The Gay Gene -- if it's found what does it mean for us?

[Meldread]

I always keep my eye on new developments in the search to discover what makes a person gay and what makes a person straight. Partly because I want to be vindicated and turn to all those who say I "chose" to be gay, I want to hold up the proof for all to see.

However, another part of me knows what will follow. Once they discover what makes us gay they will search for ways to make us straight. They will search for the "cure for homosexuality". In the end finding some gene that marks you as gay will mean nothing. I don't want to be cured because I'm not sick.

I don't think many straight people realize just how much their sexual orientation ties into their own personal identity. I don't think they realize that their sexual orientation shapes how they view themselves and others. As someone who grew up in a small town in the southern portion of Virginia I was very much aware of what it was like to be different. I went through the phases that a lot of small town gay kids go through, including depression and thoughts of suicide. I got to feel the most horrible feelings that any Human being could ever be forced to feel: abandonment, isolation, and self-loathing. I eventually grew to accept who I am, and am a stronger person for my experiences. My experiences growing up and being different has helped shape my view of the world including but not limited to my views on politics and religion. Being gay is a central part of who I am, who I was born as, and who I was meant to be.

Do I really want to "cure" that? Do I want to rip away my very identity so that I can settle in with the rest of the masses? Some straights might say, "Don't you want to be normal, like everyone else?" My reply to that is simply: "I am normal. I am your equal if not your better in many ways." It was my experiences growing up, my being gay, that has made me who I am today. It opened my eyes to so many things I would have otherwise been blind too. If being their version of "normal" is all that they can offer then I don't have any use for it.

A worse thought, still, is early detection of homosexuality before birth. I shudder to think how many mothers would have abortions of their children simply because they were gay, and I can't help but wonder if the anti-abortion religious right would sanction such abortions as being "okay".

I imagine young teenagers, like I once was, going to the doctor in secret telling them that they are gay and asking for "the pill". It would no doubt make their lives easier to simply take a pill, to erase away who they are -- who they were meant to be -- but is it the right thing to do? I can't help but feel as if I am becoming an endangered species. We're hunted and persecuted everywhere we go, even the places that we believe safe are not truly safe, and perhaps in our children’s lifetimes we will see a pill that could erase us from existence entirely.

The pressure to take the pill will no doubt be tremendous. Those who do not take it will no doubt be persecuted, and then the religious right will feel justified in telling us that we "chose" to live as gay people because we "chose" not to take the pill.

Despite all of the above I am still deeply divided. I believe in allowing personal freedom and choice. Who am I to deny a gay person who wants to be straight the right to make that choice? Just because I know it isn't right for me, doesn't mean it isn't right for them. I have the same views on abortion, if I were a woman in the situation I don't believe I could have one. If I was the father of a child and the woman wanted to have an abortion I would object, even if it meant raising the child alone. Although, I don't believe that I have the right to make that decision for someone else: It's a personal right. A personal choice. I do not believe life starts at conception, but I know where conception ultimately leads to. It's something a person has to live with the rest of their life.

Regardless of that stance, I find it hard to form the same one on the possibility of a "cure" for homosexuality. Is it because I don't believe that there is anything wrong with being gay? Is it because I believe that (most) gay people are ultimately more enlightened than straight people? Or is it because I fear pressure from those who've taken the pill, or persecution from those who demand that I be "normal"? Or is it because I know if such a pill was offered to me when I was 13 or 14 years of age that I would have taken it without a second thought?

To be honest, the argument may be moot. I don't know if you could take a pill or go through some type of gene therapy that could alter such a thing as sexual orientation. However, who's to say what can happen in the years to come? Many of us may be in our late 40's to early 70's by the time we are faced with such a decision. However, there seems to be a push in the gay community to find this "gay gene", and I have to wonder... Should we support it?

I would also be interested in knowing how you feel about the prospect of a "cure" for homosexuality. Would you take "the pill" if it were offered to you?

It was this article that got me thinking on all of this and I thought I'd share.

[shraby]

1. I'm heterosexual. I have one question for you.

If you had a child that is gay and there was a pill that would redesign them to be straight, if you could spare that child the pain and soul searching you went through, would you give the child the pill? Remember, some people never accept who they are and live with that pain their whole life. Others are lucky and accept themselves as they are.

I'm not passing judgement on the gays of the world, it's not my place to judge anyone. I'm just asking if there was a pill would you give it to your gay child if you had one.

