What Is Pg County Family Life and Human Sexuality Program
Across cultures, 2% to 10% of people report having same-sex relations. In the U.Southward., 1% to 2.2% of women and men, respectively, place as gay. Despite these numbers, many people still consider homosexual behavior to exist an dissonant choice. Still, biologists accept documented homosexual behavior in more 450 species, arguing that same-sexual practice behavior is not an unnatural choice, and may in fact play a vital role within populations.
In a 2019 upshot of Science magazine, geneticist Andrea Ganna at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, and colleagues, described the largest survey to appointment for genes associated with aforementioned-sex behavior. By analyzing the DNA of nearly one-half a meg people from the U.Due south. and the U.Chiliad., they concluded that genes account for between 8% and 25% of same-sexual activity behavior.
Numerous studies have established that sex is not just male or female. Rather, information technology is a continuum that emerges from a person'due south genetic makeup. Still, misconceptions persist that same-sex attraction is a choice that warrants condemnation or conversion, and leads to discrimination and persecution.
I am a molecular biologist and am interested in this new report as it further illuminates the genetic contribution to homo behavior. Equally the author of the book, "Pleased to Come across Me: Genes, Germs, and the Curious Forces That Make Us Who We Are," I have done extensive research into the biological forces that conspire to shape homo personality and behavior, including the factors influencing sexual attraction.
The chase for 'gay genes'
The new finding is consistent with multiple earlier studies of twins that indicated same-sex attraction is a heritable trait.
The 2019 study is the latest in a hunt for "gay genes" that began in 1993, when Dean Hamer linked male person homosexuality to a department of the 10 chromosome. As the ease and affordability of genome sequencing increased, additional gene candidates have emerged with potential links to homosexual behavior. So-chosen genome-wide association studies identified a factor called SLITRK6, which is active in a encephalon region called the diencephalon that differs in size between people who are homosexual or heterosexual.
Genetic studies in mice have uncovered additional gene candidates that could influence sexual preference. A 2010 written report linked sexual preference to a gene called fucose mutarotase. When the cistron was deleted in female mice, they were attracted to female person odors and preferred to mount females rather than males.
Other studies take shown that disruption of a factor chosen TRPC2 can cause female mice to act similar males. Male mice lacking TRPC2 no longer display male-male assailment, and they initiate sexual behaviors toward both males and females. Expressed in the brain, TRPC2 functions in the recognition of pheromones, chemicals that are released by one member of a species to elicit a response in another.
With multiple gene candidates being linked to homosexuality, it seemed highly unlikely that a single "gay" gene exists. This idea is further supported by the new study, which identified five new genetic loci (stock-still positions on chromosomes) correlating with aforementioned-sex activity: 2 that appeared in men and women, two only in men, and one merely in women.
How might these genes influence same-sex behavior?
I find it intriguing that some of the genes from men identified in Ganna's study are associated with olfactory systems, a finding that has parallels to the work in mice. Ganna's group establish other gene variants that may exist linked with sexual activity hormone regulation, which other scientists take previously suggested plays a large part in shaping the brain in ways that influence sexual behavior.
Males with a genetic condition chosen androgen insensitivity syndrome can develop female genitalia and are usually brought up as girls, despite beingness genetically male person – with an Ten and Y chromosome – and they are attracted to men. This suggests that testosterone is needed to "masculinize" a prenatal brain; if that doesn't happen, the child volition abound up to desire men.
Similarly, girls who take a genetic condition called congenital adrenal hyperplasia are exposed to unusually loftier levels of male hormones like testosterone while in the womb, which may masculinize their encephalon and increase the odds of lesbianism.
It's also possible that hormonal shifts during pregnancy could affect how a fetus' encephalon is configured. In rats, manipulation of hormones during pregnancy produces offspring that exhibit homosexual beliefs.
Why does homosexual behavior be?
Several hypotheses have been advanced to explain how homosexuality tin can be beneficial in perpetuating familial genes. One idea involves the concept of kin selection, whereby people work to ensure the passage of their family'southward genes into subsequent generations. Gay uncles and aunts, for case, are "helpers in the nest" that assist raise other family members' children to nurture the family tree.
Another idea suggests that homosexuality is a "trade-off trait." For instance, certain genes in women help increment their fertility, only if these genes are expressed in a male, they predispose him toward homosexuality.
Sexual behavior is widely various and governed by sophisticated mechanisms throughout the animate being kingdom. As with other complex behaviors, it is non possible to predict sexuality past gazing into a Deoxyribonucleic acid sequence as if information technology were a crystal ball. Such behaviors emerge from constellations of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of genes, and how they are regulated by the surround.
While in that location is no unmarried "gay gene," at that place is overwhelming evidence of a biological basis for sexual orientation that is programmed into the brain earlier birth based on a mix of genetics and prenatal conditions, none of which the fetus chooses.
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Source: https://theconversation.com/stop-calling-it-a-choice-biological-factors-drive-homosexuality-122764
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