Awareness of gay issues in S'pore: A political perspective
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Hmm, I sense someone barking up the wrong tree. Only 30% of HIV carriers are MSM. The rest sow their wild oats by visiting hookers in Thailand while their wives are kept in the dark. Let Earthlings be the judge. He can tell for himself who is right.Originally posted by Profounder:Which cave did you climb out from?
And which religion bred such insidious and bigot views in you? Christianity? I think not for as they say, "Hate the sin, not the sinner".
Buddhism? Not from its historical record as a peaceful religion focussing on development of the self for the greater good.
Thank God you were not in Germany in 1940 for you'd no doubt have been an anti-semite bigot gassing the Jews on the belief that they were the transmitters of diseases and misfortune.
And talk about womenfolk, please. Do I smell some false sense of gentleman cavalier here?
And if I were anti-Semitic, I'd hate the Arabs too. But they are also the sons of Abraham, so it is impossible not to put them together in the same league as Jews. Mahmoud Abbas could well have a Samaritan forefather, and these folks trace their ancestry to Joshua, son of Jacob. -
Originally posted by HENG@:
At first u said u don't whether there are medical book which say homo is born,then u say there is a medical which says .... Are u contradict yourself or do u really found such a medical book?
just because we don't know about the existance of such books doesn't mean there aren't any. We aren't doctors, there might be books around that we don't know of. Your view that something u don't know about doesn't exist is very frog in the well isn't it?
but guess what? there IS a book which says homos r natural. This medical book is called [b]Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders - Fourth Edition (DSM-IV).
Its a Diagnostic Criteria for the most common mental disorders including: description, diagnosis, treatment, and research findings, published by the American Psychiatric Association, Washington D.C., 1994, the main diagnostic reference of Mental Health professionals in the United States of America.
This book is THE Bible of the psychiatric, psychological, and sociological world, and in it, it clearly states homosexuality to be completely normal and in no way is in need of any sort of medical treatment to "cure" it.[/b]
If there are such medical books,intelligent ppl like u all should have found them and show them to us. -
Ah... Need more research to address this issue thoroughly. Specifically, I'll be interested to know the incidence rates of HIV on gays throughout the world. Also heard from a friend that in Africa, there's this belief that the "cure" for AIDS is through a man having sex with a virgin woman. And hence, Africa has some much problems with the AIDS issue now.Originally posted by iveco:Hmm, I sense someone barking up the wrong tree. Only 30% of HIV carriers are MSM. The rest sow their wild oats by visiting hookers in Thailand while their wives are kept in the dark. Let Earthlings be the judge. He can tell for himself who is right.
And if I were anti-Semitic, I'd hate the Arabs too. But they are also the sons of Abraham, so it is impossible not to put them together in the same league as Jews. Mahmoud Abbas could well have a Samaritan forefather, and these folks trace their ancestry to Joshua, son of Jacob.
In Singapore, 30% of the HIV patients are gays. In absoute terms, the problems of AIDS within the straight community is still a serious one. However, nothing substantial was being proposed to curb this number. Earlier this year, one of the senior minister link AIDS with NATION party, which is an attempt to simplify the issue. Redirect the population's attention towards the gays community again (scapegoating) without addressing the seriousness of the problem in the general population.
However, if we assume that the incidence rates of gays is ard 10%, the chances of contacting AIDS within the gay circle is still much higher. It's not the time for gays to let our guards down in any way.
My stance: AIDS is a disease that bugs the whole world, and AIDS do not discriminate their victims. Instead of always trying to scapegoat the gay community. The government should attack this issue head on. -
To help address and moderate ben's and heng's debate: I've found the public info page regarding homosexuality from American Psychological Association. It's a long read, I will provide my thoughts after sharing the article:
What Is Sexual Orientation?
Sexual Orientation is an enduring emotional, romantic, sexual or affectional attraction to another person. It is easily distinguished from other components of sexuality including biological sex, gender identity (the psychological sense of being male or female) and the social gender role (adherence to cultural norms for feminine and masculine behavior).
Sexual orientation exists along a continuum that ranges from exclusive homosexuality to exclusive heterosexuality and includes various forms of bisexuality. Bisexual persons can experience sexual, emotional and affectional attraction to both their own sex and the opposite sex. Persons with a homosexual orientation are sometimes referred to as gay (both men and women) or as lesbian (women only).
Sexual orientation is different from sexual behavior because it refers to feelings and self-concept. Persons may or may not express their sexual orientation in their behaviors.
What Causes a Person To Have a Particular Sexual Orientation?
There are numerous theories about the origins of a person's sexual orientation; most scientists today agree that sexual orientation is most likely the result of a complex interaction of environmental, cognitive and biological factors. In most people, sexual orientation is shaped at an early age. There is also considerable recent evidence to suggest that biology, including genetic or inborn hormonal factors, play a significant role in a person's sexuality. In summary, it is important to recognize that there are probably many reasons for a person's sexual orientation and the reasons may be different for different people. -
btw, the source:http://www.apa.org/pubinfo/answers.html
Is Sexual Orientation a Choice?
