What are the odds all three of my children are “queer”

[Anonymous]

Article from 2019:

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/there-is-no-gay-gene-there-is-no-straight-gene-sexuality-is-just-complex-study-confirms

When the team looked more broadly across all the genomes — across the thousands of genes that they screened for the nearly 500,000 subjects — the genes similarities they found could only account for 8 to 25 percent of same-sex sexual behavior.

“It’s effectively impossible to predict an individual’s sexual behavior from their genome,” said Ben Neale, a geneticist at Massachusetts General Hospital and the Broad Institute who led the study. “Genetics is less than half of this story for sexual behavior.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Article from 2019:

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/there-is-no-gay-gene-there-is-no-straight-gene-sexuality-is-just-complex-study-confirms

When the team looked more broadly across all the genomes — across the thousands of genes that they screened for the nearly 500,000 subjects — the genes similarities they found could only account for 8 to 25 percent of same-sex sexual behavior.

“It’s effectively impossible to predict an individual’s sexual behavior from their genome,” said Ben Neale, a geneticist at Massachusetts General Hospital and the Broad Institute who led the study. “Genetics is less than half of this story for sexual behavior.”

Nurture over nature.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's not random, but they could be influencing each other or be the type to get carried away with social trends. Highly religious families are very conformist - they just conform to a different time. Their kids or grandkids conform to current times.

It’s really just a social trend right now, pushed by social media mostly.

Or it’s more prevalent than people think, and kids feel safer coming out nowadays.

Many of my former high school/college classmates (from the ‘80s) have come out in recent years, and they’re not on Tik Tok.

Cool story.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Article from 2019:

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/there-is-no-gay-gene-there-is-no-straight-gene-sexuality-is-just-complex-study-confirms

When the team looked more broadly across all the genomes — across the thousands of genes that they screened for the nearly 500,000 subjects — the genes similarities they found could only account for 8 to 25 percent of same-sex sexual behavior.

“It’s effectively impossible to predict an individual’s sexual behavior from their genome,” said Ben Neale, a geneticist at Massachusetts General Hospital and the Broad Institute who led the study. “Genetics is less than half of this story for sexual behavior.”

I can’t find the study now but I remember another study that found a decently strong genetic component but only for males and only along the maternal line (X chromosome connected like hair loss). And it was correlated with females with a high rate of childbirth so the researches indicated it wasn’t so much a “gay gene” but more likely a “really likes sex with men” gene that expresses in females as sexually activity heterosexuality and in males as sexually active homosexuality. I thought that was really interesting and correlated with several gay male friends of mine that had gay male uncles in their mom’s side.
Female sexuality seems to me more complicated and much more of a sliding Kinsey scale that seems more heavily influenced by social norms, peer behavior, and environmental factors like negative interactions with males. But I don’t have any science for that one — just 50 years of observations!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's not random, but they could be influencing each other or be the type to get carried away with social trends. Highly religious families are very conformist - they just conform to a different time. Their kids or grandkids conform to current times.

It’s really just a social trend right now, pushed by social media mostly.

Or it’s more prevalent than people think, and kids feel safer coming out nowadays.

Many of my former high school/college classmates (from the ‘80s) have come out in recent years, and they’re not on Tik Tok.

Cool story.

It is pretty cool.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Article from 2019:

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/there-is-no-gay-gene-there-is-no-straight-gene-sexuality-is-just-complex-study-confirms

When the team looked more broadly across all the genomes — across the thousands of genes that they screened for the nearly 500,000 subjects — the genes similarities they found could only account for 8 to 25 percent of same-sex sexual behavior.

“It’s effectively impossible to predict an individual’s sexual behavior from their genome,” said Ben Neale, a geneticist at Massachusetts General Hospital and the Broad Institute who led the study. “Genetics is less than half of this story for sexual behavior.”

I can’t find the study now but I remember another study that found a decently strong genetic component but only for males and only along the maternal line (X chromosome connected like hair loss). And it was correlated with females with a high rate of childbirth so the researches indicated it wasn’t so much a “gay gene” but more likely a “really likes sex with men” gene that expresses in females as sexually activity heterosexuality and in males as sexually active homosexuality. I thought that was really interesting and correlated with several gay male friends of mine that had gay male uncles in their mom’s side.
Female sexuality seems to me more complicated and much more of a sliding Kinsey scale that seems more heavily influenced by social norms, peer behavior, and environmental factors like negative interactions with males. But I don’t have any science for that one — just 50 years of observations!

I disagree that female sexuality is any more fluid than male sexuality. If you look at how many men in prison are “gay for the stay” you’ll see that many more men are bisexual than admit it publicly because it’s more socially acceptable for women to be bi.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I believe there’s genetics involved in almost everything. There are no family members in the most recent generations who are gay. And believe me no one would have a problem with it. We are not religious. But with about 10% of the population you would think there would be a couple of gay family members. But maybe we don’t have the genetics.

