Gay brains structured like those of the opposite sex

* 11:13 16 June 2008
* NewScientist.com news service
* Andy Coghlan

Brain scans have provided the most compelling evidence yet that being gay or straight is a biologically fixed trait.

The scans reveal that in gay people, key structures of the brain governing emotion, mood, anxiety and aggressiveness resemble those in straight people of the opposite sex.

The differences are likely to have been forged in the womb or in early infancy, says Ivanka Savic, who conducted the study at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden.

"This is the most robust measure so far of cerebral differences between homosexual and heterosexual subjects," she says.

Previous studies have also shown differences in brain architecture and activity between gay and straight people, but most relied on people's responses to sexuality driven cues that could have been learned, such as rating the attractiveness of male or female faces.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1414...s5_head_dn14146

This study, or a similar one I read about several years ago, along with something a former housemate told me many years ago, is what convinced me that people are born gay.

My former housemate told me that he knew when he was 5 years old that he wasn't like the other boys, that he felt differently about boy/girl relationships than his friends did. That's kind of young for it to be a choice.

I started noticing the same thing when I was four or five too. But my ego was pretty well developed then (it's shrunk quite a bit since) and so as far as I was concerned I was the normal one and it was my friends who were different. Their behavior and attitudes were puzzling to me. Still, I tried to be open minded about it.

Ah, too bad your ego shrunk. Maybe you are the one who is right and heterosexuals are all wrong.

I knew I was gay when I was about 3. I didn't know I was "different" until I was told that being gay was "wrong". Then I was like "What the hell?" However, by that time, I was old enough to say, "Fuck you and the horse you rode in on."
As for hetros...
How DARE they tell me who or who not I cannot or can love!!!!

Pretty much my reaction too Although the vast majority of heteros in my life, which would mean the vast majority of people I've interacted with since I first crashed this party, have been pretty cool. Been lucky in that regard.

I cannot clearly define when I felt that I might be gay other than when I hit puberty it was obvious and I had to have a little "heart to heart" with myself. I know for a fact that I wasn't like the other boys but I don't think I could say without a doubt that I knew I was gay before puberty although I guess I questioned whether I might be.

One thing is for sure, the thought was always there as long as I can remember which means at least 5 years old or perhaps younger. I definitely remember having boy crushes on other boys and wishing I was a certain boy because I thought he was cute or talking a friend into doing naughty things that little boys do (don't blame me, it happens...even if you think your kid is perfect and would never do such a thing, guess again).

Kids experiment, that's natural.

I believe that when we figure this out, and it probably will take another century or so, homosexuality will, like many other human behaviors and attributes, turn out to be rooted in biology but shaped by environment, experience, and culture. That's also true of sex identity itself, as I was explaining to Jeff, and "intelligence," and other aspects of human behavior.

It is possible we will find a biological substrate to it, although I still suspect the main causal factor may be more hormonal exposure in utero than genetics per se.

Alas, my fear is once this is finally understood, while the crazed homophobes will have to recognize this is not a lifestyle "choice" for people anymore than whether you are left or right handed, there will be increasing pressure toward attempting some kind of biological "cure" for homosexuality, and/or even worse potentially a rash of eugenic abortions for those who suspect their children will be born gay...

In a way, that theme was the subtext of the third X-Men movie ... I hope we start to realize that not everything that has a biological cause, is a "disease" that needs to be "cured". We tried to "cure" left handed people of their left handedness, and ended up producing stutterers.

I'm hoping that by the time people have figured out what causes same-sex attraction they will have also figured out that there is no reason to "fix" it either before birth or afterwards. I'm glad I'm the way I am and I would not want to become straight even if there was a way for me to do so.

Someone a little while speculated that the "homosexuality is a choice" meme comes from the fact that the people stating that are actually bi, and to them sexual preference IS a choice.

Interesting. I wonder how many other types there are besides gay and strait. We love parity in this culture and I often think the die hard belief that all things have opposites, is a detriment to our way of life.

I am VERY similar to the above - but I am not gay or strait. I have no idea what I am.

Maybe a different thread...
I am jsut wondering how someone like that would show up on this type of test.

Also, does this mean we have a test for gayness?

Gay, straight, bi, asexual, and various strange varieties.

As long as only your ego has shrunk.........

