Irvine511 said:
it's 100% involuntary and unchosen, that much is certain. the point, as always, there's nothing you can do about it.
Not according to some reseach:
DO STUDIES SUPPORT THE EXISTENCE OF A GAY GENE?
The most frequently cited study was conducted by molecular biologists at the National Institutes of Health under the direction of Dean Hamer. This study is currently under investigation by the federal Office of Research Integrity for possible scientific misconduct, because one of the study collaborators alleges that Hamer suppressed data that would have reduced the statistical significance of the reported results.
Hamer’s group examined DNA samples from self-identified gay men and other gay male family members. The researchers claim they have found a DNA segment, called a "marker," on the X chromosome, the chromosome men inherit only from their mother and not from their father. They say that most, though not all, gay men within a family share such a marker. (In a more recent study, they conclude that lesbian sisters do not share this marker.) They now hope that by defining this marker more closely, they will be able to identify a "gene for gayness" on the X chromosome.
One of the problems with their approach is that Hamer and his colleagues did not feel it necessary to check whether any of the straight men in these families share the marker in question. If even only a few of them do, it calls into question what the gene or the self-identification signifies. More recently, Hamer has tested this out, and the results do not change his interpretation.
But even more significant for Hamer’s studies is the definition of who is gay. Hamer uses the extremely conservative estimate of two percent for the prevalence of homosexuality among American men. Increasing this value to the usually accepted values of five to ten percent reduces or even eliminates the statistical significance of his results. The reason Hamer gives for his unusually low estimate is that he wants to work only with "real" gay men, that is, men who have essentially never veered from their preference for men in their sexual fantasies or activities. His definition does not take into account the large population of men who have sexual relations with men, but who do not identify as gay, or men who have had sexual relationships or marriages with women, or have fathered children, but now do identify as gay. If research on sexual orientation does not consider this diversity of sexual identities, the social relevance of this research is limited.
Hamer’s results remain controversial. An independent study of gay siblings did not reproduce his results, though the Hamer group now reports a second study which supports the role of a gene on the X chromosome in male homosexuality. But none of the results, including Hamer’s, support the claim that any single gene can determine sexual orientation.
Another study claiming that there is a connection between homosexuality and biology, by the neurophysiologist Simon LeVay, claims that a specific structure in the brain is smaller in gay than in straight men. The size of this structure in gay men, he claims, is more like that seen in heterosexual women – though in fact, he has no evidence regarding the sexual orientation of the women whose brains he examined. All of LeVay’s observations were made on the brains of cadavers, and his evidence about the sexual orientation and practices of the people in life is entirely circumstantial. Furthermore, the "gay men" all died of AIDS, which is known sometimes to affect brain structures. Another criticism of this study is that in some of LeVay’s "gay" samples, the structure was larger than in the "straight" ones, so that upon inspection, there is no basis for deciding whether a given person in life had been "gay" or "straight."
WHAT ROLE DO ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS PLAY?
Arguments for a biological basis of sexual orientation have also been offered, based on questionable studies of twins and other siblings. Michael Bailey and Richard Pillard, researchers at Northwestern University and the Boston University School of Medicine, measured sexual orientation in brothers of gay men. They found that for adoptive and non-twin brothers of gay men, about 10% were also gay, a rate often attributed to the general population. The rate of "double" homosexuality for fraternal twins was 22%, and for identical twins, 52%.
The fact that fraternal twins of gay men were found to be roughly twice as likely to be gay as other biological brothers shows that environmental factors play a role, since fraternal twins are no more similar biologically than are other biological brothers. In light of these results, it does not seem surprising that an even larger proportion of identical twins would have similar behaviors since the world thinks of them as "the same" and treats them accordingly, and they often share such feelings of sameness.
Homophobia – another clearly environmental factor – may also have affected the study’s results by distorting the sample. Bailey and Pillard did not study a random sample of gay and bisexual men. The study’s participants "were recruited through advertisements placed in gay publications in several Midwest and Southwest cities." Thus all the respondents read gay periodicals and probably were, to some degree, public about their sexuality. In addition, they responded to ads asking them about their brothers. Although the ads asked gay men to "call regardless of the sexual orientation of [their] brother
," men with gay brothers might well have been more likely to participate than men with straight brothers, especially if the straight brothers were homophobic or the gay ones were not "out" to their families. Since many people believe that homosexuality is genetic, a straight man who has a gay twin, and especially a gay "identical" twin, might well feel that his own sexual orientation was "suspect," and refuse to participate in the study, finding the subject threatening. Conversely, if identical twins are both gay, they might find the subject interesting and be eager to volunteer for a study.