I don’t know–but you can find out what MSNBC’s readers think by checking out the online poll. It’s live right now, go vote!
The accompanying article is a good one.
C
I don’t know–but you can find out what MSNBC’s readers think by checking out the online poll. It’s live right now, go vote!
The accompanying article is a good one.
Unfortunately, the poll allows more than one vote, so it probably reflects some overtly zealous gay person(s)’ overzealous, but unsubstanitiated beliefs rather than what truly is. MSNBC get a M for effort.
Nice to see you DL.
Have you corrected your blog accusations that Zach is a made up character now that his father is out pimping on Pat Robertson’s channel?
I’d agree that the poll will be skewed, especially since you can vote more than once. But, I’m curious as to why you think some overly zealous ex-gays or even anti-gays would not also want to skew the vote?
“Unsubstantiated”?
You know TA, just last week we were all talking about Alan Chambers’ claims that there are “hundreds of thousands” of ex-gays out there.
Surely an army that big could take the time to vote in an MSNBC poll……
I haven’t read the article yet, but the poll question is very badly worded.
Are people born homosexual or is homosexuality a changeable condition?
The problem with this question (and its answers) is that there is no distinction given between homosexual orientation and behavior, as your XGW posting here seems to indicate. The catch-all word “homosexuality” is used, which in regards to change, is worthless. Any behavior pattern can be changed to various degrees with enough effort, but that’s not the important issue. The issue is whether orientation can change, and most reasonable people, including those on the conservative side of the fence, would agree that homosexual orientation is for the most part a fixed condition.
A better question (and answers) would have been:
Is homosexual orientation a fixed condition, or is it possible for homosexuals to change their orientation to heterosexual?
A. No, sexual orientation is a fixed condition at least from early childhood, if not birth.
B. Homosexuals, like heterosexuals, can change sexual behavior patterns, but this has no effect on one’s basic sexual orientation.
C. Yes, homosexuals can alter both their sexual orientation and behavior through various psychological means.
Now, that would have been a useful survey.
I’m inclined to suspect that emails have already gone out to the very long lists of the anti-gay groups to suggest they go vote their “unsubstanitiated beliefs rather than what truly is”.
Further, I suspect DL knows this all too well.
Whether intentional or not, these polls set up a false dichotomy.Ask the most anti-gay heterosexual you know if they could “change” into a homosexual. (A: “No way!”). Then ask if they would/could have homosexual sex if you, for example, kidnapped their kids and demanded they send through a video of same in order to have them released. (A: “If I had to, yes”). Or, how much money would they require before they would agree to have homosexual sex? Let’s pretand they need the money for a life-saving operation on their child.But… would their behaviour — under a threat or a bribe — really represent true change?(“No, I had to do it.”)And, now ask them to imagine spending the rest of their life that way… they need to send me a video once a month or I will kidnap their kids, or the medical treatment will go on for years and need constant $.If they went through life under constant threat (“You’ll burn in hell”) or a constant bribe (“We will accept you”) — I’m not sure they would, in their own reflective moments, and if they allow them, truly believe that they had changed. In circumstances of threat or bribery, is the behavioural change a healthy, ethical or (dare I say it!) even a moral one?Why shouldn’t we consider ex-gay “change” in the same way?
Hi guys,
Regarding the question
“Are people born homosexual or is homosexuality a changeable condition?”
First off, it’s a horribly worded question. I’d concur with Christopher’s analysis up above. Also, there are implicit false assumptions within this question.
1) The second assumption is that unless a trait is imborn, it is changeable.
2) The first assumption is that if homosexuality is changeable, than it is not biological at all.
–Both assumptions over-simplify the matter, and are wrong.
Regarding the first assumption: I cannot unlearn my ability to speak english. Nor can I consciously make a choice to eradicate my ability to think, write, and speak in english. Yet, I wasn’t born with the english speaking trait ready made. There are certain behaviors that are learned, but at the same time so deeply ingrained as to be unchangeable.
Regarding the second assumption: it is has been shown that the brain is extremely plastic, and that environmental influences can re-wire the brain, in effect changing the person’s inborn biology. If you don’t believe me, you might want to check out https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/04/AR2005070400845.html The article here talks about the new field of epigenetics. The following quote basically sums up what the field of epigenetics is about: “a fledgling research field called epigenetics holds the long-sought answer to one of biology’s toughest questions: How do environmental influences, such as exposure to pollutants, consumption of certain foods or perhaps even powerful emotional experiences, produce lasting and potentially life-altering changes in a person’s DNA?” Notice how the researchers stated that powerful emotional experiences can produce changes in a person’s innate DNA. Furthermore, environmental influences may account for the low rate of concordance (latest study shows it to be 20-26%) for homosexuality between between male and female identical twins.