No, human beings can not choose to be either gay or straight. Sexual orientation emerges for most people in early adolescence without any prior sexual experience. Although we can choose whether to act on our feelings, psychologists do not consider sexual orientation to be a conscious choice that can be voluntarily changed.
Can Therapy Change Sexual Orientation?
No. Even though most homosexuals live successful, happy lives, some homosexual or bisexual people may seek to change their sexual orientation through therapy, sometimes pressured by the influence of family members or religious groups to try and do so. The reality is that homosexuality is not an illness. It does not require treatment and is not changeable.
However, not all gay, lesbian, and bisexual people who seek assistance from a mental health professional want to change their sexual orientation. Gay, lesbian, and bisexual people may seek psychological help with the coming out process or for strategies to deal with prejudice, but most go into therapy for the same reasons and life issues that bring straight people to mental health professionals.
What About So-Called "Conversion Therapies"?
Some therapists who undertake so-called conversion therapy report that they have been able to change their clients' sexual orientation from homosexual to heterosexual. Close scrutiny of these reports however show several factors that cast doubt on their claims. For example, many of the claims come from organizations with an ideological perspective which condemns homosexuality. Furthermore, their claims are poorly documented. For example, treatment outcome is not followed and reported overtime as would be the standard to test the validity of any mental health intervention.
The American Psychological Association is concerned about such therapies and their potential harm to patients. In 1997, the Association's Council of Representatives passed a resolution reaffirming psychology's opposition to homophobia in treatment and spelling out a client's right to unbiased treatment and self-determination. Any person who enters into therapy to deal with issues of sexual orientation has a right to expect that such therapy would take place in a professionally neutral environment absent of any social bias. -
Is Homosexuality a Mental Illness or Emotional Problem?
No. Psychologists, psychiatrists and other mental health professionals agree that homosexuality is not an illness, mental disorder or an emotional problem. Over 35 years of objective, well-designed scientific research has shown that homosexuality, in and itself,is not associated with mental disorders or emotional or social problems. Homosexuality was once thought to be a mental illness because mental health professionals and society had biased information. In the past the studies of gay, lesbian and bisexual people involved only those in therapy, thus biasing the resulting conclusions. When researchers examined data about these people who were not in therapy, the idea that homosexuality was a mental illness was quickly found to be untrue.
In 1973 the American Psychiatric Association confirmed the importance of the new, better designed research and removed homosexuality from the official manual that lists mental and emotional disorders. Two years later, the American Psychological Association passed a resolution supporting the removal. For more than 25 years, both associations have urged all mental health professionals to help dispel the stigma of mental illness that some people still associate with homosexual orientation.
Can Lesbians, Gay Men, and Bisexuals Be Good Parents?
Yes. Studies comparing groups of children raised by homosexual and by heterosexual parents find no developmental differences between the two groups of children in four critical areas: their intelligence, psychological adjustment, social adjustment, and popularity with friends. It is also important to realize that a parent's sexual orientation does not dictate his or her children's.
Another myth about homosexuality is the mistaken belief that gay men have more of a tendency than heterosexual men to sexually molest children. There is no evidence to suggest that homosexuals are more likely than heterosexuals to molest children. -
Why Do Some Gay Men, Lesbians and Bisexuals Tell People About Their Sexual Orientation?
Because sharing that aspect of themselves with others is important to their mental health. In fact, the process of identity development for lesbians, gay men and bisexuals called "coming out", has been found to be strongly related to psychological adjustment—the more positive the gay, lesbian, or bisexual identity, the better one's mental health and the higher one's self-esteem.
Why Is the "Coming Out" Process Difficult for Some Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual People?
For some gay and bisexual people the coming out process is difficult, for others it is not. Often lesbian, gay and bisexual people feel afraid, different, and alone when they first realize that their sexual orientation is different from the community norm. This is particularly true for people becoming aware of their gay, lesbian, or bisexual orientation as a child or adolescent, which is not uncommon. And, depending on their families and where they live, they may have to struggle against prejudice and misinformation about homosexuality. Children and adolescents may be particularly vulnerable to the deleterious effects of bias and stereotypes. They may also fear being rejected by family, friends,co-workers, and religious institutions. Some gay people have to worry about losing their jobs or being harassed at school if their sexual orientation became well known. Unfortunately, gay, lesbian and bisexual people are at a higher risk for physical assault and violence than are heterosexuals. Studies done in California in the mid 1990s showed that nearly one-fifth of all lesbians who took part in the study and more than one-fourth of all gay men who participated had been the victim of a hate crime based on their sexual orientation. In another California study of approximately 500 young adults, half of all the young men participating in the study admitted to some form of anti-gay aggression from name-calling to physical violence. -
What Can Be Done to Overcome the Prejudice and Discrimination the Gay Men, Lesbians, and Bisexuals Experience?
Research has found that the people who have the most positive attitudes toward gay men, lesbians and bisexuals are those who say they know one or more gay, lesbian or bisexual person well—often as a friend or co-worker. For this reason, psychologists believe negative attitudes toward gay people as a group are prejudices that are not grounded in actual experiences but are based on stereotypes and prejudice.
Furthermore, protection against violence and discrimination is very important, just as it is for other minority groups. Some states include violence against an individual on the basis of his or her sexual orientation as a "hate crime" and 10 U.S. states have laws against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
Why is it Important for Society to be Better Educated About Homosexuality?
