DISQUS

cowboyneok · 1 year ago

So one's gender is based in the brain? What a novel concept.

yawn...

This does add new fuel to the debate about physical gender configuration versus brain configuration. What makes a man a man and woman a woman? Do you get a brain scan or let a doctor tell you what is between your legs? I welcome the brain study, especially for intersexed children. Maybe they will attempt brain scans and then allow the child to reach an age of maturity before FORCING a gender role on them.

cowboyneok · 1 year ago

I resemble, I mean remember, that Star Trek episode!!!

jr · 1 year ago

"scientists work for the Devil"-republican party platform

chowderSF · 1 year ago

Yikes, for a second, I thought that was a picture of McSame. Equally as frightening.

LasloPratt · 1 year ago

During his trial, there was a picture of Phil Spector in the LA Times -- the way his hair was frizzed out made him look just like one of those guys. But that's not the scary part. The scary part is, when I say that picture I said out loud, "Hey, what's up with Phil Spector? He looks just like a Talosian."

Talosian. Why the hell would I even remember that???

AdmNaismith · 1 year ago

I'd choose to have a bigger brain. Esp. if I could have powers like those 'creepy women' (as you say) in Star Trek.

Butch1 · 1 year ago

I went to the article and one commenter exclaimed how long for a cure? I'm not sure there is a cure for bigotry or those who wish to remain ignorant of science.

tacitus · 1 year ago

Uh oh -- I didn't see your comment before I posted mine :). I do have a serious question though, and it's nothing to do with being bigoted. I hope you won't be offended.

Butch1 · 1 year ago

Serious questions require serious answers. I think you are coming from the perspective that there is something wrong with being gay other than religious foot stomping etc., or you wouldn't be thinking it is a disease needing a cure. ( I am not accusing you of overt bigotry just one from not having the knowledge or understanding of this.) If you think of it as a disease, which it is not, then one would look for a "cure." I think it has already been proven than this is passed along genetically through family lines biologically. This study apparently shows that there are basic physical differences between heterosexual and homosexual brains whether caused hormonally, genetically or a combination of them..

I understand your gay friends not wanting their children to be gay but that is only because of society and their religious, hell bent notion that it is wrong. Your gay friends are also a product of this society in their viewpoint as well buying into the notion that they are defective whether they believe it or not. If they show their kids that something is so wrong with being homosexual that they would not wish it on their kids, their kids will hope that they are not "inferior" or that their own kids will not be gay as well, continuing this cycle. We need to change this mindset that something is wrong with being gay. It is obvious that homosexuality runs throughout nature in most species which goes against what religious dogma has been stating since the beginning of the Judeo-Christian beginnings. If "God" put it in nature, could it be wrong in man? This biblical thinking is antiquated and shows the thinking of that time in history. It always has amazed me how modern man can continue to hold on to those age old prejudices. The Bible also claims that bats are birds for goodness sake. The should help raise questions to most people that it was not written by a divine entity as the religionists would like one to believe but man. I do not want to debate whether religion is true or false as that is a debate for another time.

If there is a cure for this, it will be in man's understanding that homosexuality is a natural variation happening in nature and nothing needing "fixing" or "curing." This is my opinion and I hope it helps you in looking at this from another perspective.

tacitus · 1 year ago

Hey Butch, thanks for taking the time to answer. I guess it's hard to tell over the "Internets" but I really do not think that being gay is something to be cured. Being gay is as inherent in someone's personality as their sex, their intelligence, their kindness, etc.

I think I get where you are coming from. Having gay offspring is completely natural and therefore is something that should not be interfered with. I concur, but having said that, I do believe that at some point -- which is probably decades away, but you never know -- there will be a way to influence conditions at or around conception that will change the odds of someone being born gay. If it's a genetic issue, then I suspect there will be great resistance against allowing genetic manipulation (if that's ever possible) of an embryo, but what if it turns out to be a hormonal issue, where the mother can take simply take a drug that reduces the odds of their child being born gay? What if the next study shows that women who took drug XYZ had 10% less chance on average of having a gay child than a control group? Can you ban mothers from taking that drug during pregnancy? I'm not sure you can.

