Monday, March 13, 2006

Statistics have shown that the more older brothers one has, the more likely one is to be gay, but only if they are a right-handed male.

There are theories that when the mother encounters the Y-chromosome for the first time, it is taken as an invader of sorts, and she builds up anti-bodies (a term used very loosely), which causes later male fetuses to turn out differently.

Indeed by altering rats in the equivalent of their third trimester (through hormones), scientists have been able to make male rats conduct sex like a female, and are currently wondering truly to what extent the womb has to do with development (as they've discovered homosexuality is not completely genetics, from cases of identical twins being one gay and one straight).


When I learn things like this it just makes me amazed at how amazingly intelligent yet completely ignorant we are.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

OP --

What are your sources? Please post the study; it is very interesting!

Thank you.

PChis said...

It's from a bunch of summaries on studies that I saw on 60 minutes. While I despise having my computer in the room where my parents watch tv, it does let me overhear interesting old-people shows.

Anonymous said...

I have three older brothers myself and even though I'm not gay this makes perfect sense. When rats get overpopulated in an area, stress hormones shut off their need to reproduce as actively so that the population can come under control. This mechanism is sort of the same. When a woman has already had too many children the ones later down the line are more likely to become gay and unlikely to reproduce themselves, it's all just a genetic chemical defense against overcrowding in my opinion.

Remember everyone out there who thinks sexual preference is all black and white, it is in fact a very complex process involving genetic and environmental factors that is constantly changing throughout your life. Above all, there's nothing -bad- about it, just different. Not to start that old discussion again, but jesus freaks, get over yourselves. I think you're unnatural, but at least I'm nice enough to not say anything.

Anonymous said...

"When I learn things like this it just makes me amazed at how amazingly intelligent yet completely ignorant we are."

ignorant how?

PChis said...

because we really have no idea how the hell the human body works. Just the fact that we can't solve something as "simple" as sexual orientation leads me to see that everything is just so endlessly complicated and we are only beginning to understand it.

Anonymous said...

hey, did that study perhaps mention something about sisters who have older brothers being gay?

PChis said...

nope, it just said that all those correlations they had done didn't apply to girls.