I've heard gay men's hypothalamus' tend to be larger.
Is that why I can give myself goose bumps on cue? That physical reaction is governed by the hypothalamus....

gay is over here





bi is in the middle







straight is down here.





I'm not buying it as a biological reality. I think sex is far more amorphous biologically.

What about people who honestly become gay. They enjoy women, lust for them, etc...are repulsed by the sight of male genitals and images of gay sex...then eventually it shifts and they are opposit. Straight sex looks terribly inequal, reeking of power-struggle over-tones and rape where the differences between the sexes clearly show that true eual physical love can only be between two men, etc...

People change.

The personal identity of sexual prefference relating to gender of partners...I think I see a future when it's no longer necessary. It's too arbitrary and specific. I think biology informs all sorts of aspects of sexuality from ones gender of choice, to ones preffered diversity of partners and perhaps even the role of sex with relationships.

You may occupy an intermediary position on the Kinsey scale.

Alfred Kinsey, himself bisexual, first argued that sexual orientation was not binary, and suggested individuals might fall along a continuum or scale, rather than being simply at one "end" (hetero) or the other (homo).

Here's the Kinsey scale.

Rating Description
0 Exclusively heterosexual
1 Predominantly heterosexual, only incidentally homosexual
2 Predominantly heterosexual, but more than incidentally homosexual
3 Equally heterosexual and homosexual
4 Predominantly homosexual, but more than incidentally heterosexual
5 Predominantly homosexual, only incidentally heterosexual
6 Exclusively homosexual

True bisexuals would be a "3". They would be the closest to what I guess might be called a "free chooser" as far as sexuality goes.

I think Kinsey was right about at least one thing. It's not a binary thing, it's a continuum. There are a couple of females i have known who I have been attracted to, but not enough to act on it. Basically I'm pretty much at the gay end. Okay, almost totally at the gay end.

But I know a couple of people who have had satisfying sexual relationships with both sexes, and I think there are people who are attracted to both sexes but not at the same time. Then there are those who are basically one thing, but take an occasional midnight trip to the camp across the lake.

All this probably totally fries the brains of people who like things black and white and written in stone especially when they themselves are experiencing it first hand.

If there was a test for gayness I'd probalby flunk. I don't like musicals much, I couldn't decorate a broom closet, I basically only wear jeans, cargos, shorts, and t's unless I have to dress up and then i have some polo shirts, and I don't like sweet fru fru drinks. I do throw like a girl though, and I guess I have other mannerisms that are okay I admit it kinda femmy, and I don't give a rip about team sports.

Yeah, I just argue against the notion that sexual orientation is static, or bi-polar. I don't think it boils down to strait and gay and what falls between. I don't even think these distinctions are fundamentally important in defining one's sexual character.
I think affinity for men or women sexually is one of hundreds of equally important traits.

For example, a person who is a classic submissive, requires horse-play to achive orgasm, and prefers men is largely sumarized as gay. So also is to share a sexual identity with a so-called "french-oriented" person who only does oral with men. Both are expected to share a sexual identity.

I dunno about this.

Sometimes I think I'm jsut sexually indescriminate...and socially as strait as they come. (pardon any puns).

Well, BTW, one thing that Kinsey also pointed out is sexual/gender identity and sexual orientation are not the same thing, either.

It's a well known stereotype that gay men are "effeminate" and/or that lesbians are "butch". However, again, the stereotypes do not hold. The one thing that had people incredibly surprised about Rock Hudson's sexual orientation was that he was a well known "macho" guy in Hollywood.

The fact is the two things are independent. So is tranvestitism. Men who have the transvestite fetish, and like to wear opposite-sex clothing, are often still heterosexual. It's why people like to joke about "gaydar" but the fact is I don't think you can really tell by the stereotypical things that most people assume, such as whether a person acts "sissy" or "butch". The best way to know their sexual orientation, is to know who they sexually desire.

So this is why half the shows on my DVR are interior design programs.

Well I was kind of being facetious there, although it's all true. I seem to fit the common stereotype in a couple of ways but not in several others. I guess that means I don't validate it.

I identify as gay or queer for mainly political and visibility reasons. Most of the time I just identify as me. My partner and most of our friends are like that too. We only have a couple who are kind of "professional" gays. Uhmmmm... No, I didn't mean it in THAT way.