Educating all people about sexual orientation and homosexuality is likely to diminish anti-gay prejudice. Accurate information about homosexuality is especially important to young people who are first discovering and seeking to understand their sexuality—whether homosexual, bisexual, or heterosexual. Fears that access to such information will make more people gay have no validity—information about homosexuality does not make someone gay or straight.
Are All Gay and Bisexual Men HIV Infected?
No. This is a commonly held myth. In reality, the risk of exposure to HIV is related to a person's behavior, not their sexual orientation. What's important to remember about HIV/AIDS is it is a preventable disease through the use of safe sex practices and by not using drugs. -
Yes, Sciences had not given us the conclusive evidence that whether gays are made or born (even though there are accumulating evidence of the biological effects, will share this article later), however, psychologists are rather unison in recognising the fact that:
1) Homosexuality is not a choice.
2) Orientation change therapy will potentially harm the person under "treatment" rather than to help. In fact, they are so disgusted with the so-called conversion therapy that they had to publicly denounced it's usefulness.
3) Psychologists can still help homosexuals, but not by addressing the homosexuality itself. They will treat homosexuals as any other patients and would address their possible depressions and other mood disorders just like they help other one else in the general population.
4) The way for us to go forth is, ironically, to make more straight friends..
For me, I will try my best to come out to my close friends.. This is one of the most effective way for the general population to understand that homosexuals are just like heterosexuals, other than the fact that we are drawn sexually to the same gender.
5) There will be of course, people who do not want to befriend gays at all. Let them be. No point getting upset over others who accept cant diversity. -
hey earthling! valid points indeed
let me play the devil's advocate here
Would societal pressure cause them to publish it that way?
but seriously ... what are the lastest findings in the medical world? i havent been reading a lot lately .. really bogged down by uni stuff
could u post some interesting articles here? next week there's another open diolouge in my Uni ... might decide to join in .. could use some useful literature -
Ah... There are definitely more Christians than there are gays in US.Originally posted by ben1xy:hey earthling! valid points indeed
let me play the devil's advocate here
Would societal pressure cause them to publish it that way?
but seriously ... what are the lastest findings in the medical world? i havent been reading a lot lately .. really bogged down by uni stuff
could u post some interesting articles here? next week there's another open diolouge in my Uni ... might decide to join in .. could use some useful literature Wouldn't the societal pressure be coming from the generally conservative Americans (Republicans are in favour to the Democrats), with gays being the minority? 
Open dialogue on gay issues? Cool! How I wish I could participate in such dialogue... Do enjoy yourself.
Regarding the articles, I've just received an email from my mailing list. Quite an interesting read. In fact, it addresses why twins might not develop similar orientation. Will share this article next. -
Part 1 of 11
14 Aug 2005
The Boston Globe
What Makes People Gay?
The debate has always been that it was either all in the child's
upbringing or all in the genes. But what if it's something else?
By Neil Swidey | August 14, 2005
With crystal-blue eyes, wavy hair, and freshly scrubbed faces, the boys
look as though they stepped out of a Pottery Barn Kids catalog. They
are 7-year-old twins. I'll call them Thomas and Patrick; their parents
agreed to let me meet the boys as long as I didn't use their real
names.
Spend five seconds with them, and there can be no doubt that they are
identical twins - so identical even they can't tell each other apart in
photographs. Spend five minutes with them, and their profound
differences begin to emerge.
Patrick is social, thoughtful, attentive. He repeatedly addresses me by
name. Thomas is physical, spontaneous, a bit distracted. Just minutes
after meeting me outside a coffee shop, he punches me in the upper arm,
yells, "Gray punch buggy!" and then points to a Volkswagen Beetle
cruising past us. It's a hard punch. They horse around like typical
brothers, but Patrick's punches are less forceful and his voice is
higher. Thomas charges at his brother, arms flexed in front of him like
a mini-bodybuilder. The differences are subtle - they're 7-year-old
boys, after all - but they are there.
When the twins were 2, Patrick found his mother's shoes. He liked
wearing them. Thomas tried on his father's once but didn't see the
point.
When they were 3, Thomas blurted out that toy guns were his favorite
things. Patrick piped up that his were the Barbie dolls he discovered
at day care.
When the twins were 5, Thomas announced he was going to be a monster
for Halloween. Patrick said he was going to be a princess. Thomas said
he couldn't do that, because other kids would laugh at him. Patrick
seemed puzzled. "Then I'll be Batman," he said.
Their mother - intelligent, warm, and open-minded - found herself
conflicted. She wanted Patrick - whose playmates have always been
girls, never boys - to be himself, but she worried his feminine
behavior would expose him to ridicule and pain. She decided to allow
him free expression at home while setting some limits in public.
That worked until last year, when a school official called to say
Patrick was making his classmates uncomfortable. He kept insisting that
he was a girl.
