A Gay Gene has been found: What Now?

I studied in an all-boys school and, from observation, I can say that we had a lot of gay schoolmates. I’ve made a lot of friends from a top women school and they can say the same about their classmates. This could point to the environment being a factor in sexual orientation, but science says that sexuality is determined by genetics.

The study had a sample of 409 pairs of gay brothers, some of them twins. In the sample, a common marker was found of their genes, all after leaving out all other hereditary traits. This could signal that the sample of 818 people had a common characteristic in their gene that might point to what could possibly be a “gay gene.” Alan Sanders of the NorthShors Research Institute in Evanston, Illinois says that this could mean that sexual orientation is not a choice but a trait acquired at birth, theoretically.

But he also stresses that this isn’t all encompassing. Other factors have to be considered for the development of a trait as complex as sexuality.

And we’d have to agree: this study is still inconclusive of sexuality as being a mandate from birth and parents. Yes, there is a common gene, but and no, it does not necessarily mean that individuals do not have a say in it. Science, itself, claims that sexual preference may change over time.

A study in Southern Connecticut State University examined the 33 women who, after turning thirty, experienced attraction to their fellow women in spite of being married and have not having been attracted to the same sex until that point.

Apart from the study, there is the exclusion of cases like straight people who have engaged in homosexual activity or the mention of the lack of the gene characteristic in people who are considered straight.

The study may be helpful. However, sexuality and preference are still determined by what makes us happy. IQ, albeit not determined by genetics alone, is affected by factors like ability to focus and hormonal responses that are products of genetics but still, having low IQ parents does not necessitate that a child will be like so. Same with body types—being ectomorph, endomorph, and mesomorph—where a “fat gene” is found, the choice is still on the individual if he wants abs or not.

 In the end, we still choose what makes us happy and that, I think, is the right “preference.”