[HN Gopher] The largest study to date on the genetic basis of se...
___________________________________________________________________
The largest study to date on the genetic basis of sexuality
Author : YeGoblynQueenne
Score : 87 points
Date : 2021-02-08 16:23 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nature.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nature.com)
| remote_phone wrote:
| I thought they determined already it was a hormone released in
| the womb during pregnancy, similar to left-handedness. That's how
| you can get identical twins, but one is straight and the other is
| gay.
| the-dude wrote:
| That is a pretty self-contradicting statement in multiple ways.
| Simulacra wrote:
| I've always thought hormones had something to do with sexuality,
| because as Wikipedia says "sex hormones control the ability to
| engage in on the motivation to engage in sexual behaviors." What
| I'm thinking here is that motivation. Some people are motivated
| to engage with one gender or sexuality, and it becomes hard wired
| through that developmental process.
| mrfusion wrote:
| Genes aren't a good way to explain most things. They're more like
| LEGO blocks. It's how the cells use and express the genes that
| matters.
|
| So you want to look at regulatory regions of the genome,
| promoters, and even how and when the dna folds up to inactive
| large regions. That's where all the action is.
| iguy wrote:
| There are two meanings to "gene" here. What you describe as
| lego blocks are segments which code for a protein, which is one
| meaning.
|
| The other is just any code which affects the phenotype,
| including promotors etc. The SNPs mentioned in TFA are just
| known fairly common single-point differences, but aren't
| necessarily in coding DNA. Of course these are still heritable,
| just like coding changes.
| antattack wrote:
| Honest question: what is being gay? Is it physical attraction?
| Emotional attraction? Both? Is it dislike, fear(?) of opposite
| sex?
| swarnie_ wrote:
| An innate desire to form an atypical pairing in a non-
| reproductive fashion.
|
| Honestly i have no idea but this might be one of the last
| places left on the internet you can ask a question like this
| without getting dogpiled.
|
| I've batted for both teams in my life and i still can't tell
| you.
| dleslie wrote:
| Indeed, sexual attraction is a lot more complicated than "I
| am attracted to this bimodal extreme of gender."
| swarnie_ wrote:
| Agreed, and it isn't a static thing defined at birth by
| nature, it can change backwards and forwards over a
| lifetime.
|
| Not sure why i'm getting a hard time from our co-
| commenters. I assumed this place being primarily US and
| Tech it would be quite liberal.
| dleslie wrote:
| Heh, the political spectrum of this place is broad and
| well-distributed, but the quality of discussion _tends_
| to be more respectful than most forums.
| rectang wrote:
| I'm quite (socially) liberal and I thought your post was
| simply wrong, for starters. Among the places you can ask
| the question "what is being gay" without getting
| "dogpiled" are countless gay sites. Aren't gay sites part
| of the internet?
| snet0 wrote:
| How can a question be wrong?
| rectang wrote:
| "What does it mean to be gay?" is a question that gay people
| ask themselves, especially while forming their identities. So
| there are many, many places where you can find kind and
| thoughtful answers to it.
| kstrauser wrote:
| When I was in middle school, one day I noticed that this one
| girl was the most amazing person on the planet and I couldn't
| stop thinking about her.
|
| I imagine being gay would be a lot like that, except it
| would've been a boy.
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| Usually refers to romantic and/or sexual attraction to the same
| sex.
|
| > Is it dislike, fear(?) of opposite sex?
|
| Not generally, no, just like most straight people don't dislike
| members of their own sex.
| klmadfejno wrote:
| I think a lot of straight people would, however, feel a
| degree of repulsion towards the idea of kissing and having
| sex with someone of the their non preferred-sex. A
| consideration which, due to culturally norms, is probably
| pushed into the heads of gay people.
|
| Anecdotally I think most of my gay friends have commented on
| how gross vaginas are to them. Add whatever clarifications on
| fluidity and spectrums that you want....
| aardvarkr wrote:
| In the simplest terms, it's seeing a beautiful naked body of
| the opposite sex and getting zero sexual pleasure out of it.
| That's it. Being gay doesn't stop you from forming close bonds
| with the opposite sex just like being straight doesn't stop you
| from having best friends of the same sex.
| stemlord wrote:
| Both. It is not fear-based. It's the full package when it comes
| to sexuality and romance.
| michae4 wrote:
| I would suggest asking yourself "what is being straight?",
| assuming that you identify as such.
| [deleted]
| dleslie wrote:
| It's more like not having a deficiency in perceiving the full
| spectrum of colours; or having a difference in spectrum
| deficiency.
|
| If you can't see red, then I'm going to have a tough time
| explaining red to you.
| antattack wrote:
| I can certainly interpolate my personal experiences but I'm
| afraid I would miss something. Also, doing so would not
| explain this:
|
| Why some people dress or act similar to opposite sex to
| appear attractive to someone of the same sex? I mean, voice
| gestures etc. Hm...I should not said act, it's likely their
| trait. Anyway, why would someone who is gay be attracted to
| that person rather than opposite sex. I think sexuality is
| quite more fluid and calling someone gay does not mean much
| beyond 'not straight'.
| [deleted]
| implements wrote:
| I assume it's a physical attraction to members of the same sex,
| with the emotional dimension developing in the same way as it
| does between any two individuals in a mated pair.
| Bostonian wrote:
| "Ganna and his colleagues also used the analysis to estimate that
| up to 25% of sexual behaviour can be explained by genetics, with
| the rest influenced by environmental and cultural factors -- a
| figure similar to the findings of smaller studies."
|
| An argument for gay rights has been that people are "born that
| way". That appears to be false. Does this suggest that it may be
| possible to shape the environment to reduce the incidence of
| homosexuality? I wonder if societal normalization of
| homosexuality through the recognition of same-sex marriage, Pride
| Month, and LGBTQ clubs in schools and colleges have increased its
| incidence, and if the same is true for transgenderism.
| abeppu wrote:
| Others are pointing out that non-genetic biological factors
| (e.g. prenatal hormones) can still mean that a person's
| sexuality could still be determined (or significantly
| predisposed) at birth.
|
| And others are pointing out that gay people shouldn't need to
| argue that they were born gay, with the implication that if a
| choice were possible there would be a right or a wrong choice
| justifying marginalization or shaming or discrimination.
|
| But I think it's worth flipping around: What is the source of
| some people's persistent desire to legislate, regulate, punish,
| mock or vilify other people's loving relationships? Whenever I
| encounter this behavior in others, I hope that it's just a
| phase that they'll grow out of. I worry that they'll pass these
| traits on to kids by modeling their behavior in public. I'm
| guessing the cause is cultural. I wonder if it can be fixed.
| krapp wrote:
| > What is the source of some people's persistent desire to
| legislate, regulate, punish, mock or vilify other people's
| loving relationships?
|
| Western morals are still primarily rooted in Judeo-Christian
| beliefs which see any sexual expression other than
| heterosexual, monogamous sex within Christian marriage to be
| sinful, or at least taboo. The Bible condemns homosexual sex
| but in theory not homosexuality itself, as the
| "heterosexual/homosexual" dynamic is a modern invention which
| would not have existed at the time, but in practice
| Christendom considers any orientation besides heterosexuality
| to be at best a form of sexual deviance and immorality,
| sometimes seen as equivalent to pedophilia and bestiality,
| and at worst and affront to God.
|
| LGBT sexuality is also often seen as undermining the
| mainstream paradigms of masculinity and femininity, and by
| extension gender roles, and by further extension the
| traditional foundations of society itself.
| hyperpape wrote:
| The "born that way" argument was always a
| compromise/simplification.
|
| The true argument is that gay relationships, regardless of
| cause, are just as worthwhile and life affirming as straight
| relationships.
|
| But, if you're stubborn, and refuse to acknowledge that,
| "they're born this way" might temporarily get you to
| acknowledge the absurdity of your position. It feels cruel to
| condemn someone for something they can't control. But that's
| not much of an argument--I don't think pedophiles choose to be
| attracted to minors. The difference is that pedophilic
| relationships are harmful, not worthwhile and life-affirming.
| klmadfejno wrote:
| No. Being able to explain 25% of sexual behavior does not mean
| that the remaining portion has to be explained by other
| factors. Ignoring the fact that other things, like hormone
| profiles, have additional explanatory power, many biological
| processes are subject to noise. The best algorithm in the world
| can only predict a fair die toss 1 in 6 times.
|
| It may be possible that culture is a factor, but literature
| reviews of sexual orientation incidence suggest that it does
| not vary significantly across time or place, which is a pretty
| compelling reason to think culture is an important factor.
| Taek wrote:
| The cultural factors related to being gay could easily be
| unrelated to how much being gay is accepted by society.
| Especially considering how many famous people are now known to
| have been gay during a time when it was not acceptable.
