15
votes
Researchers may soon isolate the genetic roots of homosexuality. As a scientist, that excites me. But as a gay man, I worry about what might happen next.
Link information
This data is scraped automatically and may be incorrect.
- Title
- Researchers May Soon Be Able to Isolate the Genetic Roots of Homosexuality-but Should They?
- Authors
- Jeremy Yoder
- Published
- Jun 18 2019
- Word count
- 1610 words
The author makes a compelling argument that our societies aren't mature enough to deal with the consequences of detecting homosexuality genetically. Although in a more general sense this applies to all genetic engineering.
While the author is afraid of us destroying gay culture, I have to wonder if it weren't for our conservative biases if we could go the other way. What if we realized straightness wasn't a requirement for modern society and encouraged everyone to be bisexual. But even this would seem to be an attack on asexual people. Part of me thinks that because genetic engineering will cause such a huge cultural changes it's acceptable for some other cultural groups to be damaged. But either way, people need to come to terms with the fact that traits that used to be natural will be a choice.
I don't think you need to jump to genetic engineering to be concerned. You're much more likely to see sexuality-selective abortions.
But in all likelihood sexual orientation is not defined by a clear single allele. It's probably more like skin color or athleticism where it's determined through a very complicated mix of genetic predisposition, in-utero exposure to various hormonal and physical inputs, and maybe even environmental and social influences in early childhood.
This bit is pure speculation, but it's possible that the reason "gay conversion" doesn't work is not because it's an innate part of someone's personality, but because kids don't start expressing their sexual preferences until well after their orientation is already defined. If it turns out that the issue is mostly one of just not catching it early enough, they might actually figure out ways to test for it and address it through hormone treatments or specific types of aversion therapy. This strikes me as extremely invasive and likely to get even straight and bi kids, caught up in the panic. But knowing what we know about society it's also very likely to happen.
It is also worrying about what it means on a population level. The presence of gay people clearly conferred some selective advantage for human populations. It's even been suggested that the larger the number of male children in a family, the more likely it is for each subsequent child to be gay. There's clearly some kind of population level selection for an optimal level of gayness in a group. Maybe it actually promotes pro-social bonding. Maybe it helps bridge the gender divide. Maybe it's a side-effect of genes that mitigate against sexual aggression and we have genes to keep us from being like ducks that sometimes make some of us gay if you inherit them in a certain combination. Who knows? But I have a hard time imagining the human gene pool would be more healthy if we pruned the precursors of gayness out of it.
I want to point out that there are a lot of genetic abnormalities that don't confer any advantage, and simply persist because selective pressures aren't stronger than the random chance of them happening.
I'm not sure this is necessarily true, but I do agree (perhaps it's just my own bias) that there are benefits to having non-straight individuals. The idea of genetically engineering humans towards the statistical norm seems like a very bad idea to me - after all, how many famous artists, scientists, and leaders were normal? Often times the people who affect the most change to human society are very unique individuals.
True enough but I just don't think this is such a case. This is pure speculation but I think this would be, at worst, like the genes for sickle-cell where one copy confers mild malaria resistance, but two copies confer anemia. Or like polydactaly where one copy gives you a bonus finger and some dexterity advantages, but two copies will cause you to be miscarried! I was kind of hinting at that when I talked about ducks and sexual aggression.
Even pragmatic concerns aside, just on an aesthetic level the idea is repulsive to me. Why make a conscious effort to make life more bland and beige. Has industralism not done enough to abrade away any sense of individuality?
As a bi/pan person I'll take this as a compliment đ
Seriously though, there's no way that sexuality is controlled by a single gene. In fact, in OPs article there was the following quote:
I expect that they will find even more genes than this, because sexual orientation exists along a spectrum and is what I would consider a "preference". I put the word in quotes because the word preference sometimes implies choice, but you are no freer to choose whether you enjoy chocolate than you are whether you enjoy sex with the same gender, another gender, multiple genders, all genders, or no genders.