I've never heard of anything like that occurring, but if it had, I'd be interested in seeing a study on how that person's brain may have changed over time. There is always the possibility of a morphological change in the brain that caused it. BTW, these types of studies have been around for a very long time. I'm fairly young, but we learned about these studies quite frequently in my Behavior classes in college (almost 10 years ago) and they had been around for years before I got into college and were already pretty well entrenched in the text books. There are many physiological differences that have been shown between homosexual, bisexual and heterosexual people of the same sex within the brain. It's kind of a continuum, not a cut and dry point that you can see; ie the differences are in sizes of parts of the brain, so that a gay male may have one section of the brain be larger (more like a female brain) than a heterosexual brain, and a bisexual male brain may be somewhere in between. There exists the possibility that something (internal or external) could alter that portion of the brain therefore affecting sexual preference, but this would be extrapolation on my part.

Your point is well taken, jettibo.

One problem is that the brain is malleable. It is especially so up until puberty. But even afterwards, it remains so. Even in adults, when they have brain damage, other areas of the brain can assume the functions of the lost and damaged areas.

So, we shouldn't assume because person A and person B's brains are different that the difference is "genetic". Or even otherwise caused from birth (i.e. in utero).

Their brain differences could result from differences in experience or development, too.

I think it's interesting that the search for a "gay gene" seems to largely continue to be a failure. If there were one, there would not be cases of identical twins separated at birth that develop different sexual orientations. (There are.) I do think homosexuality could be rooted in biology, but looking for a gene for it might be the incorrect approach.

I'm a little weary over looking for a gene for homosexuality. As if it were some kind of disorder like Cystic Fibrosis. Anyways, for the reasons you and I both stated it probably won't matter at all if they did find it and try to eliminate it (my fear that the RW would try to do if such a gene were found) since it would only be one piece of a larger puzzle. Anyways, genetics is more complicated than that and it would most likely be linked to the time in which a certain hormone was turned on in utero, or the way several genes interacted together, if it were genetic in any way. But most population researchers know that when you overpopulate any animal species that you start to see homosexuality and homosexual tendencies pop up in the population. So most likely it's hormonal, but where that hormone affects a person is less known and my guess is that it could affect at any time in utero or into adulthood with puberty being a highly susceptible time as well. However, I like research like this because it shows to those who think homosexuality is a choice that it is in fact a natural biological mechanism.

Frankly, I was hoping for something BETTER!

Weeellllll, I like to think that there isn't much better brain than that of the female, and therefore as this researcher says the gay male!

Its some part of the brain, maybe the hypothalamus, that is the same size as in the female brain. Women's tend to be either larger or smaller than men's and in gay men its the same size as in a woman's brain. I don't remember if there was a difference in lesbian women or not though.

The Hypothalamus as well as the portion that connects the right and left sides of the brain are larger in women and gay men. Some say that's why women are supposedly more capable of multi-tasking (which is within my experience).

Are a u vet or work in a zoo?

No, everything else is good, thanks. Actually, my ego is about the only place that I can afford any shrinkage.

There's another category that most people ignore. Kinsey had a rating called "X", for categories of people who don't fit on that scale. Asexuals for example.

I was 5 in 1966 and had the biggest crush on Burt Ward.
I had a good eye at that age... If I wasn't born with it, I sure "learned" early

You know I would not comment on this issue but I feel compelled to say some people will never accept gayness. Society had conditioned people through family of origins, church and state in addition to numerous other communities not to accept gay people. Only through attrition will these tendencies die off but not before resistance to change by the usual conservatives and the like.

Studying human behavior I learned the deal through science firsthand. I had a Prof. present the evidence and then argue from an perceived ethical and moral position that gayness is wrong. To me it is what it is. And funny but certain government agencies sceening for "deviance" ask if the candidate has ever had a gay encounter, that is laughable to me today. In fact, if I were asked that question I think I would respond, as a joke of course, "Do orgies count ?".

I have been doing my thing online since 1988 I think so I have had many gay men hit on me. I just say, I am not gay, sorry. I never stopped hanging out with anyone in chatrooms or whatever because the topic of these online communities are of interest to me being that I am a scientist by nature. Does that make me a deviant by proxy, I don't think so.