|
| Also, there are lots of social studies that seem to suggest
| having gay family members can be beneficial to the family as a
| whole, so reducing the amount of homosexuality in the world may
| actually be undesirable.
| SonicScrub wrote:
| > An argument for gay rights has been that people are "born
| that way". That appears to be false
|
| Only if you take the strict literal definition of the phrase
| "born that way" to mean your genetic make-up.
|
| A person has little to no control over their environmental
| factors during their upbringing. Everything from average air
| temperature, food nutrient makeup, airborne particles, etc are
| environmental factors that we know influence other aspects of
| human development.
|
| Your comment is making the assumption that the environmental
| factor that causes homosexuality is witnessing other members of
| the species be homosexual, which is a large leap of logic to
| make. Especially knowing that homosexuality is quite common in
| the animal kingdom despite penguins not participating in Pride
| Months.
| Bostonian wrote:
| "Your comment is making the assumption that the environmental
| factor that causes homosexuality is witnessing other members
| of the species be homosexual, which is a large leap of logic
| to make."
|
| I think research has found that people are more likely to
| engage in a behavior if they see others doing the same. For
| example, someone who would not ordinarily shoplift may do so
| during a riot where many people are looting stores. A 2019
| survey found that "U.S. adults estimate that 23.6% of
| Americans are gay or lesbian", while Gallup estimates the
| fraction to be 4.5%. Link:
| https://news.gallup.com/poll/259571/americans-greatly-
| overes... . I think this overestimation may influence some
| behavior at the margin.
| hyperpape wrote:
| Entirely right. Even more: "environment" in this context
| includes the pre-natal environment.
| ristlane wrote:
| This is a legitimate question. Has our sexuality changed in
| recent decades (in aggregate), or are we just more open about
| our differences which were always present?
| imjustsaying wrote:
| Gay males reproduce by having sex with males when they're
| younger.
| swarnie_ wrote:
| You want to take a second crack at that? I'm not even sure what
| you're trying to say.
| LatteLazy wrote:
| One of the sad things about the state of sex ed is that this
| isn't taught in school. The interplay between genetics
| (homosexuality is at least somewhat heritable) and environmental
| factors (each older brother a boy has from the same mother
| increases the chance he will be gay by about 40%).
|
| Also, this study and many others uses the term "men who have sex
| with men" not gay. These are two overlapping but different
| groups.
|
| Plus you need yo look at evidence that sexuality is a modern
| construct. The Kinsey scale and attitudes to sex in other
| societies (where men who have sex with men are sometimes
| considered a third gender or where its more a matter of
| taste/fancy than a rigid part of identity) would help people
| understand actual sexuality more effectively.
|
| What you end up with is some genetics, some epigenetics and some
| environmental factors creating preferences of various strengths.
| Those are then buried under a layer of socially acceptable
| behaviour. Which in turn is filtered through identifies ("I'm not
| gay, I just do it with my mate").
|
| The point being humans are messy.
| dominotw wrote:
| Does it mean people are socialized into being gay ?
| rootusrootus wrote:
| No, it means they haven't found a gene. There is ample evidence
| of a genetic link, even if we never find a specific gene or set
| of genes.
| Digory wrote:
| Not entirely. The idea of a gay/straight binary, though, is
| pretty outmoded.
|
| Some people probably do have agency over their sexuality, or
| respond to incentives other than gender/sex. And part of that's
| probably social.
| flowerlad wrote:
| Hopefully, no. Because if true then it legitimizes conversation
| therapies.
| jodrellblank wrote:
| But if they worked they wouldn't be objectionable?
|
| Being forced into them would be objectionable, but being
| forced into your family farm doesn't mean farming itself is
| bad. If conversion therapy was a thing that worked and you
| could choose it if you wanted, it would be like any other
| life choice - changing career, religion, nationality, etc.
| stemlord wrote:
| They have never worked. It's a well-known truth amongst gay
| people that the conversion therapy "success stories" are
| people who chose to go back into the closet for the rest of
| their lives.
| jodrellblank wrote:
| I think my comment isn't clear enough. That they don't
| work is _why_ they shouldn't be legitimised. They are
| offering a fraudulent or misleading service to anyone
| choosing to attend, and forcing someone to attend is a
| cruelty.
|
| I read the parent comment as saying "I hope homosexuality
| isn't learned /because/ that would legitimise conversion
| therapy", but I say that would be a fine hypothetical
| world - it's objecting to the wrong thing, conversion
| therapy isn't inherently a bad thing, it's only bad in
| worlds where it doesn't work, like the real world.
|
| Another way of saying it is, if homosexuality is socially
| determined (in the real world), why fear that would
| "legitimise" a conversion therapy which doesn't work (in
| the real world)?
| dwohnitmok wrote:
| > conversion therapy isn't inherently a bad thing, it's
| only bad in worlds where it doesn't work, like the real
| world
|
| I think large sections of the gay community would
| disagree. Many gay people view homosexuality as a trait
| with intrinsic value (this is the whole point of pride).
|
| A similar dynamic plays out in the deaf community, where
| there is a proven equivalent of conversion therapy,
| namely cochlear implants. Cochlear implants are very
| controversial in the deaf community. Part of this is
| because it's cochlear implants don't yet fully replicate
| normal hearing, but there are many objections to the very
| purpose of cochlear implants and in that sense, perfect
| cochlear implants would be even worse. Certain segments
| of the community liken cochlear implants to cultural
| genocide.
| suizi wrote:
| My question would be closer to, how would you feel if
| someone high up decided to strip away your attraction to
| women, and replace it with an attraction to men, because
| they deemed this more "appropriate", or positive to
| society.
|
| And now, for the rest of your life, you view having sex
| with women as disgusting. Would this not be the slightest
| bit alarming and distressing?
| SunlightEdge wrote:
| I think most likely some men are 'born gay' (whether through
| genetics or developmental changes in the womb etc.) while
| there are also men out there who are socialized to be gay -
| and that is ok too. But certain parts of society finds the
| later a lot more scary (when really its not a big deal).
|
| On an aside, I have heard 'straight' men in prisons can have
| intimate relationships with other men (its not just brutal
| gang rapes). I can't cite a reference here though.
|
| Sexuality is messy...
| zgin4679 wrote:
| Or even conversion therapies. I'd much rather not be talked
| to ad nauseam about it!
| anaphor wrote:
| No, it just means that within the population they studied, the
| variation in whether individuals identified as gay could be
| explained more with environmental factors than genetic ones. It
| doesn't say that being gay is 25% genetic and 75%
| environmental, that's a huge misconception. If parents all
| treated their kids the same way, and they all had the same
| treatment in schools, etc, then you'd probably see more
| influence of genetics than environment. That's how heritability
| works, it's relative to the population and how homogeneous it
| is.
| nostromo wrote:
| There's some strong data that suggests it has to do with the
| interplay of hormones between the mother and fetus.
|
| If this theory is proven correct, it wouldn't be either
| socialization or genes.
| karmakaze wrote:
| I would have thought occurrences of one identical twin being gay
| would already have covered this.
|
| I'm sure the study covers more but the title doesn't grab me.
| ahupp wrote:
| It would be nice if they included the upper bound of the genetic
| component from twin studies. Without that it's hard to say
| whether the 8-25% they found here is as much as we'll get, or if
| large studies are needed.
|
| It would be pretty surprising if they found a single gene though.
| The omnigenetic theory says that every complex trait is
| influenced by small contributions from many genes.
|
| https://www.quantamagazine.org/omnigenic-model-suggests-that...
| airhead969 wrote:
| Absence of proof from an infinite pool of choices isn't proof of
| absence, but complete understanding of the genome would eliminate
| it by exhaustion.
|
| In terms of XY exclusively-gay, I think epigenetic is still the
| leading hypothesis and not genetic by itself. It would be
| interesting to learn how the genetics set-us up for epigenetic
| influences.
|
| Other non-heterosexual and flexible sexualities for XX and XY
| seem more fluid and complicated to unpack. For example, I am
| unsure what proportion of lesbians are gold star and cannot be
| aroused at all by males, but I suspect it is low.
| coding123 wrote:
| I'm curious if they instead focused on a simple neural net that
| is fed genes + gay/straight flag if the NN would actually
| successfully predict it.... in other words, NN's don't care about
| "finding" that specific gene, they kinda include everything and
| it "finds" the gene without actually pointing it out.
|
| That's very different from the human approach which is to try to
| find something specific.
|
| I mean compare it to blood diseases based on genetics. There are
| many genes that lead to health problems that comes down the
| shape. But it's not just one thing, it's a spread of things.
| We're thinking Gay is a specific gene we're just as unlikely to
| find it.
|
| Not arguing any specific direction, but I just suspect the
| findings if they don't include variances in their methods.
