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Is there a gay gene? Should we care?

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I met Martin in York, England, many years ago. So long ago you could still smoke in cafes.

Martin was gay and dying from cancer, and our conversation naturally orbited these topics.  

At one point I asked him whether he thought homosexuality was nature or nurture, genetic or learned. I’ll never forget what he said.

‘Dot,’ he said, ‘I hope to all God it’s some crazy reaction to upbringing, because if it is genetic it won’t be long before they isolate that gene and find a way of splicing it out and doing away with gayness altogether. And then where will we be? In a world filled with white, straight men.’

Fourteen years later and the New Scientist reports that a ‘gay gene’ may have been discovered.

Studies have been conducted since the 90s to find this elusive biological reason for homosexuality and now, it seems, there might be some evidence for it.

The New Scientist reports: ‘A genetic analysis of 409 pairs of gay brothers, including sets of twins, has provided the strongest evidence yet that gay people are born gay… "It erodes the notion that sexual orientation is a choice," says study leader Alan Sanders of the NorthShore Research Institute in Evanston, Illinois.’

Martin is probably rolling in his grave.

And he’s not the only person this will upset. The arguments waged over nature versus nurture versus lifestyle choice could start a war in some countries.

Oh wait. It has. Homosexuality continues to be a prison or death sentence in in many places based on the idea that it is simply a decision sick, irreligious people make. Will the finding of a ‘gay gene’ help to confirm the God-given right to gayness – or will it just be a reason to ostracise homosexuals more, like modern-day lepers who didn’t take the correct medication to make them ‘right’?

Look, I’ve often questioned the motivation for finding genetic purpose behind sexual preference. After all, I don’t see anyone scrambling to find a ‘straight gene’. My feels remain that that Kinsey sliding scale finds its marker determined by a bit of everything – nature, nurture and lifestyle choice.

And why not? Why are we so desperate to find an on/off switch? A this or that approach to being homo- or heterosexual? Where does the bisexual gene sit? Or the asexual gene? Or the ‘I’m mostly straight but sometimes I like boning people of the same sex’ gene?

Also, I am once again reminded of the inherent sexism of the science paternity – where are the gay studies for women? Or are these in the kitchen baking cookies?

I guess I’m with Martin on this. I’m all for researching genitals and how we like to play with them; after all, if we can’t do it for science what can we do it for? But I suspect this finding, if it proves to be even mostly true, will do more harm than good.

Read Dorothy's blog, like her Facebook page and follow her on Twitter.

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