Arthur Rubin
My apologies, there was a potentially confusing typo. It should read:
1) The first assumption is that unless a trait is imborn, it is changeable.
2) The second assumption is that if homosexuality is changeable, than it is not biological at all.
An article on the subject and a readers’ reactions piece from Tuesdday’s Times
Are gays born or made?
Born gay or made gay: which camp are you in?
grantdale,
BRILLIANT!! You took the old (but useful) tool of “well then mr. straigt guy, could you change?” and gave it real-life perspective.
grantdale…i echo Timothy’s comment. your hypothetical perfectly illustrates the absurdity of change rhetoric.
Aw shucks, after making a goose of myself on another post I appreciate that.I can’t take all the credit — I reworked a rather inebriated discussion with 3 straight mates in a pub. We decided that a religious person who followed their church “rules” about not cheating or alms for the poor or whatever was not as moral as an agnostic who did the same things for alturistic reasons. Threats and bribes might cause a behaviour, but true morality is driven from within.Try having that type of conversation over 800 beers and with football blaring all around you!
Re: Arthur Rubin’s comment about epigenetics.
I saw a similar one-paragraph blurb in USA Today, which prompted me to look for the article. Here’s the link
https://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pubmed&pubmedid=16009939
It’s a fascinating possiblity which essentially unites the biological and environmental arguments. And by the way, the discussions of “Environment” now require a more specific definition, since I don’t believe the authors intended it to mean such things as distant father / smothering mother / exotic become erotic theories. While the WaPo article mentions “power emotional experiences” as a possible environmental factor, the article itself does not. It defines “lifestyle” factors as “smoking habits, physical activity, or diet, among others”. In my opinion, the Post engaged in a mischaracterization of the findings of the study on that one point.
What this line of research implies is that we should not necessarily expect 100% concordance of identical twins’ sexual orientation in order for the genetic-origin theory to be valid. It also implies that other biological / chemical / hormonal factors after birth can come into play. And in my view it reinforces the argument that the whole nature-vs-nurture model is a false dichotomy.
By the way, to get to the full article, follow the link I gave above, then click on the PDF (631K) button on the left.
I’ve got one simple example whenever a demand of “100%” concordance comes up…Do you think monozygotic twins (i.e. identical) have the SAME or DIFFERENT finger prints?As someone who tends toward looking at the genetic swill as nothing but a complex chemical factory (ChemEng background, sorry) — “environment” takes on a whole different meaning to that of psychologists etc. When environment is used by (true, hard sciences) genticists they are almost NEVER referring to something like “my father didn’t take me to ball games enough” or “my mother was too concerned about me getting hurt”. Frankly, I think the psychologists should be taking back seat on the subject until they understand a few of the basics in the physical sciences.(Let alone someone like the spectacularly unqualified Yvette Cantu or the spectacularly hocus-pocus magicians at NARTH.)Looking at it chemically, the nuture environment can — like a native language, or perhaps some social behaviour — alter the way the circuitry in brain wires itself up (esp. in the first years of life) but I suspect doesn’t make make much of a deal for the oldest parts of ourselves, such as sexuality and it’s drives (or tendencies to agression etc). It’s as if you’re installing new software onto an older PC; new instructions that still run on old hardware.A demand for 100% concordance runs contrary to what we know about genetic influence: there is a little thing called penetrance also at play (basically, whether the gene is switched on)Then if, as I do, see every indication that sexuality (but not the operating instuctions around it) is controlled by multiple genes working together to arrive at a complex trait like underlying sexual orientation — it doesn’t take much to see concordance of 10% or 20% in identical twins that share all the same genes.Want to fool around with a spreadsheet? Please, show me some twins and penetrance stuff!And, do not insult us with a “we are not genetic robots” comment. I know that. And yes, this is a simplistic summary of a chemically complex subject. In my own words Mike… I’m the ref. 🙂
Re: Jim Burroway’s discussion on epigenetics:
It’d be cool if you posted sections from the article, since I wasn’t able to access it. But I found another abstract on epigenetics at www1.umn.edu/cnbd/Abstracts.pdf. Here is a quote from the abstract: “How does the environment affect gene expression? One mechanism, often cited as a link between environmental toxins and cancer is epigenesis, the modification of chromatin in key areas of the genome…While epigenetic modifications have previously been thought to occur only in the very early stages of embryogenesis, recent studies have suggested that later prenatal events (such as maternal diet) or even postnatal events (such as maternal care) can alter methylation, leading to long-term changes in gene expression and phenotype.”
Notice that post-natal events such as mother-child relationship were not ruled out.
