Tracking a genetic link to sexuality

[davidinalameda]

http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/newssentinel/13508298.htm

Geneticist Dean Hamer says he never chose to be attracted to men. As we talked inside the renovated Washington, D.C., townhouse he shares with his partner and two dogs, the scientist popularly associated with so-called "gay genes" told me he knew he was gay since he was about 5.

That's what partly motivated Hamer, 54, to switch from basic molecular genetics to studying sexual orientation in 1992. When he told his colleagues at the National Cancer Institute what he was doing, they were puzzled. "It was pretty far out there," he says. Others thought the answer was too obvious - that of course it was genetic.

But outside the scientific community, Hamer says, it's still widely believed that gay people somehow choose their orientation and this further fuels discrimination. (Bush was asked in the presidential debates whether being gay was a choice. He said he didn't know.)

But will studying sexual orientation fight hatred or give it new tools? If scientists identify a "gay gene," will expectant parents use it for selective abortion?

[WildClarySage]

1. Some expectant parents might, or they might be more inclined to try

to "beat it out of the child"

but the reality is that prenatal genetic testing is rather on the expensive side just for looking at chromasomes, much less looking at specific gene sequences. As for whether or not parents would abort based on sexual preference, I kinda doubt it since the ones who are so hyper anti-gay are also the ones hyper anti-choice. And terminating a wanted pregnancy for a fatal genetic defect is an awful choice to be faced with. Many parents would not be willing to decide to abort based on that, even if the genetic information was available to them.

But as a pro-choice, anti-interventionist, I can't tell someone else they should or should not choose to abort based on that. The child, if their parents were so anti-gay as to consider abortion because of potential sexual orientation, would have a miserable childhood with parents like that.

[Maat]

2. I appreciate his efforts.

I believe, however, that more than one gene is involved (of course), and I believe that the nine-month in-utero development is important also.

I, too, pray that any knowledge of this type will not be used for selective abortion.

I would be proud to have a gay child.

[UncleSepp]

3. I think this might be a good thing

Personally, my instincts say that sexuality and gender identity have complex genetic and environmental factors (environmental being the hormonal environment in utero, not 'your mamma was overbearing'). Being able to point to a physical origin for sexuality seems as if it could be used to take the emotion out of the "debate".

However, in a time of eugenics, this could be ugly.

[BR_Parkway]

4. No, those parents who would have the most problem with a gay child would

be the most likely to think that God was punishing them somehow, that this is their cross to bear, so to speak. I don't see them aborting, but could see them giving the child up for adoption, simply to protect their good family name.