| slaymaker1907 wrote:
| The best you could probably do would be to match twins, so
| about 65%[1].
|
| [1]: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8494487/
| klmadfejno wrote:
| Neural nets for genetics are probably a good fit, and perhaps
| arguably, a better biological analogy than actual neurons. But
| they're likely already getting the gist here. They actually say
| that with genetic analysis (implying more than one gene at a
| time), they could explain 25% of sexual behavior. To be honest,
| that's a lot more than I would have expected. In biology,
| that's a pretty high predictive power, and I think is a way
| more interesting headline than "no single gene controls sexual
| orientation".
|
| At the end of the day though, many other factors will
| contribute, so genetics can only explain so much. With
| aggressive data collection during development, I would wager we
| could get sexual orientation prediction much higher. Probably
| not high on the proverbial bio-ethicist's wishlist of things to
| make broadly available.
| rickdeveloper wrote:
| This is an interesting idea. I wonder if we could then use
| something like [0] to trace back "gay-ness" as well as other
| "personality features" (I'm not sure what the correct term is
| here) to the exact genes.
|
| One potential issue I see is that the DNA of any person has an
| arbitrary length, which poses some challenges in the design of
| a neural network. Traditionally, this has been solved with
| LSTMs or RNNs, but as far I know these are designed for data
| with a temporal dimension (such as text or speech, which
| progress with time). I'm not sure if that's true for DNA.
|
| [0] https://arxiv.org/abs/1509.06321
| jm__87 wrote:
| Or.. there is no such thing as a gayness gene. Genetics are
| generally not a strong predictor for human behavior.
| Gestational environment, what sort of environment you grew up
| in, whether or not you've suffered any head injuries or have
| another developmental disorder, internal hormonal
| environment, the culture you live in... these are all much
| better predictors.
| suizi wrote:
| I don't think it is entirely genetic. There are other factors
| like development within the mother's body, levels of hormones /
| chemicals, and so on which could contribute to a different
| sexuality later on.
|
| This doesn't mean you can change it, and messing with chemical
| levels in the hope of finding a configuration which leads to
| "normality" would be very unethical in my eyes.
| iguy wrote:
| For complex traits, I believe people think that linear effects
| dominate. Which is another way of saying that they see no
| advantage to adding a hidden layer, which encodes interactions,
| compared to adding up individual effects.
|
| The caveat here "for complex traits" means things like height,
| for which we know there are hundreds to thousands of common
| variants which matter. Some things aren't like that, e.g.
| simple recessive gene effects are interactions! And, with more
| data, this may change.
| smnthermes wrote:
| There's a theory* that says things like autism, creative genius
| and homosexuality are caused by suppression of innate
| characteristics of our species. If so, then it makes sense why
| there isn't a "gay gene", since there aren't also specific genes
| for more than 90% of autistics.
|
| * https://archive.is/BsxMm
| abfan1127 wrote:
| I recently read about the spectrum of homosexuality. Its not a
| black and white issue. I don't recall the Kinsey scale being the
| article I read, but it seems relevant. If this is the case, it
| seems less likely its a single gene. Perhaps its multiple gene
| expressions accompanied with environmental factors?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinsey_scale
| bonoetmalo wrote:
| Kind of hopeful we can stop using genetics as a way of justifying
| queer peoples' existence. Whether it's conditioning, a choice, or
| genetics, shouldn't really be a factor in how you treat queer
| people.
| klmadfejno wrote:
| If you want people to be treated equally, wouldn't you want
| their existence to be justified?
|
| It's difficult to think of a PC analogy here, so maybe... super
| villain mind control device strapped to someone's head.
| Provably unjustified behaviors due to the mind control device
| implies the ethical thing to do is try to remove the device.
| Treating someone normally implies an implicit belief that
| they're normal. Sound biological evidence that being queer is
| just how some people are feels like the best way to reinforce
| that belief and remove requirements for heteronormativity.
| bonoetmalo wrote:
| I acknowledge this is the prerequisite a lot of people need
| to justify queer peoples' existence.
|
| > wouldn't you want their existence to be justified
|
| In my ideal world, I would want my existence to be justified
| even if I 100% chose to be bisexual, gay, trans, etc. So yes,
| I do want it to be justified, but I don't want genetics to be
| the justification.
| klmadfejno wrote:
| Hmm, maybe this is a pointless semantic argument, but being
| justified by a choice sounds like its just passing the ball
| to justification for the choice. In a world where identity
| is proven to be 100% just a choice, that sounds like its
| not justified, and while not deserving of discrimination,
| to some extent committed to being non-normative.
|
| This paper suggests genetics control at least 25% of
| variance in sexual orientation. We know hormone profiles
| control another decently large proportion. Are you saying
| you are upset that deterministic factors cause queer
| identities? or are you trying to say you wish a
| deterministic factor for queer identities wasn't necessary
| for equal treatment?
|
| The first feels strange, the latter makes a lot of sense.
| pessimizer wrote:
| If pedophilia turns out to be 26% determined by genetics,
| would the existence of pedophiles be more "justified"
| than the existence of homosexuals?
|
| The reason we should be tolerant of homosexuality is
| because it's as healthy and harmless as heterosexuality,
| not because it's some sort of handicap.
| hisabness wrote:
| could still be a mix of genes. agree with your last sentence.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| That would be ideal, but some people need to be convinced that
| it is not a choice before they will consider treating gay
| people with respect. So long as they think it's just a
| behavioral decision, they can rationalize their bigotry.
| bzb6 wrote:
| If anything this headline means the opposite, right? That you
| are not born a homosexual, at least from a genetic
| perspective.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| I don't think it's making that strong a claim. They can't
| identify a specific gene. That's not quite "you are not
| born a homosexual." Plenty of studies over the years have
| shown statistically very significant genetic links. We just
| can't explain the exact mechanism yet.
| btilly wrote:
| It is much more nuanced than that.
|
| What they found was 5 areas of the genome that had
| predictive potential for people being gay or straight.
| Combined, they were able to predict about 25% of what makes
| someone gay. The other 75% is environmental.
|
| Note that some "environmental factors" may still be genetic
| in nature. For example there is strong evidence in animals
| that the prenatal environment has an impact on homosexual
| behavior. Which means that a mother's genetics can be
| correlated with her children's sexuality. Therefore a gene
| could impact homosexuality through changing the environment
| in the mother's womb. In that case the child having that
| gene would be correlated with the child being homosexual
| and the gene would show up in this study. But the
| differences between the child's genetics and the mother's
| would be an environmental factor.
| JamesAdir wrote:
| It's from 2019. The headline should be fixed.
| angst_ridden wrote:
| Like with most things attributed to genetics, it's more likely
| that we should be looking at epigenetics.
| haberman wrote:
| Is there _any_ trait that is strongly linked to a single gene?
|
| Whenever I hear a news article that there is no X gene, I am
| completely unsurprised. The idea that a single gene would
| uniquely determine a particular trait, as if it were a variable
| in a program like "bool has_blue_eyes", seems oversimplified and
| unrealistic.
| iguy wrote:
| > Is there any trait that is strongly linked to a single gene?
|
| Sure.
|
| Sickle-cell anaemia is one classic case, one (recessive) gene.
|
| Huntington's disease is another, it's about a specific repeat
| number.
|
| But, as you say, most complex traits (such as height) aren't
| like that, and involve hundreds or thousands of different
| genes. IIRC eye color is actually fairly simple, not one gene
| but much of the control in just a handful? Maybe hair color
| too? (But not super-sure.)
| nradov wrote:
| ABO blood group gene
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABO_%28gene%29
| Simulacra wrote:
| Yes. MC1R which people with red hair carry. It's a very
| strongly associated gene. Also "People with freckles and no red
| hair have an 85% chance of carrying the MC1R gene that is
| connected to red hair. People with no freckles and no red hair
| have an 18% chance of carrying the MC1R gene linked to red
| hair."