[purduejake]

4. Never.

There will always be struggles in life and the biggest one seems to start at home. A supportive family and understanding friends is all somebody needs to get through it... and it would be a great experience. I would love my child unconditionally and would accept him/her as they are.

[Meldread]

8. I intend to have children.

I intend to have children. Either through adoption or other means. I would hope that that child would be spared much of the pain that I went through, I would hope that they would be able to draw strength from me and from the examples that I've set. Naturally, I would be completely supportive of my child regardless if they were straight, gay or bisexual. They would be my child, and a parents love for a child should always be unconditional.

Ultimately, however, it would not be my decision to make. It would be my Childs. I would most certainly encourage them to wait a little while longer, to see if they change their mind. I would tell them of my own experiences so that they can draw strength from it. Ultimately, however, it isn't my choice to make. It's theirs. I could not deny my child something that they felt would better their life, though if my child took it I would most certainly be very saddened but at the same time supportive. That's just what a parent does.

[murielm99]

9. I have a gay child.

If I had known she would be gay, and there had been a pill to change that, I am sure I would have said no to it.

But that is me, not every parent. I was 31 when she was born, and old enough to make a mature decision, if such a hypothetical decision was to be made. I don't have a problem with homosexuality. But many parents would believe that they are sparing their child a lot of pain.

This is only one facet of the debate about designer children.

I hope we never come to the point where we can choose our unborn children's looks, IQ, athletic ability, sexual orientation, etc.

[Meldread]

11. You are truly a good parent.

But I fear the day is fast approaching when we can choose such things.

Although, I think sexual orientation is a bit different than designer children. (Although, if you could choose sexual orientation for designer children it would no doubt 99.9% of the time always be heterosexual.) The essence of manipulating who we are as people is still there, but the attempt to eliminate homosexuality is akin to genocide.

It really is no different than if a pill to make black people white was introduced. It would rip away their identity, their core, it would destroy their communities... it would wipe them from existence.

[xchrom]

12. that you ask that question is amazing.

if there was a pill that would change you from black to white?

life is difficult - and reaching for internal harmony -- one of life's long struggles.

hetero's in numbers far greater than gay folks never find that balance --would you offer them suicide pills?

feh -- horrble question.

[dsc]

15. I would at least try to make him wait until he was an adult

Several times in my life I would have gladly taken that pill. As a college sophomore I even went so far as to investigate an Exodus type program of reparative therapy. I might even have done it had my parents insurance footed the bill but they refused (they considered it quackery). So I decidedly know the temptation involved but I also know the very important life lessons I have learned due to being gay. I know that life on the other side of the coming out divide is really something to be strived for and proud of. I would really want a child of mine to know that life if that were the life he was destined to have. But ultimately it would be his decision when he was mature enough to make it.

[kweerwolf]

16. I'd never give a child of mine "the pill" either

Being gay is an intrinsic part of my identity. Sure, it means facing tough times when you discover (as James Baldwin put it) "in a world of Gary Coopers, you're the Indian," but I would never trade the experience I had coming to terms with my gayness for anything.

For one thing, knowing from an early age that I was "different" even if I didn't know exactly what that difference was gave me a tremendous sense of empathy and compassion for the underdog. I grew up in the rural south during the Civil Rights era and I can recall strongly identifying with the struggle for Civil Rights ... just as I identify with other oppressed people.

I honestly feel I wouldn't be the same person I am now if I had been "cured." Hell, maybe I'd have even grown up to vote Republican like the rest of my family.

Sure, it's difficult growing up gay in a culture that is homophobic (or at least heterocentric). But for many gays and lesbians there comes a time when they realize that those attitudes are a symptom of society's sickness and not their's. It's usually at that point where we realize that our sexual orientation is truly a gift and not a burden.

[mitchtv]

20. the question is the same for Strates

Is it a Birth defect? Will they do amniosentisis to screen out the gene, or more likely IMO combination that "tendencies" can be seen. The secret will never be completely solved, as there are so many combintions of factors. Gene theapies will be developed, tried, abandoned as dangerous and in effectual. My guess.

[Duncan Grant]

25. Never, but I would be ashamed of left-handedness.

Can you believe that left-handed children were once forced to adapt to right-handedness? Never underestimate the depths of human ignorance.

