The Gay Gene (Continued)

We’ve written before on these pages about how biologists arebecoming convincedfrom their animal studies, that homosexuality is programmed into a person (especially a male) and is not a "choice." Female homosexuality may be due to hormones, but scientists aren’t sure yet. Now there is even more evidence of a gay gene.

Ker Than writes in LiveScience.com about a new study showing that a mother’s genes may affect her sons sexual orientation. Researchers studied about 100 mothers with gay sons and compared their DNA to about 100 mothers with non-gay sons.

Women have two X chromosomes, but usually only one is active. Normally, X chromosome inactivation occurs at random: half of the cells in a woman’s body will have one Xchromosome inactivated, while the other half inactivates theother chromosome.

However, the current study revealed that, of 42 mothers who had at least two gay sons, about a quarter showed that thesame X chromosome was inactive.

Only four percent of mothers with no homosexual sons andthirteen percent of those with one gay son showed this samepattern.

The scientists who conducted the study believe that it meansthat a mother’s X chromosomes partly influence the sexualorientation of her sons. If so, then there would be a reason in nature that having a homosexual son would benefit the mother.

Researchers, using only statistics, found that in families with a large numbers of children, especially thosewith many sons, the older boys were more often gay, meaning that gayness may confer an increased fertility on the mother, especially when it comes to producing boys. Gay males are often the oldest children in large families.

Art credit: http://www.freeimages.co.uk

The truth is that most gays lead what would be called ordinary, middle class lives.

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