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melanocortin_1_receptor
| BugsJustFindMe wrote:
| People latched onto the idea that sexuality is genetically
| determined because it seemed like the only viable way to defend
| themselves against rampant religious bigotry and oppression. It
| was a rope dangling into the well you were trapped in, and the
| well was filling with acid, but if you could just manage to climb
| that rope then you'd make it out. The reasoning went something
| like "if I can prove that sexuality is genetically predetermined
| then it means that I didn't choose to be this way". As if genetic
| predestination were the only possible reason to grant protection
| to a class. Some people fairly quickly saw the problem with this
| defense and expanded it to include other uncontrollable elements
| of childhood development, again leaning on the "if I didn't have
| a choice _then_ it has to be ok". As if choices were still
| somehow the problem.
|
| But that's always been a fucked up idea. It shouldn't matter
| whether it was predetermined or otherwise not in your control. If
| it's constructed then it's constructed. If it's not then it's
| not. People shouldn't be oppressed for their sexuality full stop,
| regardless of reason.
|
| I think the idea of genetic predestination might have been a
| short-term useful crutch in the past but I hope that we've begun
| to progress beyond needing people to explain themselves.
| ian-g wrote:
| I think there's also an element of constructed boxes to put
| people into as well.
|
| Would I rather say to you, some random person, "I'm gay" and
| move on? Or do I want to get into "I'm gay, it's complicated"
| and have to explain more? Most of the time I just don't want to
| get into it further.
|
| And I've had conversations with some folks who outwardly say
| they're straight but privately have described themselves pretty
| similarly to "Well mostly straight, it's complicated."
|
| It's tiring, and I'd like it if we all came to an agreement
| that it's complicated, the edges don't line up nicely, and we
| should all just accept that it's weird. It'd make my life way
| easier
| est31 wrote:
| I agree that one shouldn't support the genetic predetermination
| theory of sexuality just as a defense for oppression. That's
| not how science should be done.
|
| That being said, I still doubt that people really have a choice
| over their sexuality. Otherwise there would be far more stories
| from people who have "successfully" turned straight or
| something, instead of stories from people who have tried to
| suppress their true sexuality for years and who just turned sad
| in the process.
|
| It might not be genetically determined, but there are so many
| more immutable determinants to our behaviour that are outside
| of our control. The brain is a giant state machine and not all
| of that is plastic all of the time. It might be determined
| before you are even born, in the womb. It might be determined
| in your first few years of life. Or it might actually be
| genetically determined but through a complex interplay from
| multiple genes, something that our statistical tools can't
| catch yet, especially as we don't have an objective measure for
| gayness. Last, there might be multiple ways someone turns gay.
| bsder wrote:
| > That being said, I still doubt that people really have a
| choice over their sexuality.
|
| My response to people who argue about this is generally: "So,
| when did you _decide_ you liked long legs more than large
| breasts? " Choose whatever pairing of sexual characteristics
| drives home the choice to the person involved.
|
| Like so many things about "sexuality", at some point we
| _notice_ them, but rarely do we actively _choose_ them.
| throwanem wrote:
| That's not much of an argument. A preference for long legs
| vs. large breasts is just that: a _preference_. What if
| Long Legs is a meth addict and Large Breasts is the mother
| of your children? Or likewise. At that point it sounds
| pathological.
|
| That's why I don't like the "gay gene" argument and never
| did, not even when it was the hot new thing among
| assimilationists. It's fundamentally flawed, and not only
| because it suggests an easy solution to the problem by just
| making sure no more gay people get born. It grounds the
| discussion in a "we can't help it" attitude that's
| ultimately self-defeating because it's always vulnerable to
| the response that "of _course_ you can help it, even
| alcoholics have AA, do you have no control over yourself
| whatsoever? " and there's just no good answer to that.
|
| The form of the argument cedes to the hostile interlocutor
| that an _excuse_ is required for why we are like we are. I
| 've never understood why anyone thinks that is a good idea.
| Pet_Ant wrote:
| > My response to people who argue about this is generally:
| "So, when did you decide you liked long legs more than
| large breasts?" Choose whatever pairing of sexual
| characteristics drives home the choice to the person
| involved. I feel like there is a clear middle ground. I
| cannot choose to believe in God, but I wouldn't call it in
| in-born either. It seems like some things develop through a
| myriad subtle interactions and subconscious inferences that
| in their totality add up to a sexuality.
|
| I know my taste in women has definitely changed without a
| change in DNA.
| netizen-9748 wrote:
| Frankly, we don't have much of a choice in anything.
| pessimizer wrote:
| You don't have a choice about _anything_ you like. The
| closest you can get to choosing what you like is to decide
| that you _want to like_ something, and expose yourself to it
| enough that it starts to grow on you (i.e. you find something
| in it you like and use that to reinterpret the rest that you
| were negative or indifferent towards.)
| h_anna_h wrote:
| I would say that the same goes for beliefs.
| LudwigNagasena wrote:
| > But that's always been a fucked up idea. It shouldn't matter
| whether it was predetermined or otherwise not in your control.
|
| Yep, that's why I simply don't care anymore what rhetoric
| modern social movements use. Not only usually it makes zero
| sense, they are ready to ditch it anytime it benefits them.
|
| There is no point in having a serious discourse with anyone who
| treats it only as a weapon to achieve their goals.
| bostonsre wrote:
| > People shouldn't be oppressed for their sexuality full stop,
| regardless of reason.
|
| Completely agreed. I don't think we should shy away from trying
| to understand and explain it though. It's been a puzzling
| question that people have tried to grapple with for a long time
| now. I think it would be interesting to understand humans
| better.
|
| And.. if it is definitively proven that it is nature and not
| nurture, it might make the lives of individuals easier by not
| having to deal with as many attacks from those that were
| intolerant but have changed their minds when exposed to the
| science. I agree that ideally, those individuals wouldn't be
| discriminated against in the first place, but that's not the
| world we live in right now. I would argue that if anyone could
| do anything to alleviate some of that discrimination with
| science, it would be an incredibly worthwhile endeavor.
| throwanem wrote:
| If people changed their minds in the face of the science,
| we'd have been putting real work into decarbonization since
| 10 years ago at least.
| tgb wrote:
| There's also the other side: if someone is a homicidal
| psychopath due to their genetics, then I still do not want them
| to roam free. So genetically predetermined is not a good
| argument to use in favor of gay rights. People should be
| allowed to determine their own sexuality, regardless of whether
| that determination was preset by their genetics or not, just as
| people should _not_ be allowed to commit murder regardless of
| whether that was preset by their genetics. (Same goes for other
| possible sources of determination.)
| klmadfejno wrote:
| That's cheating. A person is only a homicidal psychopath
| after they have committed homicide. Locking up a psychopath
| who has committed no crimes is just as fucked up as locking
| up someone for being gay.
| suizi wrote:
| There's another side. Conversion therapy of any form is
| inhumane. It makes someone deny their very identity. It may
| even drive them to suicide. And for what, so someone doesn't
| get offended by their existence?
| renewiltord wrote:
| Amusingly, before I moved to America and understood it, I
| thought "sexuality is a choice" was a defence of homosexuality
| because I believed Americans believed "humans should be free to
| make choices about themselves". Funny, eh?
|
| But it seemed obvious to me. After all, maybe some people are
| genetically predisposed to eating babies. Doesn't mean I'm
| going to be okay with that. Sucks for them but they can either
| suppress the baby eating or go to prison.
| p1mrx wrote:
| I'm just waiting for the Impossible Baby.
| suizi wrote:
| It's more that some people think "people choose to do things
| society greatly disapproves of", that is going out of their
| way to be difficult, and they want to punish them for this.
|
| But, then you would have to consider why it is they greatly
| disapprove of it in the first place, is it as unhealthy and
| dysfunctional as they think? Is it even their place to
| complain about someone else's affairs?
| rayiner wrote:
| You're collapsing a huge societal design space into a narrow,
| ultra-individualistic western viewpoint. Your point only makes
| sense in societies that take it as a given that individual
| autonomy trumps the right of society to enforce behavioral,
| moral, and social norms. That approach is not morally required
| and almost no non-western society embraces that viewpoint.
| Almost all of Asia and Africa accepts that requiring conformity
| in voluntary lifestyle and personal expression is a legitimate
| end. There is nothing special about sexuality in that respect--
| nearly everyone in the world thinks its perfectly legitimate
| for societies to, for example, impose taboos on sexual activity
| outside the bounds of some marriage-like relationship. By your
| reasoning, western sexual permissiveness is morally required--
| even when it comes to voluntary choices. That's a radical (and
| quite ethnocentric) claim. Whether something is a choice or a
| characteristic that cannot easily be changed is therefore
| tremendously important. It elevates the issue from ordinary
| policing of norms, into the realm of human rights.
|
| And of course, it's ridiculous to say that people "latched on"
| to sexual orientation being immutable to appease "bigots." That
| observation rests on the experience of countless individuals
| who suffered tremendous pain and suffering trying to deny their
| immutable sexual orientation. (And the article, of course,
| nowhere suggests that sexual orientation is a choice. Many
| things are immutable characteristics, or at least not easily
| changeable--without being traceable to a specific gene.
| imnotlost wrote:
| There's a huge difference between "policing of social norms"
| and equal rule of law for all regardless of who they choose
| to have sex with.
|
| Maybe you can argue that it's fine for someone to choose not
| to be friends with gay people but it shouldn't be OK for the
| government withhold rights/law/healthcare/social
| security/education/electricity/water/etc because of it. Who
| cares if it's genetics or a choice.
