gay...is it genetic?

Question

i know quite a few people and friends that are gay, and either one of their brothers or cousins are gay too. does it run in families??

Answer 1

Nope.

Answer 2

When I see those bull dykes with mullets and square shoulders or the little wispy guys that have mannerisms of women I believe in the genetic thing. But some people like to talk about the institutionalized pedastry of the Spartans, Samurai, etc. so then there goes the gene theory. That would be like saying you can be sexually aroused by men without being gay. BS.

Answer 3

One of the influences that came to play in England over the condition of being gay, was that Queen Victoria did not believe that women could perform acts of same sex intimacy, so the law that made that activity illegal was applied to males only.
A bit of historical trivia, but it is things like that that still have an influence on what people believe today.
There are many characteristics of the human being that can be studied from a statistical point of view: height, weight, colouring, IQ....you name one, someone has probably already studied it from a population distribution point of view.
The majority of the populations of this world fall between the limits of plus or minus 3 deviations of being normal by being in a relationship with a member of the opposite gender.
It may run in families, who knows, but it would be difficult for two consenting males or two consenting females to produce children. One would have to conclude that it is a trait that exists within human kind that will not be removed. I believe that I am right in the centre of the +/- 3 standard deviation range. Most of us have a low tolerance for those who are afflicted with the burden of not being within a normal range of any characteristic, and that is a shame.

Answer 4

I'm the only gay person (as far as I know) in my family. But I know this family with 8 brothers and sisters. All women are lesbians there are two transgender and the rest of the guys are gay, of course the family business is a gay bar, lol (not a joke).

Answer 5

This debate always leaves behind it a trail of ruination in terms of the lives of those on both sides of it. I'm not gay, but I have four cousins who are. Is it genetic? Not being a genetecist, I can't say. In this world, I believe just about anything is possible. Look at the white woman in the news recently that gave birth to twins-one white and one black. Both babies had the same DNA and matched with the father, who is white. I believe it's possible that there are several causal factors involved, and before anyone starts condemning a gay person, get to know them first. I know gays who are very intelligent, highly logical people and whom I have many intense and hotly debated discussions with- none of which are ever about being gay. A gay friend of mine, Brian, did tell me once that since he can remember being a little boy in first grade that he secretly desired certain other little boys in his class. He comes from a Christian home, noone else in his family is gay or lesbian, and he doesn't have a hidden agenda to force his lifestyle on anybody else. He believes in Christ as the Son of God, has accepted Him as his Lord, and wants to be with Him one day. He knows what God has said in both Covenants, and lives with who he is every day, and still manages despite the hostility he confronts every day. His biggest fear in life, besides being physically hurt or killed, is being rejected by his friends. He constantly asks for my reassurance that I won't ever betray our friendship over him being gay. We're still friends after ten years, and still, when we can, watch Monday night RAW and rent movies, play cards, yell at the old man next door, and are on a quest to invent the absolute BEST tasting man-sized, grill-cooked burger on earth. So, genetic or not- we share an amazing number of beliefs and convictions about everything from religion to politics (I'm Republican, he's Democrat but is turning Republican) to justice, war (we're both supporters of the war in Iraq, but it's getting old) and social equity. Amazingly, he's AGAINST same-sex marriage on religious and legal grounds- I'm still not sure. Yea. My buddy Brian. A gay man. Genetic? Environmental? Both? I don't know. But we're both Americans and both of us served in the armed forces and have two Honorable Discharges each. I'd say we're pretty equal. Not really, though. I'm taller than he is.

Answer 6

"Homosexuality Is Not Hardwired," Concludes Dr. Francis S. Collins, Head Of The Human Genome Project
By A. Dean Byrd, Ph.D, MBA, MPH

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http://americansfortruth.com/news/head-of-human-genome-project-homosexuality-is-not-hardwired.html

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Answer 7

There's a growing body of evidence to suggest that it may well be genetically linked, but it's a difficult thing to prove, especially given the fact that all homosexuals, biologically speaking, are the product of heterosexual unions (of course the argument then is that not all heterosexual unions are between truly heterosexual couples, especially given the social repression of the last century). Soo, the short answer is nobody knows.

Answer 8

I don't think that it's genetic, only a coincidence. There is no one in my family that is gay besides me, so the genetic aspect of that argument doesn't apply to me. With genes, you can't just say that some gay people are gay because it's in the family and some gay people are gay "just because".

Answer 9

___One psychiatrist who had dealt with or supervised the therapy of about 16,000 gay people found that just over half who had been unhappy over their sex lives found happiness remaining gay, and 13% found happiness going straight. (The others didn't find happiness.)
___From what I've read, the biological link to homosexuality comes from the discovery of a structure in the brain that's more likely to occur in gays than straights. But the brain builds structures through life in response to experience, so this discovery doesn't settle the matter.
___I have known many lesbians who were abused as kids, and who later switched to straight relationships. So these were probably gay because of early experiences.
___The gay rights movement has a political interest in claiming that gayness is hereditary, because it puts them in the "accident-of-birth" class with racial minorities, and they can then make their movement seem more valid by association with the civil rights movement. So the information that they and their allies present is about as credible as what the cigarette companies used to say about cigarettes being healthy.
___On the other hand, there is enough data to show that there's a spectrum of resistance to change among gays. Some can go straight, some can only with great difficulty and loss of fulfillment, and some just can't make the change. Most likely, most can't change.
___The question of the role of early experiences isn't adequately explored, either. There have been some studies about the more obvious factors that might make someone grow up gay, but nothing conclusive that I know of, and certainly nothing exhaustive. Some factors might be totally non-obvious.
___And this makes a difference. For if a large measure of gayness is due to early experiences, that would explain a lot of the inability to change (and would justify a demand of tolaration for existing gays) but would also justify the question of whether we, as a society, want to promote the upbringing of more gays or not, whether we want to discover the factors of upbringing that increase or decrease the numbers of gays in society. And of course, the gay rights movement wants none of this sort of discussion to occur out in the open. So if you bring these considerations up in public, be prepared to be called a religious fundamentalist or homophobic.
___Research has shown, though, that adoptive children of gays turn out gay in higher numbers than children in the general population.
___One note on "homophobia": give some thought to this word before you use it or let it be used. It is itself just a fancy bit of hate speech. It trivializes the moral issues of many serious, good people by casting these moral issues as a form of mental illness, and trivializes the repugnance of good people by reducing it to fear. If the politically correct don't want others to use insulting epithets, then they shouldn't either.

Answer 10

I believe it is. I just might have some still in the closet that are older than me because I am the first that I know of to come out. I have two younger cousins that have come out but no one older yet.

Answer 11

I think it does with most cases.

My uncle is gay and so am I.

In some cases it could be the "cool thing" to so, so in turn alot of people pretend to be gay for attention.
Although for real gay people who have no choise, I think it is genetic.