(shraby, no offense intended. I'm just stretching the question to its most absurd lengths. The pain and soul searching isn't from same sex attraction, it's from being ostracised from humanity. I would much rather give people a pill to remove hatred and ignorance. :hi:)

[readmoreoften]

32. The "pain" of being gay comes only from the violence of

bigots. I'm happy to be gay. And why would I stop anyone from 'soul searching'? Soul searching can only make you stronger.

I am in the happiest, most loving, fantastic, supportive, passionate relationship I could imagine. Even our hetero friends see our relationship as unique and remarkably beautiful.

Why would I fuck around with my kid's genetics to make rigid straight people happy?

[McKenzie]

2. I envy gay culture

most gays I know have a great cultural life, are interested in the arts, are more politically aware than many straights, aren't sexually repressed, have great parties etc etc etc.

So WTF am I saying? Just this...if gays could be transformed into straights there would be a lot less fun people around. Leave them alone, period. They don't need to ask "our" permission for anything.

</rantover>

edited to add sarcastic quotation marks.

[purduejake]

5. It seems that way to me as well...

and I know it is a generalization. Thanks for the support. If you ever want to free yourself from the straight lifestyle that is preventing a good cultural life, causing sexual repression, and probably includes a bad wardrobe, feel free to contact one of us and we can convert you.

</sarcasm>

[McKenzie]

7. LOL! I work in the cultural field but I DO

have a boring wardrobe.

regards

[purduejake]

18. Lol.

:toast:

[Sapphocrat]

29. It is, and it isn't...

...a generalization. Just think: If one could go back and eliminate LGBT people from history, what contributions to the arts -- literature, music, theatre, film, design, and that favorite guilty pleasure, television -- we would lose. Just off the top of my head... "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" would never have been written -- but it might not matter that "A Streetcar Named Desire" had never existed, because there would have been no Marlon Brando to play Stanley. The works of Wilde, Inge, Genet, Ginsberg, Vidal, Marlowe, and Maugham would disppear. The Beatles would have had a different manager (and John Lennon would only have been 90% of the man he was). Gone would be the films of Almodovar, Fassbinder, John Schlesinger -- and James Whale, although nobody would miss Whale, because Mary Wollstonecraft would not have been around to write "Frankenstein," the book. The music of Cole Porter, Benjamin Britten, Bessie Smith, Joan Baez, Morrissey, and Melissa Etheridge would ceast to exist. Nijinsky and Nureyev would never have danced. Would "Bewitched" have provoked such warm fuzzies without Endora, Uncle Arthur, Sam's father, and Darrin #2 (all the actors who played them were gay)? No Alan Ball, no "Six Feet Under"... no Marc Cherry, no "Desperate Housewives" (although I'm not sure whether the show or its creator is a plus mark for our side). And somehow, I can't quite imagine a teenage Brooke Shields purring, "Nothing comes between me and my Gaps."

Or, as my favorite one-liner goes: If Michelangelo had been straight, the Sistine Chapel would have been painted with a roller.

No offense intended to the straights. :)

[purduejake]

3. I've discussed this with many gay friends...

Each and every one was adamant that they would never take "the pill." That will still make us endangered since people who are closeted will likely want it to make their lives easier without realizing the growth that occurs during the coming out phases. I would have when I was first accepting that I am gay.

However, I think forcing people to take the pill through manipulation, pressure, or mandate is a form of genocide. An entire culture and way of life is being attacked in an attempt to wipe it from the earth. You are so correct... being gay is such a large part of our lives. I know it might sound weird to some, but I can decide where I want to go in this country and then go on the Internet and find somebody who is willing to let me stay and show me around the city for free. No strings or sex involved. Wherever I go in this country, I ALWAYS see people I know out in the city streets or bars. Travel seems to be a big part of our lives. Of course this is all generalizations, but it is difficult to really explain how it changes so many things and is often a "lifestyle" for many people... and that does not imply anything negative.

Thanks for your post.

[BERFY]

6. Happy to be Gay......Gay to be Happy

As a Gay man I can tell you I would NEVER take such a pill.
Being Gay has made me the person I am today and I happen to like that person very much.

[Meldread]

10. Genocide is exactly the word I was looking for.

That's how I feel. As if AIDS wasn't bad enough.

A "cure" (and I truly loathe that word) for homosexuality goes straight to our greatest weakness: our fear of isolation and abandonment. It's something that just about every gay person has gone through at one point in their lives. It's our greatest weakness, and I really don't know many gay people who at one time or another didn't wish for such a pill to come into existence.