Patrick exhibits behavior called childhood gender nonconformity, or
CGN. This doesn't describe a boy who has a doll somewhere in his toy
collection or tried on his sister's Snow White outfit once, but rather
one who consistently exhibits a host of strongly feminine traits and
interests while avoiding boy-typical behavior like rough-and-tumble
play. There's been considerable research into this phenomenon,
particularly in males, including a study that followed boys from an
early age into early adulthood. The data suggest there is a very good
chance Patrick will grow up to be homosexual. Not all homosexual men
show this extremely feminine behavior as young boys. But the research
indicates that, of the boys who do exhibit CGN, about 75 percent of
them - perhaps more - turn out to be gay or bisexual. -
Page 2 of 11 --What makes the case of Patrick and Thomas so fascinating
is that it calls into question both of the dominant theories in the
long-running debate over what makes people gay: nature or nurture,
genes or learned behavior. As identical twins, Patrick and Thomas began
as genetic clones. From the moment they came out of their mother's
womb, their environment was about as close to identical as possible -
being fed, changed, and plopped into their car seats the same way,
having similar relationships with the same nurturing father and mother.
Yet before either boy could talk, one showed highly feminine traits
while the other appeared to be "all boy," as the moms at the
playgrounds say with apologetic shrugs.
"That my sons were different the second they were born, there is no
question about it," says the twins' mother.
So what happened between their identical genetic starting point and
their births? They spent nine months in utero. In the hunt for what
causes people to be gay or straight, that's now the most interesting
and potentially enlightening frontier.
WHAT DOES IT MATTER WHERE HOMOSEXUALITY COMES FROM? Proving people are
born gay would give them wider social acceptance and better protection
against discrimination, many gay rights advocates argue. In the last
decade, as this "biological" argument has gained momentum, polls find
Americans - especially young adults - increasingly tolerant of gays and
lesbians. And that's exactly what has groups opposed to homosexuality
so concerned. The Family Research Council, a conservative Christian
think tank in Washington, D.C., argues in its book Getting It Straight
that finding people are born gay "would advance the idea that sexual
orientation is an innate characteristic, like race; that homosexuals,
like African-Americans, should be legally protected against
'discrimination;' and that disapproval of homosexuality should be as
socially stigmatized as racism. However, it is not true."
Some advocates of gay marriage argue that proving sexual orientation is
inborn would make it easier to frame the debate as simply a matter of
civil rights. That could be true, but then again, freedom of religion
enjoyed federal protection long before inborn traits like race and sex.
For much of the 20th century, the dominant thinking connected
homosexuality to upbringing. Freud, for instance, speculated that
overprotective mothers and distant fathers helped make boys gay. It
took the American Psychiatric Association until 1973 to remove
"homosexuality" from its manual of mental disorders.
Then, in 1991, a neuroscientist in San Diego named Simon LeVay told the
world he had found a key difference between the brains of homosexual
and heterosexual men he studied. LeVay showed that a tiny clump of
neurons of the anterior hypothalamus - which is believed to control
sexual behavior - was, on average, more than twice the size in
heterosexual men as in homosexual men. LeVay's findings did not speak
directly to the nature-vs.-nurture debate - the clumps could,
theoretically, have changed size because of homosexual behavior. But
that seemed unlikely, and the study ended up jump-starting the effort
to prove a biological basis for homosexuality. -
Page 3 of 11 --Later that same year, Boston University psychiatrist
Richard Pillard and Northwestern University psychologist J. Michael
Bailey announced the results of their study of male twins. They found
that, in identical twins, if one twin was gay, the other had about a 50
percent chance of also being gay. For fraternal twins, the rate was
about 20 percent. Because identical twins share their entire genetic
makeup while fraternal twins share about half, genes were believed to
explain the difference. Most reputable studies find the rate of
homosexuality in the general population to be 2 to 4 percent, rather
than the popular "1 in 10" estimate.
In 1993 came the biggest news: Dean Hamer's discovery of the "gay
gene." In fact, Hamer, a Harvard-trained researcher at the National
Cancer Institute, hadn't quite put it that boldly or imprecisely. He
found that gay brothers shared a specific region of the X chromosome,
called Xq28, at a higher rate than gay men shared with their straight
brothers. Hamer and others suggested this finding would eventually
transform our understanding of sexual orientation.
That hasn't happened yet. But the clear focus of sexual-orientation
research has shifted to biological causes, and there hasn't been much
science produced to support the old theories tying homosexuality to
upbringing. Freud may have been seeing the effect rather than the
cause, since a father faced with a very feminine son might well become
more distant or hostile, leading the boy's mother to become more
protective. In recent years, researchers who suspect that homosexuality
is inborn - whether because of genetics or events happening in the womb
- have looked everywhere for clues: Prenatal hormones. Birth order.
Finger length. Fingerprints. Stress. Sweat. Eye blinks. Spatial
relations. Hearing. Handedness. Even "gay" sheep.
LeVay, who is gay, says that when he published his study 14 years ago,
some gays and lesbians criticized him for doing research that might
lead to homosexuality once again being lumped in with diseases and
disorders. "If anything, the reverse has happened," says LeVay, who is
now 61 and no longer active in the lab. He says the hunt for a
biological basis for homosexuality, which involves many researchers who
are themselves gay or lesbian, "has contributed to the status of gay
people in society."
