BIOLOGY AND GENETICS
 (Richard Cohen, M.A. © Coming Out Straight 2000; Oakhill Press)

Over the past decade, there has been much talk about the biologic and genetic predispositions to same-sex attraction. This concept was posited by three studies. Major newspapers reported that these studies proved same-sex attraction to be immutable, that people are born with same-sex attraction, born “gay.”

In this section, I will list these three studies, give a brief critique of each one, and let other social scientists comment on the reliability of their findings. What becomes abundantly clear is that there is no scientific data to support a genetic or biologic basis for same-sex attractions.

 Three Studies

LEVAY STUDY

Simon LeVay, “A Difference in Hypothalamic Structure Between Hetero-sexual and Homosexual Men,” reported in Science magazine in August 1991. LeVay professed to have found a group of neurons in the hypothalamus (called INAH3) that appeared to be twice as big in heterosexual men than in same-sex attracted men. LeVay theorized that this part of the hypothalamus has something to do with sexual behavior. Therefore, he concluded, sexual orientation is somehow biologically determined.

Brief Critique of the LeVay Study:

• All 19 homosexual subjects died of AIDS, and we know that HIV/AIDS may affect the brain, causing chemical changes. Therefore, rather than looking at the cause of homosexuality, we may be observing the effects of HIV/AIDS.
• LeVay did not verify the sexual orientation of his control group. “Two of these subjects (both AIDS patients) had denied same-sex sexual activity. The records of the remaining 14 patients contained no information about their sexual orientation; they are assumed to have been mostly or all heterosexual.” It is poor science to “assume” anything about your subjects.
• Three of the 19 same-sex attracted subjects had a larger group of neurons in the hypothalamus than the average heterosexual subject. Three of the 16 heterosexual subjects had a smaller group of neurons in the hypothalamus than the average same-sex attracted subject. That means 6 out of 35 male subjects disproved his hypothesis. These results, then, are not statistically significant or reliable.
• There is no proof that this group of neurons affects sexuality. Dr. Charles Socarides, professor of psychiatry at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City, said, “The question of a minute section of the brain—submicroscopic almost—as deciding sexual object choice is really preposterous. A cluster of the brain cannot determine sexual object choice.”
• Later in March 1994 Le Vay wrote in Discover, vol. 15, no3, pp. 64-71, under the title “Sex and the Brain”, “It’s important to stress what I didn’t find. I did not prove that homosexuality is genetic, or find a genetic cause for being gay. I didn’t show that gay men are born that way, the most common mistake people make in interpreting my work. Nor did I locate a gay center in the brain. ...Since I look at adult brains, we don’t know if the differences I found were there at birth or if they appeared later.

BAILEY AND PILLARD STUDY

John M. Bailey and Richard Pillard, “A Genetic Study of Male Sexual Orientation,” reported in the Archives of General Psychiatry, December 1991. They studied the prevalence of homosexuality among twins and adopted brothers where at least one brother was same-sex attracted. They found that 52 percent (29 pairs out of 56) of the identical twins were both same-sex attracted; 22 percent (12 pairs out of 54) of the fraternal twins were both same-sex attracted; and 11 percent (6 of 57) of the adoptive brothers were both same-sex attracted. They also found 9 percent (13 of 142) of the non-twin biological siblings were both same-sex attracted. The authors therefore concluded that there is a genetic cause to homosexuality.

Brief Critique of the Bailey-Pillard Study:

HAMER STUDY

The third study is the most frequently cited study done under supervision of the molecular biologist, Hamer, of the National Cancer Institute. Hamer, et al. reported in Science magazine, July 16, 1993, Vol.261, pp. 3212-3217, “A Linkage between DNA Markers on the X Chromosome and Male Sexual Orientation.” The media reported that the “gay gene” was discovered as a result of this study. The researchers studied 40 pairs of same-sex attracted brothers and suggested that some cases of homosexuality are linked to a specific region on the X chromosome (Xq28) inherited from the mother by her same-sex attracted son. Thirty-three pairs of brothers shared the same pattern variation in the tip of one arm of the chromosome. Hamer estimated that the sequence of the given genetic markers on Xq28 is linked to homosexuality in 64 percent of the brothers.