As for the religious aspect, you'll get no argument from me. I am about as staunch an atheist as you will find these days :-). This is purely down to a question of ethics and what people (free off religious dogma and prejudices determine is the best for their society then and in the future).

Butch1 · 1 year ago

Hi, Thanks for your response as well, I guess my point is that being gay as with being straight, involves hormones, genetics and what ever combination of them. Would we choose the orientation of a fetus on the other hand, to make the outcome gay? Going into that area tells us that a parent would think it is better to have a straight child rather than a gay one. In that, is the discrimination of one being better or preferred over the other. We are seeing this today in differentiating between straight and gay marriages. One is considered on an higher level than the other. I think we need to educate people so they don't want to start manipulating science to produce one type of product over another. In countries where male children are preferred over female would eventually have a nation of male offspring. Who's is going to make the decision to start having female children when it is preferred to have a male? These are decisions that should not be in the hands of the people or science trying to control Nature and its natural selection. We have too many disasters where we tried to step in and change the natural order of things. Australia is a good example of man bringing in other creatures that had no natural enemy to keep it under control and many natural species are extinct as a result of it. I see no harm in letting nature choose randomly who will be gay and who will be straight and we need to make sure that being gay is not a disease to be cured but a variation of being a human being..

tacitus · 1 year ago

In a perfect world, I think you're right, and it may boil down to when (if ever) such manipulation is possible. If it doesn't happen for, say, another 100 years, then I would certainly hope that institutional prejudices against gays (i.e. things like bans on gay marriage, adoptions, etc.) would be in the distant past. (And now that gay couples can have children through various means, that eliminates the one obvious "disadvantage" straight people used to point to.). But if it becomes possible within, say, the next five to ten years, then I suspect that there will an extremely rancorous debate on the subject, and the outcome will probably depend upon whether or not genetic manipulation is necessary.

Butch1 · 1 year ago

I agree, hopefully, lucid minds will prevail.

tacitus · 1 year ago

Ok, so here's a question (and it's being asked in all honesty -- no agenda at all, I assure you). This evidence, and others such as the "older brother" study from Canada, point to a biological cause for being gay -- and possibly some sort of developmental issue in the womb rather than genetic (though maybe it needs both, who knows at this point?). If it is confirmed that it is indeed some form of developmental issue during or after conception -- perhaps some type of hormonal imbalance -- that can be "corrected" using some form of drug therapy and thus reducing the chances of a child being born gay, what would be the gay community's reaction be to such a development? I know for sure that the religious right would suddenly overcome their squeamishness about manipulating an unborn child's attributes (hypocrites that they are) but what about the rest of society?

I ask because a couple of gay people I know (one of whom has two children, one his own) have said that they would not want their kids to be gay -- mainly because of the enduring prejudices they would be subjected to (and this is in Britain). But the availability of such a treatment would undoubtedly reduced the number of gay children being born and perhaps even risk more prejudiced feelings against the remaining smaller minority.

I get the feeling that we may not be all that far away from when this question becomes a real issue we, as a society, will have to tackle. We are getting closer to understanding the causes of homosexuality, and thus the chances of it being a "treatable condition" might be going up (I use this term cautiously since obviously being gay is not a disease to be cured). And if we start being able to manipulate embryos for other traits like intelligence, athleticism, etc (admittedly a long way off yet) then should parents be allowed to influence the sexual orientation of their offspring too?

red_dwarf · 1 year ago

tacitus - good question. Whether it is post-fertilization (hormones, etc) or genetic the question is the same. Who makes this decision? How about sex? Or eye color? etc, etc. I think everyone will agree that in order to prolong life we'll accept genetic manipulation (its coming) but the notion of choices made before or during conception is a good one.