Further, I found this quote from the “father” of the gay gene studies, Simon Levay, who is himself gay:
“A person’s sexual orientation is not necessarily a fixed, life-long attribute. Sexual orientation can change: for example, a woman may be predominately attracted to men for many years, and perhaps have a happy marriage and children during that time, and then become increasingly aware of same-sex attraction in her thirties, forties, or later. This does not mean that she was concealing or repressing her homosexuality during that early period. To argue that she was really homosexual all the time would be to change the definition of sexual orientation into something murky and inaccessible.” Simon LeVay and Elizabeth Nomas. City of Friends: A Portrait of the Gay and Lesbian community in America. 1999, p.5”
Jim, there is a temptation to confuse the assertion “sexual orientation can change” with the assertion “sexual orientation SHOULD be change.” Like Simon Levay, I too believe that sexual orientation can change…but as for whether it should be changed, that is an all together different animal.
Further, visit https://www.gene-watch.org/programs/privacy/gene-sexuality.html
For a thorough and penetrating critique the essentialist gay gene theories.
So far, I’ve found no compelling argument for the genetic determination of sexual orientation.
However, as you pointed out…sexual orientation can still, theoretically, be biologically influenced, in the sense of pre-natal hormones in the womb. This pre-natal influence qualifies as an environmental influence, as you rightly stated. Even still, this hypothesis is still yet to be proven, and the relative weight of its impact on sexual orientation is still murky and poorly understood.
Arthur Rubin
Hi Arthur,Simon Levay’s comments should not be read to mean anything more than it does. At least, I don’t read them that way. He doesn’t point to a study, or even an individual case, but to a hyperthetical.We can look at this type “change” in at least one other way: did you have sexual attraction at age 10? How about 12? 15? 18? (I hope for the last age that was rhetorical!)I assume that there was “change” during that period.Now, does everyone develop at the same pace? Nope — and by that I am content to think that a growing awareness of other/different sexual attractions even in 20’s 30’s or whenever does not break any of the observations about sexual development. Life is a bell-shaped curve :-)(I also notice that this type of anecdote is almost always about a women, but also almost always mentioned when discussing the possibility of a man changing. I don’t buy that for a moment.)Because of this, for teminology I would prefer to see the assertion described as “sexual orientation can be changed”; because that is what reparative therapist claim to be able to do. This moves the discussion away from “change” due to possibile organic development processes, or an uncovering of dormat/repressed sexuality, to what ex-gays are actually claiming — that through some deliberate intervention a person’s sexual orientation can be altered.I would be interested though — what evidence would you require before you accepted an organic, pre-birth basis for sexual orientation? (I am being genuine here, I am curious about what people find persuasive and why.)
Looking at it chemically, the nuture environment can — like a native language, or perhaps some social behaviour — alter the way the circuitry in brain wires itself up (esp. in the first years of life) but I suspect doesn’t make make much of a deal for the oldest parts of ourselves, such as sexuality and it’s drives (or tendencies to agression etc). It’s as if you’re installing new software onto an older PC; new instructions that still run on old hardware.
The key part about language acquisition is that there is a defined time in the young child’s life when the brain seems to be “wired” to learn language quickly and easily. That is why it is easiest to create bilingual children at very young ages (e.g.,
The key part about language acquisition is that there is a defined time in the young child’s life when the brain seems to be “wired” to learn language quickly and easily. That is why it is easiest to create bilingual children at very young ages (e.g.,
Arthur Rubin;
Hopefully soon I’ll get to the library to look into the articles themselves for the abstract you provided. I’m very interested in how they went about modeling “maternal care” and how they correlated it to alterations in methylation. The devil is in precisely such details.
That’s why the M.F. Fraga et al. article that gained recent attention was very careful to define “environment” to those specific factors simply because their study did not intend to model such factors as parenting styles, etc.
Having said all that, I hope I didn’t leave the impression that I’m rooting for the genetic theory to “win”. As I’ve said before, if such a link were proven (and I’m not convinced it can be), it would only incite the Ex-gay folks to look for a genetic cure. The link you provided to the Council for Responsible Genetics backs up that my concern.
However, as one possible avenue of explaning how we got to be who we are, I think the epigenetics article was very interesting.
By the way, for those of you who had trouple accessnig the article, you might try this — especially if you don’t have a speedy broadband connection. Instead of clicking on the link, try right-clicking and select “Save Target As…” to download the file to your hard drive. Then you can access it with your free Adobe Acrobat Reader.
By the way, for those of you who had trouple accessnig the article, you might try this — especially if you don’t have a speedy broadband connection. Instead of clicking on the link, try right-clicking and select “Save Target As…” to download the file to your hard drive. Then you can access it with your free Adobe Acrobat Reader.
I do this for every Acrobat document. Internet Explorer has gotten better, but it still often locks up when downloading an Acrobat document to it.