These studies have been small and underfunded, and the results have
often been modest. Still, because there's been so much of this
disparate research, "all sort of pointing in the same direction, makes
it pretty clear there are biological processes significantly
influencing sexual orientation," says LeVay. "But it's also kind of
frustrating that it's still a bunch of hints, that nothing is really as
crystal clear as you would like."
Just in the last few months, though, the hints have grown stronger. -
Page 4 of 11 --In May, Swedish researchers reported finding important
differences in how the brains of straight men and gay men responded to
two compounds suspected of being pheromones - those scent-related
chemicals that are key to sexual arousal in animals. The first compound
came from women's urine, the second from male sweat. Brain scans showed
that when straight men smelled the female urine compound, their
hypothalamus lit up. That didn't happen with gay men. Instead, their
hypothalamus lit up when they smelled the male-sweat compound, which
was the same way straight women had responded. This research once again
connecting the hypothalamus to sexual orientation comes on the heels of
work with sheep. About 8 percent of domestic rams are exclusively
interested in sex with other rams. Researchers found that a clump of
neurons similar to the one LeVay identified in human brains was also
smaller in gay rams than straight ones. (Again, it's conceivable that
these differences could be showing effect rather than cause.)
In June, scientists in Vienna announced that they had isolated a master
genetic switch for sexual orientation in the fruit fly. Once they
flicked the switch, the genetically altered female flies rebuffed
overtures from males and instead attempted to mate with other females,
adopting the elaborate courting dance and mating songs that males use.
And now, a large-scale, five-year genetic study of gay brothers is
underway in North America. The study received $2.5 million from the
National Institutes of Health, which is unusual. Government funders
tend to steer clear of sexual orientation research, aware that even
small grants are apt to be met with outrage from conservative
congressmen looking to make the most of their C-Span face time. Relying
on a robust sample of 1,000 gay-brother pairs and the latest
advancements in genetic screening, this study promises to bring some
clarity to the murky area of what role genes may play in homosexuality.
This accumulating biological evidence, combined with the prospect of
more on the horizon, is having an effect. Last month, the Rev. Rob
Schenck, a prominent Washington, D.C., evangelical leader, told a large
gathering of young evangelicals that he believes homosexuality is not a
choice but rather a predisposition, something "deeply rooted" in
people. Schenck told me that his conversion came about after he'd
spoken extensively with genetic researchers and psychologists. He
argues that evangelicals should continue to oppose homosexual behavior,
but that "many evangelicals are living in a sort of state of denial
about the advance of this conversation." His message: "If it's
inevitable that this scientific evidence is coming, we have to be
prepared with a loving response. If we don't have one, we won't have
any credibility."
AS THE 21-YEAR-OLD COLLEGE JUNIOR IN A HOSPITAL JOHNNY slides into the
MRI, she is handed controls with buttons for "strongly like" and
"strongly dislike." Hundreds of pornographic images - in male-male and
female-female pairings - flash before her eyes. Eroticism eventually
gives way to monotony, and it's hard to avoid looking for details to
distinguish one image from the rest of the panting pack. So it goes
from "Look at the size of those breasts!" to "That can't be
comfortable, given the length of her fingernails!" to "Why is that guy
wearing nothing but work boots on the beach?" -
Page 5 of 11 --Regardless of which buttons the student presses, the MRI
scans show her arousal level to each image, at its starting point in
the brain.
Researchers at Northwestern University, outside Chicago, are doing this
work as a follow-up to their studies of arousal using genital
measurement tools. They found that while straight men were aroused by
film clips of two women having sex, and gay men were aroused by clips
of two men having sex, most of the men who identified themselves as
bisexual showed gay arousal patterns. More surprising was just how
different the story with women turned out to be. Most women, whether
they identified as straight, lesbian, or bisexual, were significantly
aroused by straight, gay, and lesbian sex. "I'm not suggesting that
most women are bisexual," says Michael Bailey, the psychology professor
whose lab conducted the studies. "I'm suggesting that whatever a
woman's sexual arousal pattern is, it has little to do with her sexual
orientation." That's fundamentally different from men. "In men, arousal
is orientation. It's as simple as that. That's how gay men learn they
are gay."
These studies mark a return to basics for the 47-year-old Bailey. He
says researchers need a far deeper understanding of what sexual
orientation is before they can determine where it comes from.
Female sexual orientation is particularly foggy, he says, because
there's been so little research done. As for male sexual orientation,
he argues that there's now enough evidence to suggest it is "entirely
in-born," though not nearly enough to establish how that happens.
Bailey's 1991 twin study is still cited by other researchers as one of
the pillars in the genetic argument for homosexuality. But his
follow-up study using a comprehensive registry of twins in Australia
found a much lower rate of similarity in sexual orientation between
identical twins, about 20 percent, down from 50 percent. Bailey still
believes that genes make important contributions to sexual orientation.
But, he says, "that's not where I'd bet the real breakthroughs will
come."
His hunch is that further study of childhood gender nonconformity will
pay big. Because it's unclear what percentage of homosexuals and
lesbians showed CGN as children, Bailey and his colleagues are now
running a study that uses adult participants' home movies from
childhood to look for signs of gender-bending behavior.