His finding was greeted with considerable criticism from the scientific community. Brief Critique of the Hamer et al. Study:

• Dr. Kenneth Klivington, assistant to the president of the Salk Institute in San Diego, states, “There is a body of evidence that shows the brain’s neural networks reconfigure themselves in response to certain experience. Therefore, the difference in same-sex attracted brain structure may be a result of behavior and environmental conditions.”
• There was no control group. This is poor scientific methodology. Hamer and associates failed to test the heterosexual brothers. What if the heterosexual brothers had the same genetic markers?
• It has not been proven that the identified section of the chromosomes has a direct bearing on sexuality or sexual orientation.
• One of Hamer’s fellow research assistants brought him up on charges, saying that he withheld some of the findings that invalidated his study. The National Cancer Institute is investigating Hamer. (To date, they have not released the results of this investigation.)
• A Canadian research team using a similar experimental design was unable to duplicate the findings of Hamer’s study.Hamer’s results remain controversial to this day. An independent study of gay siblings did not reproduce his results. Drs. Rice G, Anderson C, Risch N, Ebers G; Department of Clinical Neurological Sciences, University of Western Ontario, conducted this study and reported the results in Science. 1999 Apr 23; 284(5414):665-7, under the heading: “Male homosexuality: absence of linkage to microsatellite markers at Xq28.” I quote the following: "Several lines of evidence have implicated genetic factors in homosexuality. The most compelling observation has been the report of genetic linkage of male homosexuality to microsatellite markers on the X chromosome. This observation warranted further study and confirmation. Sharing of alleles at position Xq28 was studied in 52 gay male sibling pairs from Canadian families. Four markers at Xq28 were analyzed (DXS1113, BGN, Factor 8, and DXS1108). Allele and haplotype sharing for these markers was not increased over expectation. These results do not support an X-linked gene underlying male homosexuality."
• Hamer himself emphasizes, “These genes do not cause people to become homosexuals . . . the biology of personality is much more complicated than that. On 27 April 1998 in Time magazine pp. 60-61, the researcher himself wrote:“These genes do not cause people to become homosexuals ...ultimately it is the environment that determines how these genes will express themselves.”
• R. Mckie in “The Myth of the Gay Gene,” The Press (NZ: 30 July 1993), pp 9, sites Dr. Hamer:“We have not found the gene – which we don’t think exists – for sexual orientation.”

COMMENTS ON THESE STUDIES BY OTHER SCIENTISTS

“Evan S. Balaban, a neurobiologist at the Neurosciences Institute in San Diego, notes that the search for the biological underpinnings of complex human traits has a sorry history of late. In recent years, researchers and the media have proclaimed the ‘discovery’ of genes linked to alcoholism and mental illness as well as to homosexuality. None of the claims, Balaban points out, have been confirmed.” —Scientific American, November 1995

“Recent studies postulate biologic factors as the primary basis for sexual orientation. However, there is no evidence at present to substantiate a biologic theory, just as there is no compelling evidence to support any singular psychological explanation. While all behavior must have an ultimate biologic substrate, the appeal of current biologic explanations for sexual orientation may derive more from dissatisfaction with the present status of psychosocial explanations than from a substantiating body of experimental data. Critical review shows the evidence favoring a biologic theory to be lacking. In an alternative model, temperamental and personality traits interact with the familial and social milieu as the individual’s sexuality emerges.” —Archives of General Psychiatry, March 1993