Personally, I wouldn't want to live in a world without gays - they are extraordinarily wonderful people and I couldn't imagine a world without them. As a first shot on this important issue I say we should not try to genetically control the unborn, unless it is of course to prevent something catastrophic (such as a defective protein, etc). Otherwise you open the door to manipulate say, genetically predetermined pathological lying bigoted dittoheads to become progressive intellectuals. In the future we'll need some part of the population to do menial tasks.

tacitus · 1 year ago

Yeah, if you open Pandora's Box, you don't know what you're going to end up with until it's too late, but I don't think the issues facing us in this area are going to get any easier. Eventually i suspect it will be possible to manipulate life in all sorts of ways unimagined today. I agree that genetic manipulation to extend life will be amongst the first to be attempted, but the possibility of influencing other personality traits like intelligence, sporting ability, and yes, sexual orientation, will likely become reality sometime in the future.

Perhaps it will all boil down to whether a specific manipulation bestows an advantage of some kind on the child. Make it more intelligent? Fine. Make it a 6'9" stud who can dribble like Michael Jordan? Have at it. Dumb down a female embryo so that she more likely conforms to the religious-right's view of the position of women in the world? Definitely illegal. In that scenario, manipulating sexual orientation would not be allow since it doesn't bestow an advantage on the child, but since it doesn't necessarily make things worse either, your likely back to the argument of the "naturalness" of being gay again with many right-wingers arguing that it's something to be "fixed".

Plus ça change, plus c'est la meme chose, as they say.

gonoles84 · 1 year ago

Love the image from Star Trek....I always thought those guys were a little gay. I must admit, the pulsing veins in their giant cranium were a little unsettling.

vkobaya · 1 year ago

The scientists should have studied Republican brains and they would have found they are almost identical to chimpanzee brains, but not bonobo brains since bonobo are peaceful cousins of chimpanzees. Bonobo brains more closely resemble human brains.

dshsfca · 1 year ago

"Scientists?" What kind of "scientists?" Biologists? Physicists? Chemists? Astronomists?

Or Pscyhes?

red_dwarf · 1 year ago

??

cosanostradamus · 1 year ago

.
Well, giving head has a scientific foundation, now
.

Indigo · 1 year ago

Vive la différence!

Mark · 1 year ago

I don't find these studies very compelling. That's not a commentary on the science, the methodology, or the validity of the conclusions. I just have a hard time seeing a positive outcome for studies like this.

We still see discrimination against women and blacks, but we've got awfully compelling scientific evidence that sex and skin color are genetic.

And what are the potential downsides? The biggest one I see is the possibility of "treatment." Ex-gay conversion therapy doesn't work, but it's still out there. Imagine if Exodus International could funnel its efforts into treatments that actually worked. "Give this pill to your son, and he'll grow up to want a family with a mom and a dad, just like the family that raised him."

Or worse, what if our rights became contingent on passing some sort of biological destiny test? "Oh, of course two men can be married. They just have to take a quick blood test to confirm they've got the same-sex attraction gene." What if my blood, or my partner's, doesn't make the cut? What if a certain percentage of us did choose to be gay, or it was a result of our upbringing, or some factor other than a genetic marker? Are we then not allowed to be gay anymore?

If a genetic link only offers the promise of receiving the same level of acceptance as women and racial minorities, that seems like an awfully small benefit compared to the even bigger risks.

red_dwarf · 1 year ago

Intelligent psychiatrists/scientists knew in the 19th Century that homosexuality was inherited. Nothing new here. You could have the proof sitting on the table and brain dead right wingers and homophobes in general would deny it.

tlsintx · 1 year ago

we need to find a cure for heterosupremacy

CitizenVA · 1 year ago

Thanks for the picture of the Talosian! Haven't seen that episode in ages!

Interesting article, and I'm afraid that Tacitus has a good point. I just don't have an answer...

CVA