Cornell psychologist Daryl Bem has proposed an intriguing theory for
how CGN might lead to homosexuality. According to this pathway, which
he calls "the exotic becomes erotic," children are born with traits for
temperament, such as aggression and activity level, that predispose
them to male-typical or female-typical activities. They seek out
playmates with the same interests. So a boy whose traits lead him to
hopscotch and away from rough play will feel different from, and
ostracized by, other boys. This leads to physiological arousal of fear
and anger in their presence, arousal that eventually is transformed
from exotic to erotic. -
Page 6 of 11 --Critics of homosexuality have used Bem's theory, which
stresses environment over biology, to argue that sexual orientation is
not inborn and not fixed. But Bem says this pathway is triggered by
biological traits, and he doesn't really see how the outcome of
homosexuality can be changed.
Bailey says whether or not Bem's theory holds up, the environment most
worth focusing in on is the one a child experiences when he's in his
mother's womb.
LET'S GET BACK TO THOMAS AND PATRICK. BECAUSE IT'S UNCLEAR why twin
brothers with identical genetic starting points and similar post-birth
environments would take such divergent paths, it's helpful to return to
the beginning.
Males and females have a fundamental genetic difference - females have
two X chromosomes, and males have an X and a Y. Still, right after
conception, it's hard to tell male and female zygotes apart, except for
that tucked-away chromosomal difference. Normally, the changes take
shape at a key point of fetal development, when the male brain is
masculinized by sex hormones. The female brain is the default. The
brain will stay on the female path as long as it is protected from
exposure to hormones. The hormonal theory of homosexuality holds that,
just as exposure to circulating sex hormones determines whether a fetus
will be male or female, such exposure must also influence sexual
orientation.
The cases of children born with disorders of "sexual differentiation"
offer insight. William Reiner, a psychiatrist and urologist with the
University of Oklahoma, has evaluated more than a hundred of these
cases. For decades, the standard medical response to boys born with
severely inadequate penises (or none at all) was to castrate the boy
and have his parents raise him as a girl. But Reiner has found that
nurture - even when it involves surgery soon after birth - cannot trump
nature. Of the boys with inadequate penises who were raised as girls,
he says, "I haven't found one who is sexually attracted to males." The
majority of them have transitioned back to being males and report being
attracted to females.
During fetal development, sexual identity is set before the sexual
organs are formed, Reiner says. Perhaps it's the same for sexual
orientation. In his research, of all the babies with X and Y
chromosomes who were raised as girls, the only ones he has found who
report having female identities and being attracted to males are those
who did not have "receptors" to let the male sex hormones do their
masculinizing in the womb.
What does this all mean? "Exposure to male hormones in utero
dramatically raises the chances of being sexually attracted to
females," Reiner says. "We can infer that the absence of male hormone
exposure may have something to do with attraction to males." -
Page 7 of 11 --Michael Bailey says Reiner's findings represent a major
breakthrough, showing that "whatever causes sexual orientation is
strongly influenced by prenatal biology." Bailey and Reiner say the
answer is probably not as simple as just exposure to sex hormones.
After all, the exposure levels in some of the people Reiner studies are
abnormal enough to produce huge differences in sexual organs. Yet,
sexual organs in straight and gay people are, on average, the same.
More likely, hormones are interacting with other factors.
Canadian researchers have consistently documented a "big-brother
effect," finding that the chances of a boy being gay increase with each
additional older brother he has. (Birth order does not appear to play a
role with lesbians.) So, a male with three older brothers is three
times more likely to be gay than one with no older brothers, though
there's still a better than 90 percent chance he will be straight. They
argue that this results from a complex interaction involving hormones,
antigens, and the mother's immune system.
By now, there is substantial evidence showing correlation - though not
causation - between sexual orientation and traits that are set when a
baby is in the womb. Take finger length. In general, men have shorter
index fingers in relation to their ring fingers; in women, the lengths
are generally about the same. Researchers have found that lesbians
generally have ratios closer to males. Other studies have shown
masculinized results for lesbians in inner-ear functions and eye-blink
reactions to sudden loud noises, and feminized patterns for gay men on
certain cognitive tasks like spatial perception and remembering the
placement of objects.
New York University researcher Lynn S. Hall, who has studied traits
determined in the womb, speculates that Patrick was somehow prenatally
stressed, probably during the first trimester, when the brain is really
developing, particularly the structures like the hypothalamus that
influence sexual behavior. This stress might have been based on his
position in the womb or the blood flow to him or any of a number of
other factors not in his mother's control. Yet more evidence that
identical twins have womb experiences far from identical can be found
in their often differing birth weights. Patrick was born a pound
lighter than Thomas.
Taken together, the research suggests that early on in the womb, as the
fetus's brain develops in either the male or female direction,
something fundamental to sexual orientation is happening. Nobody's sure
what's causing it. But here's where genes may be involved, perhaps by
regulating hormone exposure or by dictating the size of that key clump
of neurons in the hypothalamus. Before researchers can sort that out,
they'll need to return to the question of whether, in fact, there is a
"gay gene." -
Page 8 of 11 --THE CROWD ON BOSTON COMMON IS THICK ON THIS SCORCHER of
a Saturday afternoon in June, as the throngs make their way around the
35th annual Boston Pride festival, past booths peddling everything from
"Gayopoly" board games to Braveheartian garments called Utilikilts.