“Reports of morphological differences between the brains of humans with different sexual orientation or gender identity have furthered speculation that such behaviors may result from hormonal or genetic influences on the developing brain. However, the causal chain may be reversed; sexual behavior in adulthood may have caused the morphological differences. . . . It is possible that differences in sexual behavior cause, rather than are caused by, differences in brain structure.” —Nature, October 1997

“Upon critical analysis of hormonal theories of homosexuality and transsexualism, there are no robust data to support the role of hormones in the development of these behaviors or identities among humans.” —Journal of Neuropsychiatry, Spring 1993

“The myth of the all-powerful gene is based on flawed science that discounts the environmental context in which we and our genes exist. . . . Many modern researchers continue to believe that sexual preference is to some extent biologically determined. They base this belief on the fact that no single environmental explanation can account for the development of homosexuality. But this does not make sense. Human sexuality is complex and affected by many things. The failure to come up with a clear environmental explanation is not surprising, and does not mean that the answer lies in biology. Such studies are bound to come up with plenty of meaningless correlations which will get reported as further evidence of genetic transmission of homosexuality.” —Exploding the Gene Myth, 1993

“In the early ’90s, three highly publicized studies seemed to suggest that homosexuality’s roots were genetic, traceable to nature rather than nurture. . . . More than five years later the data have never been replicated. Moreover, researchers say, the public has misunderstood ‘behavioral genetics.’ Unlike eye colour, behavior is not strictly inherited; it needs to be brought into play by a daunting complexity of environmental factors. . . . The existence of a genetic pattern among homosexuals doesn’t mean people are born gay, any more than the genes or height, presumably common in NBA players, indicate an inborn ability to play basketball . . . admits biologist Evan Balaban, ‘I think we’re as much in the dark as we ever were.’” —Newsweek, August 17, 1998

“ . . . Sexual orientation is not under the direct governance of chromosomes and genes, and that, whereas it is not foreordained by prenatal brain hormonalization it is influenced thereby, and is also strongly dependent on postnatal socialization.” —American Psychologist, April 1987

Dr. Peet Botha in one of his lectures, “Is the cause of homosexuality not a homosexual gene?” writes: "It has become the mantra of our time: your genes (DNA) are your destiny! The unproven theory of a homosexual gene is widely accepted as fact within psychology, biology and theology. The claim that homosexuality is a natural, genetically inherited orientation is aggressively promoted today. Yet, to date, no proof of a homosexual gene has been provided.

On April 14 (2003), the International Human Genome Consortium announced the successful completion of the Human Genome Project – two years ahead of schedule. The press report read: The human genome is complete and the Human Genome Project is over. Most of the major science journals reported on the progress in the field of genetics, but also speculated on how the information would now be used. The one piece of information that never materialized from the Human Genome Project was the identification of the so-called gay gene"

It will be beneficial to quote Neil and Briar Whitehead – Neil a research scientist and Briar a journalist - from their book My Genes Made Me Do It (1999:9-10): “Homosexuality is not inborn, not genetically dictated, not immutable. Nor, for that matter, is heterosexuality or any other human behaviour. In fact, our genes do not make us do anything. Whether it’s homosexuality, a foul temper, bedwetting, or addiction to chocolate, our genes have very little to do with it.

People who say that homosexuality is fixed and unchangeable don’t have a full enough understanding of mainstream genetics. Those who say gays are born that way usually don’t know enough about identical twin studies or gene linkage studies, hormonal research, brain structure, medical research into gender, or anthropology. They aren’t acquainted with the huge amount of scientific data showing that sexual orientation is extremely elastic and that people slide round on the sexual orientation continuum for all sorts of reasons.

Society’s thinking about homosexuality and genetics is very sloppy. Homosexuality has been labelled genetic, fixed, and unchangeable for reasons that have nothing to do with science.

...Human behaviour is determined by both nature and nurture. Without genes, you can’t act in the environment at all. But without the environment your genes have nothing on which to act. No behaviour, including homosexuality, results solely from genes.”