| rayiner wrote:
| Neither of those things is okay, because sexual orientation
| is immutable, not a choice.
|
| As to things that are choices, such as polygamy and
| adultery, the government can certainly punish people for
| those, even in western countries. It could set the age of
| consent to 25 if it wanted to--it would certainly have a
| rational basis for doing so. That's true even in the west,
| much less anywhere else.
| tick_tock_tick wrote:
| > Neither of those things is okay, because sexual
| orientation is immutable, not a choice.
|
| How do you actually know that? You can't just state
| something like that as a fact and assume people are going
| to accept it especially in response to an article call
| "No 'gay gene'".
| nicwilson wrote:
| > because sexual orientation is immutable,
|
| Not entirely true, I remember there was a case where an
| English rugby player received a concussion and was put in
| an induced(?) coma and was gay after he woke up.
|
| However we certainly don't have the capability to change
| it.
| threatofrain wrote:
| Society cares, that's the point. Society cares about who
| you have sex with, and society cares about whether
| something is genetic. If society didn't care we'd be having
| a different discussion.
| memling wrote:
| > But that's always been a fucked up idea. It shouldn't matter
| whether it was predetermined or otherwise not in your control.
| If it's constructed then it's constructed. If it's not then
| it's not. People shouldn't be oppressed for their sexuality
| full stop, regardless of reason.
|
| You are right, I think, to root the conflict in religion. The
| dominant religion in the West, Christianity, treats the human
| body as a given. That is to say that while you are more than
| just your body, you are certainly not less: there is a union of
| mind and body that separates only at death. If they disagree, a
| reconciliation must be attempted from the outside (i.e., by
| God).
|
| Of course today we have technology that puts a veneer of
| science on what is really a religious idea: we are essentially
| our mind and _not_ our body. When the two disagree, we needn 't
| change our minds because we can alter the body through hormones
| and surgery.
|
| On the face of it, I don't see how you could reconcile these
| two positions. I think the use of genetic predestination was
| used as an attempt to do this: if I'm _made this way_ then how
| can it be wrong to be {gay, trans, etc.}? But in general I
| think the denominations that were predisposed to blessing
| homosexuality (for example) were unlikely to need scientific
| persuasions like that. When it became clear that rigid
| denominations weren 't going to budge, it feels like genetic
| predestination became unfashionable.
| yters wrote:
| Plus it doesn't make sense from a Christian perspective. The
| Roman Catholic branch and derivatives all believe everyone is
| genetically predisposed to sin through Adam's lineage, and
| that is a bad thing, and we don't have a choice in the
| matter. So saying homosexuality is a genetic predisposition
| just means it gets lumped into the rest of our fallen
| attributes. Making it a choice doesn't fix things either,
| since a choice can be intrinsically sinful. There is no other
| way than to deny that homosexuality is wrong. Yet that is
| difficult to do, since sexuality has such an obvious role to
| play in the perpetuation of the human race. If it were
| normative then the human race would not exist. So the most
| straightforward explanation is it is a deviation from the way
| things should be, as is much else in our human nature, which
| in turn points to a standard that we deviate from.
| [deleted]
| klmadfejno wrote:
| I read this as well intentioned but ultimately poor reasoning.
| Things that are intrinsic about a person are a good baseline,
| no-question quality that we should not antagonize people for.
| Sexual orientation, race, disabilities, gender, appearance etc.
| These seem like important issues to get right on civic
| protections.
|
| Saying we must offer respect to everyone's choices is just
| wrong. We certainly don't want to ensure someone's right to be
| a homophobic asshole in a workplace for example. And it's not
| as simple as just saying being LGBTQ is a private thing that
| doesn't affect others either. Trans bathroom rights, marriage
| license rights, adoption rights, etc.. The argument to ban gay
| conversion camps seems much harder to make if one believes
| identity is purely a choice. If homosexuality is perceived as a
| choice, then onlookers will wonder who influenced someone to
| make a choice to be gay, which muddies the perception of being
| gay being a personal private thing.
|
| Homophobia is bad, but wishing it weren't a thing doesn't
| change the reasoning that intrinsic qualities are a lot more
| important to protect than choices.
|
| Sexual orientation is more deserving of protection than, say,
| holocaust denialism. Religion is the only protected class that
| is a choice, but for many people, it's not so much a choice as
| an inherited identity and similarly fixed.
| InitialLastName wrote:
| To go further, Veteran status is a choice, but we choose to
| protect it in order to encourage that choice.
| dwohnitmok wrote:
| The big question that this viewpoint misses is what to do with
| fears that certain things "turn people gay" and the flip side
| of that fear: that the straight community might use successful
| conversion therapy to eliminate the gay community.
|
| All of a sudden both of those camps have ammunition for their
| points.
|
| Saying that it's "genetically determined" (or at least innately
| determined) very nicely sidestepped that. To the extent that
| that is not true, then you have to grapple with those other
| questions.
| xirbeosbwo1234 wrote:
| Did anyone ever actually think there was a gay gene-- more
| accurately, allele? Homosexuality clearly has a genetic
| component, and we've known that for decades. But we've also known
| for decades that most traits are not controlled by a single gene
| and that human sexuality is not a binary matter.
|
| This seems like describing a launch to the ISS with the headline
| " _No firmament_ ".
| antattack wrote:
| Looking inwards, attraction feels like pattern recognition
| combined with catecholamine release. So perhaps genes, but also
| hormones/environment would be responsible.
| drocer88 wrote:
| The actual study:
| https://science.sciencemag.org/content/365/6456/eaat7693
|
| Result: "five autosomal loci were significantly associated with
| same-sex sexual behavior".
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Genes + how they are read (epigenetics) both matter equally
| klmadfejno wrote:
| > equally
|
| citation needed
| ohduran wrote:
| Not an expert here but, IF a gay gene existed, wouldn't have it
| been evolved into extinction?
| hello_friendos wrote:
| Important to note that there isn't just Gay and Straight, but
| more often people exist somewhere in between. That's why we
| have bisexual and pansexual people.
| whatshisface wrote:
| The trouble with that argument is that it also works with,
|
| "If there was a genetic cause for shortsightedness, why is it
| still around?"
|
| "If there was such a thing as a genetic disease, why haven't
| they evolved out?"
|
| "If not having X-ray vision was genetic, wouldn't the absence
| of X-ray vision have been selected out?"
|
| You really can't expect evolution to accomplish its "goals,"
| per se. It is sort of a gentle flow down a lazy river, towards
| adaptation.
| lultimouomo wrote:
| "If there was a genetic cause for shortsightedness, why is it
| still around?" - because myopia doesn't significantly affect
| your chances to produce offsprings.
|
| It seems reasonable that being gay does significantly reduce
| your ability to have children; therefore it is reasonable to
| expect that if it was an inheritable trait it would have been
| selected against.
| Brian_K_White wrote:
| Everyone keeps saying that, but it's simply not true.
|
| We have understood how this is not true for decades or even
| hundreds of years, and it's not even some impossible
| concept to grasp.
|
| All that's required for a trait to persist, is for it to
| benefit the pool, not the individual.
|
| The only way the seemingly obvious but incorrect idea you
| descibed applies is, a trait which is good for the group at
| the expense of the individual, if it's 100% effective like
| sterility unlike say alarm-calling which merely carries a
| risk for the individual, is that such a trait can never
| grow to where all members exhibit it.
|
| But it can absolutely be strongly selected for maintaining
| whatever the optimal percentage is. IE, if it benefits the
| pool for 10% of members to be sterile, then the percentage
| of sterile members will not decrease through the mechanism
| you and so many imagine, but will stay at 10% for as long
| as the benefit exists.
| ohduran wrote:
| Not really. Say I'm shortsighted, and still a potential
| mating partner due to a variety of other traits (being a
| billionaire, or looking suspiciously similar to Ryan
| Gosling). In that case, I would be able to transmit my genes
| to my eventual offspring.
|
| The case with gay genes is different. Regardless of any other
| trait, I'm genetically prone to not have any offspring. Thus,
| eventually my genes would be less and less common.
| [deleted]
| Brian_K_White wrote:
| Incorrect.
|
| All that's required for a trait to persist is that it
| benefits the pool.
|
| If the pool benefits from have 1% of members being blind,
| then so they shall be.
|
| We don't have to understand the benefit for it to exist
| either.
| lostphilosopher wrote:
| I'm assuming you're right since I don't know much about
| this subject, but how does that mechanically work? How
| does a trait, even if it is beneficial to the community,
| get passed down if the members that have that trait don't
| have offspring?
| antognini wrote:
| It could be recessive, so it only gets expressed if an
| individual has two copies of the recessive gene.