I hope I have done some good because along the way, my privacy was violated to the nth degree. And so, really, who am I to tell you what the pursuit of happiness means to you as an individual ? You and I can together hold up our rights of freedom and democracy because I alone am really nothing. Even though I do refer to myself as the King at times, just to push buttons, it is not all about me. Being played myself, I was just another toy for the Gawds, first time, shame on you...

I do need to get in touch with my feminine side on occasion, anyone seen her lately ?


Golda Maier (quoting Disreali as I remember it)

If, I am not for myself, who will be for me ?
If, I am for myself only, then what am I ?
And, if not now when ?

Thank you, its been a while since I read that study. It was quite interesting, for grown up reading. I assume children wouldn't be interested in learning scientific stuff like this.

Maybe some of you, as great animal lovers can euthanize Carmenjonze. LOL

HUH

r u kidding ?

I'm so glad this poster always sticks to the issues and never personally attacks, especially without provocation.



edit. for spel.

I know.

lol

Don't ask me.

I'm clueless as anybody...

is he putting a hit out on CJ ?

Interesting.

It's actually a product of some proto-queer-theory and anti-psychoanalytic Foucauldian ideas, which we used to call "social construction" in the early 90s. Maybe people still do, not sure, but I think at this point it's been folded into queer theory. Stuff having to do with culture, the body, etc.

The basic idea is that ALL of these categories -- homosexual, heterosexual, bisexual, trans, etc -- are not only made-up inventions with no basis in biology whatsoever, but they are inherently flawed.

When people (myself included) started going around talking like this it was EXTREMELY controversial and threatening (as it remains now, though more people accept it), because some sectors of what was then "the gay community" were still arguing over things like transsexuality/transgender, intersexuality, and in some places, putting the "L" in LGBT. It turned on its head the political idea that "gayness" was some kind of ethnicity, an argument that is still made for political expediency.

Bisexuality was a four-letter word. Still is with some women. For my own mental health I avoid both them, and straight men wanting 3-somes like the plague.

Now we've got LGBTTIQQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Transsexual, Intersex Queer and Questioning) and personally, I hope the acronym continues to grow. We can't be basing our politics on brain studies of dead, supposedly-"gay" people like LeVay did.

This is a deliberate and flagrant violation of the Board Rules. We'll get after it.

Correction: Actually thinking about this, I became addicted to the net in 1998 I think. In 1988, I did use the kermit handshake to exchange programs downloading digital black box recorders in the railroad industry. And, I am kind of going with the flow here. If it gets too bad, I may flaunt my heterosexuality too, wink-wink.

You know, during any movement there is extremism until things balance out. Very recently I was kicked and banned from a chatroom because I admitted to seeing Brokeback Mountain. It's that sort of homophobic extremism that is part of counter-action to any social movement. A basis of scientific inquiry is to study standard normal deviation. Church/State politics has a tendency to use the "evil" label for political gain especially concerning things that are not yet understood by mankind. And so a job of science is to ignore labelling which can be contempt prior to investigation. Someone almost got boiled in tar for stating that the earth is not the center of the universe. Most all bigotry is learned behavior in my opinion.

wow. That goes too far.

The brain certainly has the ability to adapt for a situation if it is prolonged. Blind people have unusually active hearing centers in the brain, even if they were born with sight and lost it after birth.

If the feminine centers in the brain were more employed than the male centers, or vice versa, it is reasonable to infer that adaptation would occur.

I detest the concept of biologic basis, the human body is too varied to form a clear pattern over what is gay and what is not. The hypothalamus changes could be due to any reason, not just orientation.

Then there is the question of the soul. Perhaps, for reasons we do not understand, you just are the way you are.

Lets try a hypothetical experiment:

Two identical twins taken from C-Section by identical twin nurses and cleaned and taken away to identical rooms are observed. All care will be given by the nurses in identical fashion at identical times. The sum of their human experience is identical to that point.

Would they act the same and do the same things for the rest of their lives? Say the same thing? Feel the same way about everything? React identically to the same stimulus?

Of course not.

While I loathe to use the term "soul" there is that which makes us who we are, it is the essence of what we are. It is that which cannot be measured or tested for (which is a good thing, trust me). Biology does not hold the answers.

Sorry

Oh, this is rich...

CYA, wouldn't wanna be ya...

WTF

it's like some undead shit

that one is