Sitting quietly in his booth is Alan Sanders, a soft-spoken 41-year-old
with a sandy beard and thinning hair. He's placeda mound of
rainbow-colored Starbursts on the table in front of him and hung a
banner that reads: "WANTED: Gay Men with Gay Brothers for Molecular
Genetic Study of Sexual Orientation."
Sanders is a psychiatrist with the Evanston Northwestern Healthcare
Research Institute who is leading the NIH-funded search for the genetic
basis of male homosexuality (www.gaybros.com). He is spending the
summer crisscrossing the country, going to gay pride festivals, hoping
to recruit 1,000 pairs of gay brothers to participate. (His wife, who
just delivered their third son, wasn't crazy about the timing.) When
people in Boston ask him how much genes may contribute to
homosexuality, he says the best estimate is about 40 percent.
Homosexuality runs in families - studies show that 8 to 12 percent of
brothers of gay men are also gay, compared with the 2 to 4 percent of
the general population.
Sanders spends much of the afternoon handing out Starbursts to people
who clearly don't qualify for a gay brothers study - preteen girls,
adult lesbians wearing T-shirts that read "I Like Girls Who Like
Girls," and elderly women in straw hats who speak only Chinese. But
many of the gay men who stop by are interested in more than free candy.
Among the people signing up is James Daly, a 31-year-old from Salem. "I
think it's important for the public - especially the religious right -
to know it's not a choice for some people," Daly says. "I feel I was
born this way."
(In fairness, there aren't many leaders of groups representing social
and religious conservatives who still argue that homosexual orientation
- as opposed to behavior - is a matter of choice. Even as he insists
that no one is born gay, Peter Sprigg, the point person on
homosexuality for the Family Research Council, says, "I don't think
that people choose their sexual attraction.")
In the decade since Dean Hamer made headlines, the gay gene theory has
taken some hits. A Canadian team was unable to replicate his findings.
Earlier this year, a team from Hamer's own lab reported only mixed
results after having done the first scan of the entire human genome in
the search for genes influencing sexual orientation.
But all of the gene studies so far have been based on small samples and
lacked the funding to do things right. Sanders's study should be big
enough to provide some real answers on linkage as well as shed light on
gender nonconformity and the big-brother effect. -
Page 9 of 11 --There is, however, a towering question that Sanders's
study will probably not be able to answer. That has to do with
evolution. If a prime motivation of all species is to pass genes on to
future generations, and gay men are estimated to produce 80 percent
fewer offspring than straight men, why would a gay gene not have been
wiped out by the forces of natural selection? This evolutionary
disadvantage is what led former Amherst College biologist Paul Ewald to
argue that homosexuality might be caused by a virus - a pathogen most
likely working in utero. That argument caused a stir when he and a
colleague proposed it six years ago, but with no research done to test
it, it remains just another theory. Other scientists have offered
fascinating but unpersuasive explanations, most of them focusing on
some kind of compensatory benefit, in the same way that the gene
responsible for sickle cell anemia also protects against malaria. A
study last year by researchers in Italy showed that female relatives of
gay men tended to be more fertile, though, as critics point out, not
nearly fertile enough to make up for the gay man's lack of offspring.
But there will be plenty of time for sorting out the evolutionary
paradox once - and if - researchers are able to identify actual genes
involved in sexual orientation. Getting to that point will likely
require integrating multiple lines of promising research. That is
exactly what's happening in Eric Vilain's lab at the University of
California, Los Angeles. Vilain, an associate professor of human
genetics, and his colleague, Sven Bocklandt, are using gay sheep,
transgenic mice, identical twin humans, and novel approaches to human
genetics to try to unlock the mystery of sexual orientation.
Instead of looking for a gay gene, they stress that they are looking
for several genes that cause either attraction to men or attraction to
women. Those same genes would work one way in heterosexual women and
another way in homosexual men. The UCLA lab is examining how these
genes might be turned "up" or "down." It's not a question of what genes
you have, but rather which ones you use, says Bocklandt. "I have the
genes in my body to make a vagina and carry a baby, but I don't use
them, because I am a man." In studying the genes of gay sheep, for
example, he's found some that are turned "way up" compared with the
straight rams.
The lab is also testing an intriguing theory involving imprinted genes.
Normally, we have two copies of every gene, one from each parent, and
both copies work. They're identical, so it doesn't matter which copy
comes from which parent. But with imprinted genes, that does matter.
Although both copies are physically there, one copy - either from the
mom or the dad - is blocked from working. Think of an airplane with an
engine on each wing, except one of the engines is shut down. A recent
Duke University study suggests humans have hundreds of imprinted genes,
including one on the X chromosome that previous research has tied to
sexual orientation. -
Page 10 of 11 --With imprinted genes, there is no backup engine. So if
there's something atypical in the copy from mom, the copy from dad
cannot be turned on. The UCLA lab is now collecting DNA from identical
twins in which one twin is straight and the other is gay. Because the
twins begin as genetic clones, if a gene is imprinted in one twin, it
will be in the other twin as well. Normally, as the fetuses are
developing, each time a cell divides, the DNA separates and makes a
copy of itself, replicating all kinds of genetic information. It's a
complicated but incredibly accurate process. But the coding to keep the
backup engine shut down on an imprinted gene is less accurate.