100% on board with you here. Diversity is what makes humanity beautiful and is why I'm such a huge extrovert - I love discovering and learning about how people are unique.
You're completely right it's very probably not a single allele. Generalizing my main point, if we gain the knowledge to influence someones sexual orientation should we take advantage of that? If so do we strive to influence them to be like a particular orientation? I think we should and that orientation should be as inclusive as possible. Let's extend sexuality to both sexes, society wont be ruined by it.
That also brings me to your point about gay people conferring a selective advantage. To me this is sort of irrelevant. Aren't humans far enough removed from our evolutionary environment that the set of selective pressures that got us here may have changed. This isn't to put down gay people as our characteristics don't have to serve a purpose. But if homosexuality served a purpose in the past I don't think there's a reason to think it still does today.
I think maybe I wasn't clear. The issue would be population-level and not specific to individuals. So it may not necessarily be that having people in society who experience same-sex attraction is good. Rather, there may be several genes that are good for societies to have and if someone inherits some combinations of them, they end up being gay.
An example would be like, suppose a few genes influence your tendency to be territorial, a few others influence your sense of fatherly attachment, and still others impact your ability to form platonic friendships. For the most part any of these would be healthy for men to have, but when you inherit specific combinations of them it ends up presenting as same-gender sexual attraction.
So if we assume that to be true, then suppose you started genetically engineering out genes that correlate to gayness. What you'd functionally be doing in that case is engineering out genes that promote empathy or paternal attachment or a sense of kinship/fellowship. In an effort to snuff out the gay, you could end up making us colder, more aggressive, less able to develop and maintain friendships, etc.
Ahh, I must have misunderstood. That's an interesting idea. I suppose the only way to know if that would occur would be to know a lot about the genes in question.
I'm reminded of the Deaf community and the debate over cochlear implants. Some people, especially hearing people, view these as a scientific intervention that corrects a disability. Many Deaf people, however, consider their experiences, lives, and culture to be equally valid, merely different, to the hearing world. The existence of a "cure" in the form of cochlear implants can thus be seen as demeaning or outright hostile. Some Deaf advocates liken them to cultural genocide, as they see the implants as an attempt at outright elimination of their identity and community, especially when given to infants who did not choose to have them.
The reason I bring this up is that it's comparable to the author's concerns in the article--almost further along the timeline, actually. Here the author is concerned that science might disrupt or eliminate our identities, whereas the Deaf community already has to contend with that reality. Even within the Deaf community this is still widely debated, and I imagine we could end up in the same situation should science discover a "cure" for us. It's a tough subject with no easy answers.
I think many Deaf people feel that your last statement applies not just to homosexuality but to deafness as well. Many of them do not see it as a problem.
I don't want to speak too much for them, as I am not involved with their community and have only a mild connection with one Deaf individual, but I will share my understanding as I've come to know it: many Deaf people assert the value of Deaf culture, emphasizing its role as unique from the mere condition of deafness by capitalizing it and having it refer to the human experience under the condition of deafness. @Eva's comment is a good introduction to this idea if you're not familiar with it.
I used to feel similarly to you and couldn't understand why someone wouldn't want to alleviate deafness. I thought they were being needlessly contrarian, or were simply lying to themselves and the world about the nature of their situation. It wasn't until I met a Deaf advocate and read up on the topic that my perspective changed. She helped me realize that I was looking at deafness through a deficits-only perspective centered in my role as a hearing person.
She explained to me that deaf people have their own language. They have their own community. In fact, much of Deaf culture centers on the existence of unique social supports they've developed in order to live in a world that expects them to be able to do something they can't. They experience the world in a fundamentally different way. They communicate in a fundamentally different way. Both of these give them a fundamentally different perspective on things--one that I cannot say is worse than mine simply because I'm able to hear.
