Many genes, not just one influence sexual preference

Two of the five variants are common to both men and women, two are unique to men, and one was found only in women.
Duyen Nguyen
Written by: Duyen Nguyen.06/04/2020

Your genes alone can’t predict whether you’ll choose a same sex-partner, but they do play a role. That’s the conclusion of a major study published today in Science that looked at data from more than 470,000 people, including 23andMe customers and individuals in the U.K. Biobank, a government-funded medical database.

Researchers gave participants a questionnaire about whether they had ever engaged in same-sex sexual behavior and examined their genes. They discovered five variations in the human genome that those who reported same-sex sexual experiences tended to have in common.

However, each genetic variant had a very small effect individually — that is, each variant on its own contributed very little to a person’s sexual behavior. Two of the five variants are common to both men and women, two are unique to men, and one was found only in women.

In other words, it would be “basically impossible to predict one’s sexual activity or orientation just from genetics,” said Andrea Ganna, a researcher at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School and a co-author on the paper, during the press conference.

If there were only one or two gay genes, they would be very rare throughout the population. Why? If gay and lesbian people aren’t having the type of sex that leads to offspring, they’re not going to pass on their genes to subsequent generations.

So, those genes would disappear from the population over time. But they haven’t. A 2018 Gallup poll estimates that about 4.5% of Americans identify as LGBTQ. This latest study sheds light on why gay genes haven’t been wiped out of the population: There are many of them.“Natural selection hasn’t removed this element of human diversity from the population because it can’t,” says Yoder.

One thing to keep in mind is that the study looked at people who had reported at least one same-sex sexual experience, rather than sexual feelings, orientation, or identity.

So an older person who grew up in an era when it was not socially acceptable to be openly gay might not have ever had a same-sex sexual experience but could still be attracted to people of the same sex and identify as gay.

You might wonder, why even study the genetic underpinnings of sexual orientation? Such studies could bolster the idea that, if sexual preference is genetic, then there could be a way to treat or even “cure” gayness.

The study authors say that their findings don’t imply that experiences of LGBTQ individuals are “wrong” or “disordered.” Instead, their results provide more evidence that a wide variation in human sexuality is completely normal. “It underscores the fact that this is a natural part of our species,” Neale said.

“The risk is that people will use genetic studies of sexuality to try to predict the sexual orientation of a fetus or a child, and then choose to abort a pregnancy or change their parenting practices based on a faulty prediction,” Michael White, a geneticist at Washington University who wasn’t involved in the study says.

You might wonder, why even study the genetic underpinnings of sexual orientation? Such studies could bolster the idea that, if sexual preference is genetic, then there could be a way to treat or even “cure” gayness. The study authors say that their findings don’t imply that experiences of LGBTQ individuals are “wrong” or “disordered.” Instead, their results provide more evidence that a wide variation in human sexuality is completely normal. “It underscores the fact that this is a natural part of our species,” Neale said.

Reference:

https://onezero.medium.com/many-genes-not-just-one-influence-sexual-preference-5d4a57d57494


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