So how might imprinted genes help explain why one identical twin would
be straight and the other gay? Say there's an imprinted gene for
attraction to females, and there's something atypical in the copy the
twin brothers get from mom. As all that replicating is going on, the
imprinting (to keep the copy from dad shut down) proceeds as expected
in one twin, and he ends up gay. But somehow with his brother, the
coding for the imprinting is lost, and rather than remain shut down,
the fuel flows to fire up the backup engine from dad. And that twin
turns out to be straight.
IN THE COURSE OF REPORTING THIS STORY, I EXPERIENCED A good deal of
whiplash. Just when I would become swayed by the evidence supporting
one discreet theory, I would stumble onto new evidence casting some
doubt on it. Ultimately, I accepted this as unavoidable terrain in the
hunt for the basis of sexual orientation. This is, after all, a
research field built on underfunded, idiosyncratic studies that are met
with full-barreled responses from opposing and well-funded advocacy
groups determined to make the results from the lab hew to the scripts
they've honed for the talk-show circuit.
You can't really blame the advocacy groups. The stakes are high. In the
end, homosexuality remains such a divisive issue that only thoroughly
tested research will get society to accept what science has to say
about its origin. Critics of funding for sexual orientation research
say that it isn't curing cancer, and they're right. But we devote a lot
more dollars to studying other issues that aren't curing cancer and
have less resonance in society.
Still, no matter how imperfect these studies are, when you put them all
together and examine them closely, the message is clear: While
post-birth development may well play a supporting role, the roots of
homosexuality, at least in men, appear to be in place by the time a
child is born. After spending years sifting through all the available
data, British researchers Glenn Wilson and Qazi Rahman come to an even
bolder conclusion in their forthcoming book Born Gay: The Psychobiology
of Sex Orientation, in which they write: "Sexual orientation is
something we are born with and not `acquired' from our social
environment." -
Page 11 of 11 --Meanwhile, the mother of twins Patrick and Thomas has
done her own sifting and come to her own conclusions. She says her
son's feminine behavior suggests he will grow up to be gay, and she has
no problem with that. She just worries about what happens to him
between now and then.
After that fateful call from Patrick's school, she says, "I knew I had
to talk to my son, and I had no clue what to say." Ultimately, she told
him that although he could play however he wanted at home, he couldn't
tell his classmates he was a girl, because they'd think he was lying.
And she told him that some older boys might be mean to him and even hit
him if he continued to claim he was a girl.
Then she asked him, "Do you think that you can convince yourself that
you are a boy?"
"Yes, Mom," he said. "It's going to be like when I was trying to learn
to read, and then one day I opened the book and I could read."
His mother's heart sank. She could tell that he wanted more than
anything to please her. "Basically, he was saying there must be a
miracle - that one day I wake up and I'm a boy. That's the only way he
could imagine it could happen."
In the year since that conversation, Patrick's behavior has become
somewhat less feminine. His mother hopes it's just because his
interests are evolving and not because he's suppressing them.
"I can now imagine him being completely straight, which I couldn't a
year ago," she says. "I can imagine him being gay, which seems to be
statistically most likely."
She says she's fine with either outcome, just as long as he's happy and
free from harm. She takes heart in how much more accepting today's
society is. "By the time my boys are 20, the world will have changed
even more."
By then, there might even be enough consensus for researchers to forget
about finger lengths and fruit flies and gay sheep, and move on to a
new mystery. -
My thots: I believe this area of research is still in it's infancy stage. Until the day we can fully understand the full spectrum of genetic influences on us, we will not have a 100% evidence that gays are born "more than" made.
Just like we cannot conclude for sure that smoking "CAUSES" cancer. -
yup ! i agree on the infancy part. u sure like using the smoking example a lot eh? its true that there is no cause and effect... but the correlation of smoking and cancer is statistically significant (95%, alpha; 0.05.. i remember reading). its pretty difficult establishing cause and effect due to the difficulties in isolating the variables in the experiment.Originally posted by earthlings73:My thots: I believe this area of research is still in it's infancy stage. Until the day we can fully understand the full spectrum of genetic influences on us, we will not have a 100% evidence that gays are born "more than" made.
Just like we cannot conclude for sure that smoking "CAUSES" cancer. -
are Americans pro or anti-homosexual? didn't the gay movement thing start from the states? any idea on that?Originally posted by earthlings73:Ah... There are definitely more Christians than there are gays in US. Wouldn't the societal pressure be coming from the generally conservative Americans (Republicans are in favour to the Democrats), with gays being the minority?
Open dialogue on gay issues? Cool! How I wish I could participate in such dialogue... Do enjoy yourself.
Regarding the articles, I've just received an email from my mailing list. Quite an interesting read. In fact, it addresses why twins might not develop similar orientation. Will share this article next.
open dialogues are quite comical at times ... sometimes though, it gets ugly... and then the name calling starts .. oh well