| zvrba wrote:
| Interestingly, I've heard about many people who went from
| "straight", married with children to leaving their families
| because they've found out they're gay. I even knew one whose
| first sexual experiences were with women, and he decided he was
| gay later. In his "straight phase" he could have had fathered
| children if he weren't careful. Curiously, I've never heard
| about opposite cases (spontaneous [1] gay -> straight
| transition). Make of it what you want.
|
| [1] Spontaneous = ignoring attempts to "cure" gay orientation.
| npwr wrote:
| Not if it is recessive. Example with a recessive "gay gene":
| Both parent have one normal allele and one "gay" allele. The
| repartition of the offspring will be:
|
| - 25% both normal alleles (normal phenotype) - 50% one normal
| allele (normal phenotype) - 25% both gay alleles (gay
| phenotype)
|
| But homosexuality is not a gene. I believe that the [fetal
| androgen exposure theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prenata
| l_hormones_and_sexual_o...) is the one currently preferred.
| creata wrote:
| A common analogy here is that in lots of insects, you see whole
| groups of non-reproductive members, and yet the idea of a "non-
| reproductive worker insect" hasn't "evolved into extinction."
|
| (I'm not commenting on whether being gay has a genetic basis or
| whether it's an example of kin selection, because honestly, I
| have no idea.)
| abfan1127 wrote:
| non-reproductive workers benefit the reproductive insects.
| For instance, worker bees benefit the queen. The queens that
| lay the eggs in the most beneficial ratios are most likely to
| survive and pass on.
|
| For this analogy to be equivalent, it should lead to having
| gay children benefit the adults enough to allow for more
| successful breeding.
|
| I do am not commenting on one's gayness has a genetic basis,
| because I also have not idea.
| lultimouomo wrote:
| The point is that non-reproductive insects don't have
| specific set of genes that make them non-reproductive - it is
| not an inheritable trait. If it was, then it _would_ have
| evolved into extinction.
| Brian_K_White wrote:
| Of course they do (have genes that make them non-
| reproductive) and of course it hasn't (evolved out of
| extinction).
|
| There is nothing about a possible genetic basis (whether
| complex and indirect or simple and direct) for an
| individuals non-reproductiveness that implies it has to
| result in extiguishing itself.
|
| Humans are social enough that genetics which benefit the
| group at the expense of the individual are perfectly
| selectable.
|
| Heck it even works for utterly antisocial species.
|
| All that's required for a trait to persist is for it to be
| good for any members by any means. It doesn't have to be
| good for the individual carrier, and it doesn't have to be
| good in a way that we happen to understand.
| KingMachiavelli wrote:
| There is also the 'beneficial sibling' theory where a
| homosexual sibling improves the reproductive success of their
| siblings/close family via being able to devote more energy to
| their siblings offspring instead of their own or are able to
| gather/utilize more resources that leads to a familial
| advantage.
| praptak wrote:
| The other posts cover possible reasons why being gay may be
| actually good for the utility function of a gene.
|
| There is another hypothesis for why this hypothetical gene
| might not evolve into extinction. Being gay may just be a side
| effect of it, with some other benefits being the reason this
| gene stays in our gene pool.
| lr4444lr wrote:
| Common mutations are inescapable.
| hliyan wrote:
| It might persevere through kin selection. For siblings who
| share the gene, such an individual would have all the benefits
| of a male/female (security, hunting, care-giving), but none of
| the mating competition. One could argue if such a gene existed,
| it would be quite an altruistic one.
| NortySpock wrote:
| A lot of the musings I've seen in this direction have been
| along the lines of
|
| (1) some people are bisexual and thus would occasionally
| reproduce and
|
| (2) if sexuality promotes "togetherness" and "group cohesion",
| then having "our gay uncle who 'has connections' and is always
| willing to help out the family group" is still beneficial for
| the family unit and thus a gay gene would not be selected
| against within that family lineage.
|
| Probably not a majority of the population, but there's no
| reason for such a "gay gene" (if it were to exist) to be driven
| to zero.
| fredley wrote:
| Not neccessarily. Humans are social creatures, our genes'
| survival is not solely dependent on our individual ability to
| pass them on, since we share genes with our siblings and
| parents as well as offspring. For example, families with some
| non-reproducing offspring may fair better due to having a
| higher adults/children ratio.
|
| If such a gene existed (which perhaps it doesn't), it might
| benefit families who had members carrying it.
|
| This is the same reason some species have evolved alarm-calling
| when a predator is nearby. It benefits the collective (who
| share the gene), but at an obvious detriment to the
| individual's ability to pass on their genes in this case.
| ben_w wrote:
| In addition, one suggestion is that a possible "gay gene"
| would be something that causes extremely strong attraction to
| men in both men and women with that gene. Women with this
| gene would then be more likely to father children, which
| could counter the evolutionary pressure resulting from the
| male offspring with that gene not having any offspring.
|
| (I'm massively oversimplfing of course, my bio knowledge is
| fairly limited).
| mikepurvis wrote:
| The argument around this is that it's of social benefit rather
| than individual. Particularly when child/infant mortality is
| high and women have lots of children, it could be helpful to
| have a pool of adults supporting the child-rearing of others,
| especially their immediate siblings.
| xirbeosbwo1234 wrote:
| If you take a simplistic view of genetics where you draw Punnet
| squares and check if the offspring has GG alleles, maybe. Even
| if there are social benefits to there being some gay people
| around, that would still make those alleles pretty unlikely to
| be passed on. That doesn't imply there isn't a genetic
| component. Real genetics is a lot more complicated than that.
|
| The fact that something is genetic doesn't imply there is no
| social component. Genetic factors could lead to a
| _predisposition_ for a certain behavior that would still be
| altered by environment. There could be many genes that each has
| some small effect but none of which is an on /off switch. Those
| would lead to more complicated selection pressures.
|
| We are pretty sure there is a genetic component. We are pretty
| sure that it isn't just "if you got the gay allele then you's
| gay".
|
| Also, some gay (or mostly gay) people have children. This is
| because a) most people are at least a little bit bisexual, b)
| people may want to have children even if the sex act isn't
| appealing, and c) there are social pressures to conform.
| nabla9 wrote:
| Not necessarily.
|
| * the same gene can have different phenotypes in different
| individuals. One phenotype may be net negative but the benefit
| from the other makes it net positive.
|
| * in social animal gene can be carried by relatives. Extreme
| example is ants and bees, most of them are not fertile but they
| help to spread their genes by helping those who are.
| Brian_K_White wrote:
| More than just that, as far as I can see, there is no reason
| this only applies to social species.
|
| If it benefits the pool that x% of members have a trait, even
| full sterility, then the genetics will result in x% having
| that trait, as long as the benefit continues to exist.
|
| I'm not sure what an example mechanism might be for some
| mountain cats or spiders or whatever that the species
| benefits from 4% of their members being sterile, but I see no
| reason that there couldn't be one, and it doesn't require the
| unfortunate exhibitors of the trait to preserve and
| occasionally produce the next exhibitor of the trait.
| valarauko wrote:
| Let's assume the benefit is improved female fertility. If
| it's an autosomal trait, half of the carriers will be male,
| and lead to the vast majority of them refusing to have
| offspring. That would require the sisters to have a pretty
| spectacular bump in the number of offspring to offset their
| gay brothers. Indeed, since the trait is clearly polygenic,
| all the sisters do not inherit the trait equally, if at
| all. The sisters who do inherit it would have to be
| spectacularly fecund to compensate.
| notabee wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandmother_hypothesis#The_gra...
| pdpi wrote:
| Not necessarily. If the gene is recessive, it will be passed
| on. The question then is: what happens when that gene expresses
| itself?
|
| The naive reaction is: individuals with the "gay gene" won't
| reproduce and it will eventually die out. A more nuanced
| perspective is that while that individual won't reproduce,
| their presence in the community helps the clan's survival, so a
| community with the gene is overall stronger, so the gene will
| stay around.
| agravier wrote:
| Depending on other conditions (environmental and genetic), a
| particular gene may not be expressed in the same manner (or at
| all). You can find simple examples in recessive alleles. The
| phenotype of such genes will only be expressed when both
| alleles are of a compatible type.
|
| Another striking example: Sickle cell disease will only be
| deadly if both alleles carry the unfortunate mutation. But the
| unhealthy allele is unlikely to be eliminated by evolutionary
| pressure because carrying one allele provides significant
| protection against malaria.
|
| The interactions between genes and their environment is usually
| more complicated that these simple examples, but I hope it
| illustrates that evolutionary pressure may not suffice to erase
| some apparently unsustainable alleles from the population.
| btilly wrote:
| The striking example that you gave is more striking than
| that. Having one allele actually brings protection from
| malaria. So the recessive is selected for..as long as not too
| many people have it.
|
| That is why sickle-cell anemia mostly shows up in people
| whose ancestors came from places with a long history of
| malaria.
