Hey, rlanthier! I thought I’d add to your comments by reposting one of my earlier messages (I make it sound like the show was aired three months ago…ha!) ;)
I am taking a Behavioral Neuroscience class, and I wanted to include an insert of what this psychology book says on homosexuality. Keep in mind that authors of scholarly textbooks go through a lot of research before they make any statements…so this isn’t “just one research” leaning towards a biological basis for homosexuality.
“…The brains of heterosexual women, heterosexual men, and homosexual men may have been exposed to different patterns of hormones prenatally. The real difference – if indeed sexual orientation is determined by prenatal exposure to androgens – may lie elsewhere in the brain, but at least we have an indication that differences [of brain anatomy] do exist and that exposure to prenatal hormones has a profound effect on the nature of a person’s sexuality.
Another factor that may play a role in sexual orientation is heredity. Bailey and Pillard (1991) studied pairs of male twins in which at least one member identified himself as homosexual. If both twins are homosexual, they are said to be concordant for this trait. If only one is homosexual, the twins are said to be discordant. Thus, if homosexuality has a genetic basis, the percentage of monozygotic [identical; share exactly the same genes] twins who are concordant for homosexuality [both gay] should be higher that that for dizygotic twins [fraternal; share 50% of same genes]. This is exactly what Bailey and Pillard found: The concordance rate was 52 percent for identical twins and only 22 percent for fraternal twins.
To summarize, evidence suggests that two biological factors – prenatal hormonal exposure and heredity – may affect a person’s sexual orientation. These research findings certainly contradict the suggestion that a person’s sexual orientation is a moral issue. It appears that homosexuals are no more responsible for their sexual orientation than heterosexuals are. Ernulf, Innala, and Whitman (1989) found that people who believed that homosexuals were ‘born that way’ expressed more positive attitudes toward them than did people who believed that they ‘chose to be’ or ‘learned to be’ that way. Thus we can hope that research on the origins of homosexuality will reduce prejudice based on a person’s sexual orientation. The question ‘Why does someone become homosexual?’ will probably be answered when we find out why someone becomes heterosexual.”
Carlson, Neil R. Foundations of Physiological Psychology, 6th Edition.
Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon, 2005. 279-280.
Thought I’d share! (again)
Also...because I actually am a young, gay male, I feel like I have a little credibility in saying that I did not chose my sexual orientation. I'm pretty confident that I am intelligent enough to recognize when I am and when I am not choosing to do something!