If we treat Deaf people as worse or a bad alternative to the norm, something in need of "fixing", we take from them the dignity of their own experiences and relegate them to only being able to live a second-rate version of life in the absence of a "solution". We deny them richness of life and frame their worth through the lens of the hearing world rather than through the standards they set for themselves.
It's definitely a messy concept, and what I'm articulating is far from universally accepted even within the Deaf community, but it helped me understand how narrow I can be if I only ever look at someone and see their life in terms of limitations. I imagine how frustrated I would be if everyone's idea of me, a gay man, stopped at "he'll never love a woman". I don't see that as a problem in need of fixing, and many Deaf people feel the same way about themselves and their bodies.
My favourite author's written a few great reddit comments on exactly this topic! I'd really recommend anyone who finds the idea of that bizarre to give this one a once-over or so.
Great comment. Thank you for linking it.
Also this affirmed that I really should sit down and give Worm a go.
YES! Please do! I love Worm so much; if you do, make sure to at least read until Arc 8 or so before passing judgement; the first few arcs are controversial, though I personally was sold after Arc 3.
The same debate and the same fears also exist in the autistic community.
Right, and surely we'll discover the genetic roots of depression, autism, or any other number of mental states which are unusual when compared to the population as a whole. While we're at it, surely we'll discover the gene that controls whether we like chocolate ice cream or not.
Sorry but no. I disagree heavily with the author. We have a tenuous grasp of cognition, let alone mental state of something that exists along a spectrum. We can't even figure out how to properly treat depression, something much more simplistic than trying to understand the nature of it.
Preference is even more tricky than structural differences in brains that are sometimes present in brain structure and morphology variety. If you're lucky, you might be able to find a very tiny statistically significant difference between people on the very fringe of a preference - for example the brain morphology of extreme adrenaline sport junkies might, if you're lucky, be statistically different from a random sample of individuals. But that's talking about one extreme of the spectrum. Compare someone who is not world class, or only dabbles in adrenaline heavy sports and the difference disappears.
Preference (as compared to say, mental deficiencies, abnormalities, or illnesses such as depression and autism) is perhaps more malleable to experience than genetics than any other mental characteristic. To claim that we'll be able to "isolate the genetic roots of homosexuality" sounds a hell of a lot like how we're about to "find a cure to cancer" or a "cure for depression". There is no one size fits all model for something so complex and while we may be able to begin to isolate certain abnormalities that increase likelihood, that's not what the author is claiming.
You're talking about the practical scientific aspect of this issue, saying we won't actually identify the genetic roots of homosexuality.
Fine. That might be true.
But we don't have to discover the genetic roots of homosexuality for this to become a problem. We merely have to believe we have discovered the genetic roots of homosexuality
Imagine that some geneticists finally announce that they've identified a group of genes which correlate, to varying degrees ranging from 20% to 50%, with homosexuality. That's going to get reported as "scientists find genes for gayness". And, then imagine a pair of homophobic parents-to-be whose obstetrician tells them that their unborn son has some of these genes which correlate with homosexuality. What is that homophobic couple going to do when their doctor says their unborn son might be gay? They won't hear "correlated with homosexuality", they'll hear "will be gay". Are they going to keep that baby? Or might they decide to change its genes? Or might they even decide to abort it?
That's the problem. Not whether we discover the genetic roots of homosexuality, but what parents-to-be will do when they think their unborn child might be gay.
Absolutely agreed. This was mainly me being repeatedly annoyed at over-reaching scientific articles. We're not about to "isolate the genetic roots of sexuality" and the author should know better.
The article could just as easily been titled "We're just beginning to understand some of the genetic contributors to sexuality and as a gay man, that scares me." or something equally meaningful but without drawing question to his credibility as a scientist.
The title says "Researchers may soon isolate the genetic roots of homosexuality." and the article itself contains this paragraph:
I'd say the author's title is not quite as sensationalist or meaningless as you believe it is.