| tzs wrote:
| There are several possibilities.
|
| 1. If having gay relatives improved the chances that _you_ will
| have children and they would survive to themselves reproduce,
| then evolution could favor maintaining a gay gene.
|
| Remember that for nearly all of our species' existence, and
| that of the pre-humans we evolved from, we've lived most of our
| lives in arrangements where our close relatives lived near us
| and most people in the region were also related to us.
|
| Your children have half your genes. Your siblings' children
| have a quarter of your genes. So in effect two of your siblings
| children are equivalent to one of your own as far as getting
| your genetic material into the next generation goes.
|
| If being gay meant that your sibling does not have their own
| kids to take care of and so they devote effort that would have
| gone to raising their own kids to helping their straight
| siblings' with their kids or to doing things that help the
| village that those with kids don't have the time for, that
| might greatly increase the survival rate of those kids enough
| to make up for not having kids of their own.
|
| 2. Being gay doesn't mean you can't have kids. Throughout most
| of our history, many many people have had kids with people they
| have not been attracted to. That goes for both gay people and
| straight people.
|
| 3. What if it were a bisexual gene rather than a gay gene?
| Having people in your tribe that can form with both men and
| women the kind of close bonds the people form for the sexual
| partners has some obvious advantages.
| DoofusOfDeath wrote:
| I would think that being "gay" doesn't 100% prevent someone
| from fathering / mothering children.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| This. In the past, there was a lot of prominent personalities
| who were suspected of being gay, but left progeny.
|
| Social pressure to have children, especially if there is a
| title / wealth / prestige to inherit, would certainly play a
| role.
| xutopia wrote:
| Well yes and no. It might actually give a benefit to other
| siblings. It could manifest itself only in certain
| circumstances in the womb or in the environment if something
| helps the phenotype manifest itself...
|
| For example there is a correlation with sibling order and
| homosexuality. The more boys your mother had before you the
| more chance you have of being homosexual. We're talking about a
| non-negligible increase of over 30%:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraternal_birth_order_and_male...
| threeseed wrote:
| What if the "gay gene" is tied to the "sexually attracted to
| our parents gene" ?
|
| And evolving out the former would cause the later to go which
| is detrimental to the overall health of the species.
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| Not necessarily, as long as it's recessive.
|
| Not an expert either here though.
| abcc8 wrote:
| If recessive, you'd expect the wild type and 'gay' alleles to
| be in Hardy Weinberg Equilibrium. However, this obviously
| isn't the case.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| Yes, it would; being recessive just makes the process take
| longer.
|
| I've pointed out on other HN threads that homosexuality has
| much lower concordance in identical twins (around 40%) than
| almost any other trait, making it an especially unlikely
| candidate for direct genetic causes.
| berelig wrote:
| Also not if for most of humanity the mates with this
| hypothetical gene were repressed into heterosexual
| relationships.
| [deleted]
| adamredwoods wrote:
| Consider studies done on penguins:
| https://www.researchgate.net/publication/229884855_Homosexua...
|
| > Some homosexually displaying males eventually paired with
| females, but such males were significantly slower in heterosexual
| pairing than males that did not display homosexually. In two
| extraordinary cases, same-sex pairs learned each other's calls,
| an essential step in the pairing process. The frequency of such
| pairs was much lower than among displaying couples, significantly
| so for males. Finally, the frequency of homosexually displaying
| pairs was significantly lower than expected from random
| assortment of displaying birds, for both males and females. We
| examined possible explanations for same-sex display and its
| biological significance. A population sex-ratio bias in favor of
| males and high concentration of male sex hormones may help to
| explain non-reproductive homosexually displaying pairs.
| readams wrote:
| It's unlikely there's a gene that codes for being gay.
| Homosexuality instead is better thought of as more like why men
| have nipples. Obviously the nipples are not useful to the
| reproductive success of men, but genetics and natural selection
| are messy and there's likely no easy path to not having them in
| men while maintaining their function in women.
|
| For homosexuality, the systems of sexual attraction in the brain
| need to tune to the gender somehow, and this is a system which,
| apparently, isn't 100% successful at aligning gender and sexual
| attraction. So the answer to "why are some men attracted to men"
| is the same as "why do men have nipples:" it's because women need
| to be attracted to men and because women need nipples.
|
| And of course it needs to be said that just because someone's
| sexual attraction isn't aligned to their gender it doesn't mean
| that they're inferior. We don't measure the worth of a person by
| their reproductive success.
| sjg007 wrote:
| Umm... Men have nipples because they form before sexual
| differentiation occurs.
| Brian_K_White wrote:
| I don't see how this makes their illustration invalid.
|
| This is, or could be, just the how not the why.
| mrfusion wrote:
| Sexually antagonistic pleiotropy perhaps.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antagonistic_pleiotropy_hypo...
| dnissley wrote:
| I think this is called a Spandrel:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spandrel_(biology)
| BurningFrog wrote:
| > _We don 't measure the worth of a person by their
| reproductive success._
|
| We don't measure human worth that way, but evolution measures
| nothing else!
| threatofrain wrote:
| But we do measure a person by their reproductive success. Where
| would one see otherwise?
| masklinn wrote:
| Kin-selection hypothesis also allow for some fraction of
| asexual or homosexual population being a positive overall (from
| an evolutionary perspective).
| SamBam wrote:
| Right. Selfish genes don't necessarily need to be beneficial
| for every individual that carries them. Queen bees have
| evolved -- through regular Darwinian evolution -- the trait
| of having a majority sterile offspring. Those genes don't
| help the worker bees, but they help the queen and so get
| passed down.
|
| If you have a genetic mutation that means 1/4 of your
| offspring won't bear their own children, but will increase
| the likelihood of your grandchildren living to adulthood,
| that may well be something that gets selected for.
|
| Not saying that this is necessarily the case with "gay
| genes," simply that it is perfectly consistent with standard
| evolution.
| LatteLazy wrote:
| There is good evidence that gay males are much more involved
| with their neices and nephews [0] and that their sisters are
| more fertile[1].
|
| [0] https://www.advocate.com/news/daily-
| news/2010/02/05/study-su...
|
| [1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15539346/
| [deleted]
| naebother wrote:
| Not sure if nipples are the best analogy here. Formation of
| nipples is largely down to how fetuses develop; i.e. nipples
| form before sexual differentiation. And I believe in some
| mammals, males in fact do not have visible nipples.
|
| https://www.livescience.com/32467-why-do-men-have-nipples.ht...
| LatteLazy wrote:
| I'm not OP but maybe it's the same: attraction to men gets
| developed before sexual differentiation then gets
| (inaccurately) overwritten later?
| Kye wrote:
| A lot of the search for a gay gene seems trapped in an outdated
| understanding of sexuality as a binary proposition: "you're
| either A or B." How do you even begin to contemplate a study on
| sexuality once you understand it as highly varied and fluid? Same
| with gender.
|
| They're bimodal distributions _at best_. You can 't just crop off
| the confounding valleys and call what you do with them good
| science.
| another_kel wrote:
| Intelligence or height is a spectrum too, yet we can probably
| explore existence of such genes. You just need to think in
| probabilities.
| abcc8 wrote:
| Yes, this study indicates that human sexuality is a trait more
| complex than many other aspects of humans, i.e. height, eye
| color, hair color, skin color, etc.
| mnky9800n wrote:
| This would be evidence of your argument then.
| [deleted]
| t-writescode wrote:
| Indeed. Many people on HN talking on this thread are forgetting
| bisexuality, demisexuality, etc. Even comments as simple as
| "you see a beautiful [x of opposite sex] and feel no
| attraction" miss a lot of vitals.
| red01 wrote:
| To be fair the LGBT movement purposefully pushed that
| misconception because it was more convenient for civil rights
| purposes.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| When you're trying to convince the majority to quit
| discriminating against you, then you push whatever evidence
| you've got. Convincing them that it's genetic, and therefore
| not a choice, is a prime goal.
| t-writescode wrote:
| It was easier to fit in as a bisexual person in the past,
| than a homosexual person, so bisexual people didn't need as
| much representation in the past.
|
| Ironically, now we're at a point where that's flipped, and
| you need to be either gay or straight and can't be somewhere
| in the middle; but, earlier on, bisexual people could escape
| persecution and therefore weren't the primary focus.
|
| It's a lot more effective to have the discussion "Dad, I like
| guys!" and get the father to accept that in the 1950s than it
| was to say "Hey dad, I like guys and gals". The father could
| just as easily go "You know, I think there's some good
| looking men out there, too" and completely miss the point.
| zepto wrote:
| Agreed - "no gay gene" is akin to saying "no intelligence gene"
| or "no autism gene".
|
| My understanding is that _most_ psychological traits are now
| thought of as polygenic, so a statement like "there is no gay
| gene" is really misleading, because genetics simply doesn't
| work that way.
