How People are Gay

          Did you know there’s people out there who believe that Gay people are not born gay but are just choosing to be.  This type of thinking is so entitled that I don’t even know where to start with it.  Imagine, you feel that you are so correct about this, that when millions of people tell you they are born a certain way and that they are unable to change that way that they are made, you feel you know better because of what? It’s not experience that this entitled view comes from but a faith based way of thinking rather than a factual way of coming to conclusions.  

          Many will say because their faith teaches them homosexuality is a sin that it must be a choice but let’s break that down.  These people also tend to believe sex before marriage is also a sin, but yet their sexual desires they feel outside marriages are real, it’s the choice of acting on those desires that becomes a sin.  You never chose to have sexual desire, your DNA has used this desire to fuel your main instinct with our without you choosing to have it.  Yet the sexual desire of others they believe are a choice?  How?  

          If you have chosen to restrict your main DNA instinct from centuries old theology that, by the way, also produced other gems such as a women’s sexual desire is hysteria which meant they needed to be locked up for it, by all means that is your choice. But to impose your faith based choices on others is something that is so entitled I just can’t comprehend that type of self righteousness one must achieve to get to be that brazen.  

          I’m sorry if this upsets you, but you’re not right about everything, just as I know I won’t be, but the difference being is when presented with facts that contradict what I believe I was lucky enough to be taught how to properly process that new knowledge to accept what I knew was wrong and change my way of thinking.  Being wrong isn’t bad, being wrong and presented with information to correct your way of thinking but refusing because of pride is what makes you a person with less value in your character.  

          Now let’s talk about the science behind being gay.  There has been study after study into this subject because this incorrect centuries old theology has yet to die out even with gay person after gay person being born and saying it’s not changeable since pretty much the beginning of recorded history.  Now science still has a lot to go when it comes to deciphering DNA and neurology, but that doesn’t mean we haven’t made great strides in the past couple centuries, let alone the giant strides made in the last couple decades.  

          We know that all fetuses default to female for example, but with the Y chromosome present it starts preparing for what happens at about week 6. At about week 6 gonads turn into testies and start producing testosterone.  This presence of testosterone then changes the brains physiology to produce masculine characteristics.  However, DNA development is not perfect, and in the hostile development zone of a uterus plenty of things can make this development go awry, even up to reverting the fetus back to its default of female.  

          When I say hostile it’s mainly with these developing male fetuses that we see it to be extra hostile, but environmental factors and stress on the mother can also contribute to creating a more hostile developmental space no matter the sex chromosomes present.  The reason for male births having this higher hostility is because the mother’s body will see the male hormones it’s developing as foreign and this imbalance of hormones must be corrected.

          This is why developing male fetuses have a higher rate of birth abnormalities than developing female fetuses and when a mother has multiple male births we see the fraternal birth order come into effect.  Which is, after each boy her body will grow stronger at flooding the male fetus with different hormones to try and balance out the presence of the extra male hormones and this increases the chance a women will have a gay child.  This is because the development of gender can get disrupted and is largely agreed the main point when sexuality can be altered, although it should be noted sexuality related genes continues to develop even when outside the womb.  

          As the developing male fetus is presented with these stress hormones, it can end up developing without the masculine features and instead keep those default female characteristics.  Now it’s important to note that just because male fetuses have a higher chance of a hostile environment, one can still occur for females and just because a fetus is flooded with different chemicals that may cause things to go different doesn’t mean it’ll be a guarantee that they will.  As well as the lack of a hostile environment can still lead to DNA not developing in a more correct matter because DNA is not perfect, and it’s capable of making abnormalities, or not, no matter the environment.  

          Now there is no single Gay gene that we can look at, because there are hundreds of genes that contribute to ones sexuality, which makes sexuality a spectrum.  There are five main genes that scientist have deduced are bigger precursors to determining what we end up being like, but it’s still a grey area of development for our geneticist and neuroscientist.  Now I can go on and on about all the different data collected about environmental factors and how different chemicals can cause different reactions and what different genes mean, but that can get pretty long winded and I hope you go over my citations to deduce for yourself the data I’m presenting here.  

          We can talk about study after study, or even break down this choice theory by finding examples that would bring to question how it would be a choice, like with blind gay people.  Which brings to question, if sexuality is a choice how did someone who is blind come to this conclusion.  The results were in the nose.   Visually impaired lgbt when asked will typically say they knew they were attracted to a certain sex because the smell of their pheromones aroused them.  Which makes sense, as our sexuality is largely driven by pheromones.  

          Now I don’t know about you but I never chose which type of pheromones were going to arouse me, but I certainly have tried to reverse the fact that male pheromones arouse me and have tried to change it because my faith that I was raised with told me I needed to or be damned, and spoiler alert I was unsuccessful.  If you believe that being gay is a choice, then once you have figured out how to change what pheromones arouse you, then you can go ahead and make that claim.  Until then I suggest you worry about what faith you have chosen to follow for yourself dictates what you do, but stop being entitled in thinking that means you can dictate others to follow those same rules that you have chosen to follow.  

          Go out there and learn what it means to be the person without sin to throw the first stone, and learn what it means to actually love others unconditionally, which if I’m a betting man, that faith you’ve chosen to follow has also commanded you to do.  Jesus married a prostitute to give you the best example of what he meant to not care about other people’s sins and to teach you how you should be able to love others so unconditionally that you would marry someone with such sins.  He never asked you to not condone, but rather just love unconditionally. 

Author Jay

Image by Alessandro Alle from Pixabay

REFERENCES

  • Hines M. Prenatal endocrine influences on sexual orientation and on sexually differentiated childhood behavior. Front Neuroendocrinol. 2011;32(2):170-182. doi:10.1016/j.yfrne.2011.02.006
  • Eriksson JG, Kajantie E, Osmond C, Thornburg K, Barker DJ. Boys live dangerously in the womb. Am J Hum Biol. 2010 May-Jun;22(3):330-5. doi: 10.1002/ajhb.20995. PMID: 19844898; PMCID: PMC3923652.
  • Sanders, A.R., Beecham, G.W., Guo, S. et al. Genome-Wide Association Study of Male Sexual Orientation. Sci Rep 7, 16950 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-15736-4
  • Balthazart J. Fraternal birth order effect on sexual orientation explained. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2018 Jan 9;115(2):234-236. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1719534115. Epub 2017 Dec 19. PMID: 29259109; PMCID: PMC5777082.
  • Lübke, K., Schablitzky, S. & Pause, B.M. Male Sexual Orientation Affects Sensitivity to Androstenone. Chem. Percept. 2, 154–160 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12078-009-9047-3
  • Interesting reddit post that was directed towards the blind and gay community.  Since not much actual study is done on this subject it’s more of a learned culture aspect that this post can help one who hasn’t been in the lgbt community have some level of perception as well. https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/6bz2ej/blind_gay_people_of_reddit_how_did_you_know_you/