I can imagine what it would be like. A friend takes the pill, then another friend, then another and another...and soon you realize that you’re going to be alone. That people like you are disappearing. You see many of your formerly gay friends living heterosexual lives. They are accepted and embraced. You are still an outcast, a second class citizen at best or someone simply 'tolerated' at worst. Then old doubts and insecurities begin to fill your mind: Am I really an "abomination"? Am I really "living a life of sin"? What if what they are saying is true? So in a moment of weakness you decide to take the pill, giving up all that you've built, all that you've become just to be like everyone else. What if there is no turning back?

Everything would be so simple if a gay gene was discovered, and then everyone just said "Okay, it's normal, we accept you for who you are." It's just unfortunate that life isn't that simple.

The problem ultimately lies within personal freedoms and ones right to choose. Does a gay person, if the opportunity presents itself, have the right to choose to be straight? Even as every fiber in my being screams that it's wrong, I cannot morally oppose it. I know from experience that I don't like it when people try to impose their personal views upon me. Their personal religion. Their personal morality. I would be no different if I opposed it and fought it... and yet I cannot help but see it as utter and complete genocide.

[mitchtv]

21. I think I'd "go off" th pill on weekends

for a rich cultural life- _ De -gaying parties, Turning strate bachelor parties.

[Brian_Expat]

13. The hate wouldn't stop if there was a gay gene discovered

In fact, they'd compare it to the alcoholism gene and then demand that a "cure" be found, as was discussed before. The rhetoric would shift to "compassion for the afflicted" and demands that gays abstain from relationships like alcoholics must abstain from alcohol.

Hate is, after all, by definition irrational.

[kweerwolf]

17. Even if there is a "gay gene"

... it would probably control only the propensity to be gay. I've heard a number of researchers say that they doubt there is a single "cause" of sexual orientation, but that it involves an interplay of genetics and environment to fully express itself. If that's the case, I doubt if it will ever be proved that any single factor causes one person to be gay while another is straight.

[justin899]

22. Yup

The bigots would be trying to force treatment on you just like in the old days. It would be a new impetus to lock people up and study them to try and find a "cure."

Corporations would cash in (the same way they did with private prisons) by running gay "treatment" centers mandated by law.

[dsc]

14. This is very likely to become a major problem for us

while I think a pill or gene therapy is pretty unlikely in just about any of our lifetimes, the abortion thing is another matter entirely. That alone will be a genocide of epic proportions. Unlike most DUers I am pro life already so I don't have the moral conflict the rest of you have in regards to opposing those abortions. But it won't be too long before we have to make a choice for survival in this regard at least that is my fear.

[purduejake]

19. It's like a woman aborting a fetus because it is half black..

It's sickening, but her right. I would argue that I wouldn't want gay children to be raised with parents who hated them, but so many of us know it takes parents time to come around and accept us for who we are. Parents draw the strength to continue loving through relationships built before the child came out, which a fetus would not have.

I just throught about how we could stop this in the past 2 minutes, and the only thing that comes to mind is finding a way to ban the test for something that is being used to kill a culture and entire segment of the population. I have to think about it more, but it's all I have for now.

edit: grammar

[Meldread]

23. You are correct.

Although I am Pro-Choice (despite the fact that I view Abortion as something that is close to, but not akin to murder), I would have to agree. I have little doubt that many of those Anti-Abortion Right Wingers would rip a fetus to shreds with great joy -- even their own -- if they thought it was gay. Then turn around and tell us it was for its own good. That they "saved" it from eternal damnation, and a lifetime of suffering and living in "sin". It's sickening to the highest degree.

As Purduejake stated our only real option is to get such testing banned. Abortion will be forever legal in America and will remain a woman's right to choose. It's our only real avenue of hope. It's a privacy issue. Does a parent have the inherent right to know their child's sexual orientation? I have to say no. Our ability to blend in (well most of us) with straight society is our only real protection against persecution. So many more would have died under the Nazi's had it not been for this fact. Who knows what it would have been like here in America if we were easily identifiable?

We need to focus heavily on our right to keep our sexual orientation a secret. In so many places around this country it can be used against us as a weapon. Most of all we have to strive to protect the yet-to-be-born gays from persecution before they even have a chance to get out of the womb!