Psychiatrist, Jeffery Satinover, in his book Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth (1996:77) makes the following observation:“Like all complex behavioural and mental states, homosexuality is multifactorial. It is neither exclusively biological nor exclusively psychological, but results from an as-yet-difficult-to-quantitate mixture of genetic factors, intrauterine influences (some innate to the mother and thus present in every pregnancy, and other incidental to a given pregnancy), postnatal environment (such as parental, sibling, and cultural behaviour), and a complex series of repeatedly reinforced choices occurring at critical phases in development.”

CONCLUSION

Repeated sexual behavior and environmental conditions change brain structure and body chemistry, which means the genetic/biological characteristics observed in these studies may be the result of homosexual behavior rather than the cause of it. All of these studies lack consistency and replication. Their results are inconclusive and speculative at best. Simon LeVay, Richard Pillard, and Dean Hamer are all self-proclaimed same-sex attracted men. Therefore, I suggest that behind their work is a strong motivation to justify their same-sex attractions.

If homosexuality is a normal sexual orientation, why is only 1 to 3 percent of the population same-sex attracted and not 50 percent? Why are there more same-sex attracted males than same-sex attracted females?

Masters and Johnson, leading sex researchers in America, state, “The genetic theory of homosexuality has been generally discarded today.... No serious scientist suggests that a simple cause-effect relationship applies.”

There is a preponderance of scientific evidence conducted over the past eighty years that shows homosexuality to be an acquired condition. Dr. Irving Bieber, Dr. Charles Socarides, Dr. Joseph Nicolosi, Dr. Elizabeth Moberly, Dr. Lawrence Hatterer, Dr. Robert Kronemeyer, Dr. E. Kaplan, Dr. Edith Fiore, Dr. Gerard van den Aardweg, Dr. Earl Wilson, Dr. Jeffrey Satinover—these are but a few of the psychiatrists and psychologists who have substantiated these findings through years of clinical research and empirical studies.

The best evidence to disprove a theory is experience. Thousands of men and women throughout the world have changed from homosexual to heterosexual. Masters and Johnson claim about a 65 percent success rate in helping people change. Other therapists who report successful treatment are Drs. Bieber, Socarides, Nicolosi, Hatterer, Gershman, Hadden, Hamilton, van den Aardweg, Barnhouse, Ellis, and many others.21 The National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) conducted a survey of 860 respondents and found that those who want to change their sexual orientation may succeed.

I will only refer to one very important research study, “Can Some Gay Men and Lesbians Change Their Sexual Orientation? 200 Participants Reporting a Change from Homosexual to Heterosexual Orientation,” done by Dr. Robert Spitzer, professor of psychiatry at Columbia University, published in the Archives of Sexual Behaviour, October 2003, Vol. 32, No. 5, pp. 403-417. Dr. Spitzer's study consisted of interviews with 200 former same-sex attracted persons. He found that for the 143 men and 57 women, the change in their sexual orientation had been significant.

Spitzer (Ex-Gay Watch, October 8th, 2003) gives the reason for conducting this research in the following words:“Position statements of the major mental health organizations in the United States state that there is no scientific evidence that a homosexual sexual orientation can be changed by psychotherapy, often referred to as “reparative therapy.” This study tested the hypothesis that some individuals whose sexual orientation is predominantly homosexual can, with some form of reparative therapy, become predominantly heterosexual.”

The reason why this study is particularly valuable, is because Dr. Robert Spitzer led the change for the American Psychiatric Association (APA), in 1973, to remove the diagnostic category of "Homosexuality" from its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. Dr. Spitzer (NARTH, September 27th, 2005) made this profound statement after this study: "Like most psychiatrists, I thought that homosexual behaviour could be resisted, but sexual orientation could not be changed. I now believe that's untrue. Some people can and do change."

Since same-sex attractions are not inherently caused by biologic or genetic factors, they are therefore developmentally determined.