Left handedness is genetic and my family is about 40% left handed which is a large amount.

Mental illness is one of the last unknown medical fields but it appears to be genetic. Autism is in that group. These illnesses run in my family and they haven’t made much progress at all in treatment or proper diagnosis.

There’s a book about a family with about 11 kids more or less and six of the boys were diagnosed with severe schizophrenia. That’s unheard of too.

My family is much like yours. Lots of mental illness, left-handedness, but only one gay person that I know of in 3 generations. Family is very bohemian with tons of gay friends, so it no social pressure to be straight.

ditto here. super liberal family here. the joke is we all have pride flags, but that almost nobody is actually gay or anything other than cis-straight. i mean do the probability, someone has to be gay right? i mean, can't i get a single gay cousin?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Article from 2019:

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/there-is-no-gay-gene-there-is-no-straight-gene-sexuality-is-just-complex-study-confirms

When the team looked more broadly across all the genomes — across the thousands of genes that they screened for the nearly 500,000 subjects — the genes similarities they found could only account for 8 to 25 percent of same-sex sexual behavior.

“It’s effectively impossible to predict an individual’s sexual behavior from their genome,” said Ben Neale, a geneticist at Massachusetts General Hospital and the Broad Institute who led the study. “Genetics is less than half of this story for sexual behavior.”

25% is pretty big.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Highly religious families are very conformist - they just conform to a different time. Their kids or grandkids conform to current times.

Interesting point.

[Anonymous]

Stop having your kids around so many gay people. That will be who they look up to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Article from 2019:

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/there-is-no-gay-gene-there-is-no-straight-gene-sexuality-is-just-complex-study-confirms

When the team looked more broadly across all the genomes — across the thousands of genes that they screened for the nearly 500,000 subjects — the genes similarities they found could only account for 8 to 25 percent of same-sex sexual behavior.

“It’s effectively impossible to predict an individual’s sexual behavior from their genome,” said Ben Neale, a geneticist at Massachusetts General Hospital and the Broad Institute who led the study. “Genetics is less than half of this story for sexual behavior.”

I can’t find the study now but I remember another study that found a decently strong genetic component but only for males and only along the maternal line (X chromosome connected like hair loss). And it was correlated with females with a high rate of childbirth so the researches indicated it wasn’t so much a “gay gene” but more likely a “really likes sex with men” gene that expresses in females as sexually activity heterosexuality and in males as sexually active homosexuality. I thought that was really interesting and correlated with several gay male friends of mine that had gay male uncles in their mom’s side.
Female sexuality seems to me more complicated and much more of a sliding Kinsey scale that seems more heavily influenced by social norms, peer behavior, and environmental factors like negative interactions with males. But I don’t have any science for that one — just 50 years of observations!

I disagree that female sexuality is any more fluid than male sexuality. If you look at how many men in prison are “gay for the stay” you’ll see that many more men are bisexual than admit it publicly because it’s more socially acceptable for women to be bi.

You can disagree all you want but multiple research studies tell us it is true.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Even if they end up in Hell for eternity it’s important to support their choice and make a tiny fraction of existence more pleasant.

When it comes to mental health and religion, mental health should always take priority. God can deal with it, people can't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Were they being groomed by religious figures? It's quite common for children who were sexually abused to find "alternative" sexuality more comfortable.

This is not true.

It's actually far more common than you think. Many children were abused by various religious leaders at different religious organizations. Their insidious behaviors affected those children for the rest of their lives. Please don't discount the lived experiences of abused children at the hands of your religious leaders.

You don’t know jack shit

Are you trying to deny that religious leaders molested and raped children? I'm confused at your point, if there is one. Perhaps it is you that "don't know jack shit", but I'm guessing you couldn't articulate a clarification if requested anyways.

Its not the only reason but likely a significant factor and its not limited to catholics, its present in every religion with gender segregation and adult-child interaction like catholic schools, buddhist and hindu monasteries, muslim madrassas etc

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think there’s a genetic component but also something in the environment.

This. Like the genetics make a fetus more susceptible to certain chemicals. I think the same thing about vaccines. Some people are clearly affected by things that clearly don’t affect other people in the same way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's not random, but they could be influencing each other or be the type to get carried away with social trends. Highly religious families are very conformist - they just conform to a different time. Their kids or grandkids conform to current times.

My take is that there is an enormous amount of conversation about sexual identity. My son's grade has sixteen kids who identify as trans and are constantly using new names and new pronouns. I think it's great we are more socially accepting and discuss sexual identity aloud. Who knows what is experimentation versus what is genetic, as long as we love our children and support them in becoming confident adults.

I agree the word “fad” trivializes something important and it’s not the right word. But it is correct to point out that there is more discussion about alternative orientations and so some kids are going to try things out and see if some of these alternatives are who they are.