Hey everyone, this was a blog I posted in october (on myspace) about what I learned in my theories of personalities class. I've found that not a lot of people know about the Xq28 mutation, so maybe this will be informative? It's kind of long and very casually written.
"Friday, October 24, 2008
Xq28 - thanks for the genes mom!
For one of my classes I have been reading "Living with Our Genes," by Dean Hamer and Peter Copeland. Its main focus is evolutionary psychology and the "nature" part of what makes humans tick. In the chapter titled "Sex" the authors talk about the homosexual gene(s) in gay males. It is known as "Xq28" and was found to be passed on by the mother and attached to the X chromosome. Interestingly, the authors of the book are the ones who discovered the gene mutation (if you want to call it that). This is what they found:
"Looking at 40 pairs of gay brothers with 22 different markers, we found a linkage region called Xq28, located at the very tip of the long arm of the X chromosome. In that region 33 out of the 40 pairs were concordant, or the same, for a series of five closely spaced markers. That showed 83% percent sharing," (p. 195).
They published their findings, and people freaked out. Huge backlash. If you google the study (it's from 1993) you will find all kind of claims that it was debunked. The authors acknowledge in the book how only one study failed to replicate their results but the research was so different that it was hard to tell if the results gave evidence for anything.
George Ebres and George Rice interviewed 182 families with two or more gay brothers and found more gay relatives on the mothers side (which supports Xq28). However when they looked at the DNA – the most important part of this experiment – only 41 of the 182 were analyzed and these happened to be the ones with paternal gay uncles. These families could not show an X linkage to homosexuality because of the parental linkage – which actually DOES support Xq28 because Xq28 was linked to the mother, not daddy. Soooooooo to put it bluntly, massive fail. Der. Der. Der.
When the study was replicated by David Fulker and Stacy Cherny at Institute of Behavioral Genetics at the University of Colorado, and Leonid Kruglyak at the Whitehead Genome Center at MIT Boston the same results were found (in that Xq28 was linked to the X chromosome and homosexuality).
You're probably asking, what about the LESBIANS? For some reason, people don't study the lezzi's enough. But to be fair, nearly all the research done on female homosexuality does not give us nearly as much hard evidence as male homosexuality. Again, this is what the authors write:
"The research showed that male sexual orientation had many of the characteristics of a genetically influenced trait: it was consistent, stable, dichotomous, meaning men were either gay or straight. By contrast, female sexual orientation looked more soft and fuzzy, less hardwired: it was variable, changeable, and continuous, meaning lots of women were somewhere between gay and straight," (p. 187).
Those of you who know me pretty well, know that I take issue with the concept of males being "less fluid" in our sexuality. I am not saying I do not believe their research, I can't deny facts. But I think society also makes it a lot less "okay" for men to be fluid in our sexuality. But the authors do make a great point. Most of my girl friends, though they identify as straight have had girl crushes. They didn't exactly KNOW at a young age if they were lesbian, straight, or bi but gay males on the other hand usually realize it at a young age. I know I did, maybe around 5 years old? Not like I was 5 and screaming "BUTTSECKS," but we live in such a heterosexual culture that I *really* noticed something was different about me.
Remember the blog on homosexuality I posted last semester after what I learned in my human sexuality class? About how more concrete differences in gay male brains (versus heterosexual male brains) were found in contrast to their being almost no brain differences in lesbian brains versus heterosexual females? And as usual, everyone ignores the bisexuals (sarcasm, b/c it pisses me off how bi's are ignored). That also seems to suggest male sexual orientation has a strong tendency to be hard wired.
I suppose this does not surprise me too much since other "gay" genes have been found in other species. But I have to be honest, it freaks me out. Scientists tweaked the genes, making the animals change orientations. I do NOT want people to find out what makes humans gay or lesbian OR straight. Well…it would be neat, but I am too freaked out of the notion of people trying to be like "We found a cure! Yay!" Fuck that.
I also think sexual orientation is too complex for us to ever understand AND there may be different reasons as to why someone is homosexual. Maybe I have the Xq28 mutation and my boyfriend was exposed to weird hormones in the womb. Maybe my brain is wired to like men but I don't have the Xq28 mutation. Who knows! Personally, I am more inclined to think what determines orientation IS your brain – since it is connected to sex and what you find attractive (the Hypothalamus, Corpus Callosum, & Cerebral Hemispheres).
Anyways, I strongly urge everyone to read that book! It goes much more in depth with the research than I did in this blog. I'm not on some death mission to prove it's inborn, but of course stuff like this catches my attention. Double edged sword…do we want to prove to homophobes it is inborn? Will that normalize homosexuality or turn it into a fetal abnormality which will have a "cure?" Like I said, I will take teaching tolerance over find the gay genes any day."
