Study: Sexual identity hard-wired by genetics

[Shyriath]

http://www.cnn.com/2003/HEALTH/10/20/sexuality.brain.reut/index.html

LOS ANGELES, California (Reuters) -- Sexual identity is wired into the genes, which discounts the concept that homosexuality and transgender sexuality are a choice, California researchers reported on Monday.

"Our findings may help answer an important question -- why do we feel male or female?" Dr. Eric Vilain, a genetics professor at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Medicine, said in a statement. "Sexual identity is rooted in every person's biology before birth and springs from a variation in our individual genome."

His team has identified 54 genes in mice that may explain why male and female brains look and function differently.

Some bits of the article are a little confusing to me, but still apparently good news...

[DarkPhenyx]

1. Not entirely accurate.

But as far as their research goes it's decent work.

[VelmaD]

3. What drives me nuts...

is that the researchers say it "may" explain gender identity but the headline says it's "hard-wired". Did whoever wrote the headline even bother to read the article? *rolls eyes*

[DarkPhenyx]

5. Probably not.

Unfortunately the American Public needs things simplified for them. Good research can't be simplified and still be accurate. I think it's a failure in our educational system, and in our general level of parenting n the US. That's a completely different toipc though, and not one that needs to be discussed here.

<on edit>

It's also not like this is really all that new. Many researchers have been saying this for years. I'm not sure they had identified the genes though.

[arwalden]

2. Printing Article Now... EXCELLENT!!

Thanks for sharing the link! (Now maybe my father can stop worrying that he was a bad parent and that he may have allow my mother to coddle me too much. sigh.)

-- Allen

[Liberal Veteran]

4. Wonder how this could collide with GINA?

Genetic information nondiscrimination act.

Wouldn't it be funny if congress unwittingly passed a measure that made discrimination against GLBT people illegal?

[transeo]

6. Sexual identity and sexual orientation not the same

Perhaps there is more info in another article, but this one does nothing to address the issue of homosexuality. This one talks about the indetification with a particular gender, not sexual orientation. Whoever wrote the article wrote a crappy subhead.

I am a gay man, but I do not identify with being a woman by any stretch of the imagination. Therefore, the study as explained in this article tells me nothing about why I'm gay. It is far more applicable to transgender individuals.

:hi:

[DarkPhenyx]

7. Like I said...

...as far as the research goes it's good work, but it isn't anywhere near what people are going to try and make it out to be.

[demnan]

8. My father said he heard this in prep school years ago

That was in the early 1930's. Even though Dad was a conservative in many ways most of his life he accepted this as scientific fact.

I wonder if this was a scientific fact known by a few in the education community and that it was hidden because "people weren't ready to accept it" in 1932?

[damnraddem]

9. It's not evidence that behavior is 'hard wired' -- it's more evidence ...

that predisposition is shaped by genes. Which is more evidence that the predisposition, so varied behaviors based on predisposition, are 'natural.' It won't faze the religious right, or others who argue that homosexuality is 'immoral,' but it does help to undermine their arguments that it is 'unnatural.'

[David__77]

10. Doesn't matter to me.

Even if sexual orientation were 100% free, unadulterated choice, there's nothing wrong with homosexuality on any level whatsoever. I don't need science to somehow "excuse" my sexual orientation. More of our straight friends should openly take this position. It's much more important that the why's of the matter.