Why are gay people irrational

Edition: Europe. Despite a greater acceptance of sexual variations and same-sex marriage in many countries, homophobia is widely sustained by religious, political and cultural values and beliefs at individual and social level. Curious science This latest round of reporting following the Bailey research has led to perhaps inevitable criticism that we have an obsession with male homosexuality.

While researching Identically Different, my book on the effect of epigenetics on twins, I interviewed several sets of identical twins where one was gay and one straight which is more common that than both being gay. A similar paper on any other topic would probably have passed unnoticed.

Genetics Epigenetics Homosexuality. The authors came up with a complicated biological explanation for why gay men have more female relatives, tend to have older brothers and why it involves testosterone in the womb and runs in families. They were worried that as these changes were theoretically reversible, epigenetic drugs might become a future anti-gay treatment in oppressive societies.

In a culture of homophobia (an irrational fear of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender [GLBT] people), GLBT people often face a heightened risk of violence specific to their sexual identities. The complexity and randomness of possible epigenetic changes combined with the biology and multiple influences on sexual preferences makes this fear unfounded.

One reason people react so violently to these studies is a lack of understanding of basic biology and science, and realising that homosexuality is for a scientist just another human characteristic or trait, like sporting ability, obesity, optimism or depression.

Most common stereotypes are related to cross-sex characteristics. And there is no single gene for any of these traits. We have around 20, genes about the same as worms and thousands of genes influence each behavioural trait to tiny extents. No genes have actually been found to consistently influence homosexuality solely because genetic studies have been far too small; it took more than 34, people and 20 labs to find one little gene variant that influenced 0.

As we see from the many identical twin pairs who differ in sexual preferences — they would be useless for prediction. Last year, a paper in a relatively obscure journal also caused a public stir for saying just the opposite. Tim Spector , King's College London.

Exploring the negative impact of discrimination, prejudice, and stigma on the mental health of lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals. The Bailey paper claims to have found large segments of chromosomes containing hundreds of genes that are common in gay men. Additionally, significant numbers of individuals characterize male homosexuals as mentally ill, promiscuous, lonely, insecure, and.

When I discussed these results last year on the radio, gay rights activists seemed to get even more upset at the idea of epigenetics rather than plain genetics. Tim Spector is the author of the book Identically Different - Why you can change your genes. In fact, their study of pairs of brothers, where at least one was gay, confirmed a smaller controversial study from 20 years before, and several twin studies in between.

This latest round of reporting following the Bailey research has led to perhaps inevitable criticism that we have an obsession with male homosexuality. Events More events. But this is sex research — where public interest is huge but real funds and real science are very scarce and stories get recycled.