"Friday, October 24, 2008
Xq28 - thanks for the genes mom!
For one of my classes I have been reading "Living with Our Genes," by Dean Hamer and Peter Copeland. Its main focus is evolutionary psychology and the "nature" part of what makes humans tick. In the chapter titled "Sex" the authors talk about the homosexual gene(s) in gay males. It is known as "Xq28" and was found to be passed on by the mother and attached to the X chromosome. Interestingly, the authors of the book are the ones who discovered the gene mutation (if you want to call it that). This is what they found:
"Looking at 40 pairs of gay brothers with 22 different markers, we found a linkage region called Xq28, located at the very tip of the long arm of the X chromosome. In that region 33 out of the 40 pairs were concordant, or the same, for a series of five closely spaced markers. That showed 83% percent sharing," (p. 195).
They published their findings, and people freaked out. Huge backlash. If you google the study (it's from 1993) you will find all kind of claims that it was debunked. The authors acknowledge in the book how only one study failed to replicate their results but the research was so different that it was hard to tell if the results gave evidence for anything.
George Ebres and George Rice interviewed 182 families with two or more gay brothers and found more gay relatives on the mothers side (which supports Xq28). However when they looked at the DNA – the most important part of this experiment – only 41 of the 182 were analyzed and these happened to be the ones with paternal gay uncles. These families could not show an X linkage to homosexuality because of the parental linkage – which actually DOES support Xq28 because Xq28 was linked to the mother, not daddy. Soooooooo to put it bluntly, massive fail. Der. Der. Der.
When the study was replicated by David Fulker and Stacy Cherny at Institute of Behavioral Genetics at the University of Colorado, and Leonid Kruglyak at the Whitehead Genome Center at MIT Boston the same results were found (in that Xq28 was linked to the X chromosome and homosexuality).
You're probably asking, what about the LESBIANS? For some reason, people don't study the lezzi's enough. But to be fair, nearly all the research done on female homosexuality does not give us nearly as much hard evidence as male homosexuality. Again, this is what the authors write:
"The research showed that male sexual orientation had many of the characteristics of a genetically influenced trait: it was consistent, stable, dichotomous, meaning men were either gay or straight. By contrast, female sexual orientation looked more soft and fuzzy, less hardwired: it was variable, changeable, and continuous, meaning lots of women were somewhere between gay and straight," (p. 187).
Those of you who know me pretty well, know that I take issue with the concept of males being "less fluid" in our sexuality. I am not saying I do not believe their research, I can't deny facts. But I think society also makes it a lot less "okay" for men to be fluid in our sexuality. But the authors do make a great point. Most of my girl friends, though they identify as straight have had girl crushes. They didn't exactly KNOW at a young age if they were lesbian, straight, or bi but gay males on the other hand usually realize it at a young age. I know I did, maybe around 5 years old? Not like I was 5 and screaming "BUTTSECKS," but we live in such a heterosexual culture that I *really* noticed something was different about me.
Remember the blog on homosexuality I posted last semester after what I learned in my human sexuality class? About how more concrete differences in gay male brains (versus heterosexual male brains) were found in contrast to their being almost no brain differences in lesbian brains versus heterosexual females? And as usual, everyone ignores the bisexuals (sarcasm, b/c it pisses me off how bi's are ignored). That also seems to suggest male sexual orientation has a strong tendency to be hard wired.
I suppose this does not surprise me too much since other "gay" genes have been found in other species. But I have to be honest, it freaks me out. Scientists tweaked the genes, making the animals change orientations. I do NOT want people to find out what makes humans gay or lesbian OR straight. Well…it would be neat, but I am too freaked out of the notion of people trying to be like "We found a cure! Yay!" Fuck that.
I also think sexual orientation is too complex for us to ever understand AND there may be different reasons as to why someone is homosexual. Maybe I have the Xq28 mutation and my boyfriend was exposed to weird hormones in the womb. Maybe my brain is wired to like men but I don't have the Xq28 mutation. Who knows! Personally, I am more inclined to think what determines orientation IS your brain – since it is connected to sex and what you find attractive (the Hypothalamus, Corpus Callosum, & Cerebral Hemispheres).
Anyways, I strongly urge everyone to read that book! It goes much more in depth with the research than I did in this blog. I'm not on some death mission to prove it's inborn, but of course stuff like this catches my attention. Double edged sword…do we want to prove to homophobes it is inborn? Will that normalize homosexuality or turn it into a fetal abnormality which will have a "cure?" Like I said, I will take teaching tolerance over find the gay genes any day."