| ristlane wrote:
| Not sure why you're being downvoted. You're right that human
| sexuality is nowhere near as clear cut as blonde/brown hair, or
| spotted fur on animals.
|
| Still, that doesn't mean genetics do not play a role in
| determining human sexuality, binary or otherwise.
| [deleted]
| klmadfejno wrote:
| Likely because it's just an incorrect statement, and vaguely
| accusatory. If you have a dataset of people that asks them if
| they identify as straight or gay, with no alternative, you're
| going to miss a lot of nuance, but you'll still likely have a
| useful dataset for extracting genetic effects. Most people
| would not describe their sexual orientation as fluid at all.
| You absolutely can crop off valleys and call it good science.
| implements wrote:
| "Same with gender", but not (in my opinion) sex.
|
| Sex is bimodal, and genetic - though there are are rare
| chromosomal disorders, and disorders of sexual development,
| these are not normal variants and shouldn't be considered a
| distribution.
|
| There's a suggestion that gender is innate and therefore (I
| assume) genetic, but do we really want to recreate the once
| anachronistic belief that most men and women are genetically
| predisposed to behave in masculine and feminine ways?
|
| (Not intended to be flame bait, but I thought someone ought to
| express the now rarely heard gender critical position)
| retrac wrote:
| I mean, yes, of course. But the fact that it's _not_ fluid in
| so many individuals is part of what fascinates me! The supposed
| binary split is not real of course, but you note yourself a
| rather strong bimodal distribution. And that distribution is
| itself, fascinating and hard to explain.
|
| I am gay, and I have been since I hit puberty. It's completely
| stable, a fixed personality trait my whole life. It's so...
| exact. That one little thing, completely inverted from a good
| majority of men. It's like someone flipped one little switch,
| that affected only that, at least as far as I can tell.
|
| Bisexuality or pansexuality or whatever you want to call it, on
| the other hand, seems to fit many of the proposed origins, far
| better than exclusive homosexuality would. E.g., fuzzy pattern
| matching gone awry for finding a suitable mate, triggering a
| bunch of false matches. But it's not like that. It's very
| precise. That has always struck me as ever so strange.
| nomoreusernames wrote:
| i dont get it. whats the problem with accepting that
| homosexuality might have traits other than where people want to
| put their genitalia. perhaps its about sending information down
| via genes and culture? seems homosexuals are amazingly beautiful
| at generating art and cracking nazi spy codes. maybe their
| families have other genes and we are just focusing on the whole
| where people put their genitalia thing vs the "wow maybe gays
| have a lot to contribute with, you know, just as women or men who
| are sterile." still find it hilarious that people have been
| obsessing about this since i was born and longer. accepting
| homosexuality took me like 1 minute. 45 seconds of laughing at
| two genitals of the same kind not fitting, and 15 thinking about
| i love my friend and i want her to be happy because she deserves
| to feel loved the way she needs too.
| meibo wrote:
| Makes me wonder if there was a lot of thought given to ethics
| when planning this study.
|
| If we've learned anything, we should know that people will be
| terrible enough to want to "cure" homosexuality or detect it
| before birth, like trisomy 21, if it ever will become possible -
| and research like this will lead to that.
| throwanem wrote:
| What they're describing is a very broad range of variations
| across multiple genetic loci with subtle effects that do not
| predict, only relatively vaguely correlate with, sexual
| behavior. They say as much, too, although at much greater
| length and complexity.
|
| I get the concern for potential risk around selective abortion,
| IVF, etc; I was around for the "gay gene" debate in the 90s.
| This isn't that. This _disproves_ that. And what they 're
| reporting could not be used in that way.
| meibo wrote:
| That's interesting, thanks - will read up on that. I'm gay
| but I sadly wasn't existing enough in the early 90s to have
| caught it live :)
| Animats wrote:
| It's known that birth order matters. "The more older brothers a
| male has from the same mother, the greater the probability he
| will have a homosexual orientation."[1] Interestingly, this
| occurs only in right-handed males.
|
| See [2]: "Mothers of gay sons, particularly those with older
| brothers, had significantly higher anti-NLGN4Y levels than did
| the control samples of women, including mothers of heterosexual
| sons." There's something going on during pregnancy, and it's
| starting to be identifiable, but it's not understood yet.
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraternal_birth_order_and_male...
|
| [2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5777026/
| ravi-delia wrote:
| I'd definitely be surprised if a significant portion of
| homosexuality wasn't environmental, but to my knowledge there is
| a degree of heritability shown in twin studies. Actually reading
| the article shows that they found several genes that each
| contribute, but no single gene. That shouldn't be surprising to
| anyone, considering that almost every complex trait is somewhat
| affected by a huge number of genes each tweaking the result by a
| small amount. Remember that DNA controls the development of the
| body through an insanely complicated Rube Goldberg machine, no
| one should expect a 1:1 correspondence between any complicated
| trait and a gene.
| unishark wrote:
| The same goes for a cause we'd consider purely environmental,
| such as an illness caused by an infection. There will still be
| lots of associated genes with small effect determining how
| resilient a person is to the infection. Twins share
| environmental causes from early stages of development (like an
| infection during pregnancy) so that angle gets potentially
| confounded too.
| kabirgoel wrote:
| Tangential to your point, but I enjoy the comparison you draw
| between DNA mechanisms and Rube Goldberg machines. It's an apt
| metaphor because DNA, and the body as a whole, is constructed
| quite randomly according to the demands of the environment.
| hajile wrote:
| Identical twin studies point _away_ from genetics very hard.
| Pretty much all genetic anomalies will affect _both_ identical
| twins 100% of the time. The fact that it 's less than 40%
| points much more to environmental effects rather than genes.
| mr_overalls wrote:
| A concordance rate of 40% actually points to a near-even
| split between heritable and non-heritable factors.
| drocer88 wrote:
| From the link: "Research from the 1990s2 showed that
| identical twins are more likely to share a sexual orientation
| than are fraternal twins or adopted siblings."
|
| Study here : https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9549243/
|
| "We present an overview of behavioral genetics research on
| homosexual and heterosexual orientation. Family, twin, and
| adoptee studies indicate that homosexuality and thus
| heterosexuality run in families. "
| anaphor wrote:
| Remember that heritability is a measure of a population, not an
| individual. So you're measuring the amount that genes vs
| environment contributes to a trait _within that population_. It
| 's not an absolute number.
| Udik wrote:
| > The study authors also point out that they followed convention
| for genetic analyses by dropping from their study people whose
| biological sex and self-identified gender did not match. As a
| result, the work doesn't include sexual and gender minorities
| (the LGBTQ community) such as transgender people and intersex
| people.
|
| I don't get it, isn't this the whole point of the study? The G in
| LGBTQ stands for "gay", did they exclude people who self-identify
| as gay from a study meant to find the genetic basis of being gay?
| Aeronwen wrote:
| Narrowing things down is easier when you control for one aspect
| instead of multiple ones.
|
| If, hypothetically, being trans inverted the expression of the
| gene for being gay, you'd have a harder time finding the gene
| until you accounted for it. By eliminating the possibility, you
| make it easier to find the gene you're looking for.
|
| If you can't find the gene in the smaller pool of subjects, you
| weren't going to find it in the larger one. But if you did find
| it, you can learn how it affects everyone in a different study.
| Udik wrote:
| > If, hypothetically, being trans inverted the expression of
| the gene for being gay
|
| That, although always possible, seems pretty far-fetched.
|
| > If you can't find the gene in the smaller pool of subjects,
| you weren't going to find it in the larger one.
|
| Except that here the larger one includes precisely the
| community of people that has the highest incidence of same-
| sex attraction. Imagine trying to determine the influence of
| genetics on skin colour after having removed from your study
| everyone who self-identifies as black.
| frant-hartm wrote:
| Last time I checked gay wasn't a gender.
|
| So they likely excluded transsexual men (biological women) who
| are attracted to men and vice versa.
| Udik wrote:
| The text I quoted says " _sexual_ and gender minorities (the
| LGBTQ community) ". The G in LGBTQ stands for "gay".
|
| It also says "people whose biological sex and self-identified
| gender did not match" which seems to include biological males
| who identify as women. (But maybe you're right and the
| article is imprecise, and what they meant is just that they
| excluded F to M transsexuals).
|
| Then we could also question whether there is or not a a
| higher probability for gays to also initiate a gender
| transition- my hunch is that there is, although of course
| being gay doesn't per se imply a desire to transition to the
| opposite sex.
| francisofascii wrote:
| An interesting finding is the fraternal birth order effect. The
| more older brothers you have, the more likely you are to be
| homosexual (for men). Seems to indicate in-utero mechanisms are
| involved.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraternal_birth_order_and_male...
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