[purduejake]

24. If we find a "gay" gene, can't it be turned on, too?

I would NEVER put a child through this, but it's another thought provoking, but horrible idea.

[Chovexani]

26. I'm bisexual. A gay gene means I don't exist.

Or there is something wrong with me.

But then again, people (homo and hetero) have been telling me that ever since I came out. So I guess there'd be no change.

:shrug:

[dsc]

27. actually it would be a sexuality gene

with presumedly gradations.

[KnowerOfLogic]

28. IMO, it is probably congenital, rather than genetic, and as such

would probably require constant monitoring of the mother/fetus to determine if development was 'normal.' Most people will never have the financial means, awareness, or will to have this monitoring done, and hence gay babies will continue to pop out at at least a near normal rate. There may be some well-off fundie gay-haters who will pay for such monitoring, but they will probably be a very small number, and IMO, once the brain has been affected during gestation, it will be very hard to reverse. Some day it *may* be possible to reverse, but hopefully by then, people will have long since abandoned such primitive, fearful prejudices.

[seaj11]

30. There's no "gay gene."

Any characteristic--even skin color--is a product of the interaction of different genes and what they code for. Even if those interactions were understood down to a T, it's unlikely that anyone would be able to selectively engineer those genes to make a person "straight," and it might have effects on the person completely unrelated to homosexuality. Even if they could make a person "straight," "straight" is not an absolute. Sexuality is a spectrum; they could only make a person "straighter."

[Stepup2]

31. Never!

Turn this argument around and ask instead, what if there was a "cure" for heterosexuality, would anyone choose to take that pill?

The bigger question is what is it about the idea of being gay that is so horrible that would encourage one to take a pill. We are not diseased. IMO this is the crux of the argument.

There is nothing wrong with gays and lesbians. The problem is so much of the gay experience in the US is socially constructed. The real issue is what is it that is so compelling about heterosexuality? It isn't the sex, for example, or the division of household labor, or the myriad of day to day tasks of people perform. It is the social experience of being gay or lesbian that can be painful to negotiate. This is what needs mitigation, not gays and lesbians. We have been here since recorded history.

Social experiences rest on socially constructed norms. These norms are often defined in a given culture by those in power. The bigger question is why are these social constructions there in the first place. Who wins, who loses, and why is the bigger argument.

If Kinsey holds up at all, a pill would not impact the gradations of human sexuality, and like life itself people along the sexual gradient would find ways to push thru the concrete, much like blades of grass push thru to reach the life giving sun.

We are not the problem. We need to remind one another of that on a daily basis. We have always been here. We will always be. It is sad that we have become the latest social pariah.

I think this issue gets the traction it does, is due to the the fact that many people have latent desires that are easily played on by cunning and hate filled people with a political agenda.

Mean time, the only pills I will take are vitamins to stay strong, and try to help those who are coming up behind me. We stand on the shoulders of those brave warriors of the past.

[iconoclastNYC]

33. There is no escape from pain. It is part of the human condition.

Everyone has pain, even straights. So hypothetically you can save your child the 'pain of homosexuality', will you be able to save your child the pain of loosing a loved one, or a divorce, not getting into that top school, or missing that promotion?

Going thru pain early in life may be hard but so is having a pain free life and then experiencing it later and having to face it as a novel experience. Everyone will experience pain, it is natural and probably necesary. If somehow you could experience a painfree life, I think would lead to some sort of mental illness or disorder. I think in life you have to have ups and downs to keep balanced.

If a gay gene is found I think 80% of the parents with the financial means to do it will elect to screen on it or address it with gene therapy. I would imagine you'd have Christian fundy charities to help the poor take these measures.

And the arts would suffer and humanity will suffer and with time the practice will seen as abhorrent as genocide and stopped.

Homosexuality is one of the rare attributes you can be born with. Like abnormally high intelligence, empathy, insight. I think it brings to the homosexual advantages as well as disadvantages. Unfortunately our culture minimizes the advantages and magnifies and compounds the disadvantages.

How many great leaders and artists from the past were homosexual? The introspection that becomes a necessity to confront and accept one's homosexuality can be a great asset. Being a maverick in a society can be liberating and send you down the path less taken. These things often times lead to unique greatness.

Gene therapy is a genie in a bottle. It will get out. And humanity will suffer, but in time we'll see that and a correction will be made.

[Guy Fawkes]

34. Do a google for "Xq-28" it's what some researchers think

is the "gay gene".