy about it) choice, to some extent. No one factor, with out current science, can we isolate as the absolute cause of homosexuality.

If one factor loads the gun, another could pull the trigger. Some people may have a latent predisposition to homosexuality, and go their entire lives as a heterosexuality, simply because it was never triggered. If Joe has, say, a genetic predisposition to homosexuality, but it will only be expressed if his early environment fosters it, and Joe's early environment does not, we can say that Joe is likely to be a heterosexual. Or if Anna's early environment could foster homosexuality, but she has no biological predisposition to it, would she become homosexual?

Alas, science has no definitive answers. But my point still stands - whichever approach or theory you choose to take and believe in, homosexuality has always existed, and will always exist.


12:35 am on April 17, 2008 | Joined Sep. 2007 | 225 Days Active
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boy4boy15


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No, homosexuality has survived since as far back as we know and I highly doubt we'll ever see an end to it as long as our species exists.

I don't know if its genetic or a hormonal/environmental cause, but if its genetic theres still plenty of bisexual or closeted men having babies to spread such a gene, and if its hormonal/environmental then there MAY be a way to stop it form ocurring (although I'd highly doubt its ONLY hormonal or environmental.)

There is evidence to suggest a gay/bi guy has an enlarged hypothalamus in their brain, like a straight woman would. But they have no research or evidence on this for lesbian women either, I'm assuming theirs would be smaller like a mans, but no study has ever proven it.

Being primarily gay I can assure you I never made a concious choice to be this way. My parents divorced, but my father has always lived within a mile of me and I played soccer, football, and shot guns when growing up so i didn't miss any of the 'normal' things boys are supposed to do.

I do find it interesting figures on homosexuality are much higher in Britain than the US. On gay dating sites I've also noticed a large proportion of UK guys for how small their country is. However, most African and Mid Eastern countries don't have accurate data because homosexuality is frowned upon (or punishable by death) there. I don't know if we'll ever know the 'tre' cause of gayness, because I believe its a multitude of factors that causes it.


2:35 am on April 17, 2008 | Joined Oct. 2005 | 496 Days Active
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Moridin


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http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn6519-survival-of-genetic-homosexual-traits-explained.html

Italian geneticists may have explained how genes apparently linked to male homosexuality survive, despite gay men seldom having children. Their findings also undermine the theory of a single "gay gene".

The researchers discovered that women tend to have more children when they inherit the same - as yet unidentified - genetic factors linked to homosexuality in men. This fertility boost more than compensates for the lack of offspring fathered by gay men, and keeps the "gay" genetic factors in circulation.

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1:22 pm on April 18, 2008 | Joined April 2006 | 498 Days Active
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