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Gay genes

Discussion in 'Chit Chat' started by ChromeNerd, May 10, 2014.

  1. ChromeNerd

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    There isn't that much gay people in my family, but I've noticed one thing. Even though I don't know of any lesbians in my mom's side I notice that a lot of the women on my mom's side of my family aren't that boy crazy including my sister. My mom has admitted to me that she was bicurious when she was twelve. My dad is quite girl crazy. He always talks about the women he finds attractive.
     
  2. Rakkaus

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    Generally speaking, due to to masculinity complex, I think you'll find straight men talk about women they find attractive much more often you'll hear straight women talk about men. Like growing up, both my father and later my stepfather would always make comments about women and like look at me and I would have to say something affirming that the woman was hot in order to affirm my masculinity and heterosexuality. My mother and sister rarely ever made any comments about men they found attractive.

    I used to think there were no other LGBTQ people in my family. For the longest time I thought I was the first gay person ever in my family and was all alone in that regard.

    Ironically, I was so oblivious that apparently I was the last person in my family to figure out that my aunt in her 50s who lives alone with her cat in an apartment is a lesbian. :eusa_doh:

    She's my mother's sister, and my mother's family is very small. On my father's side, there is a very big family, but I don't know many of them, and I don't think any of them are gay. At least, I don't know of any openly gay people on my father's side, but they come from a very conservative Catholic background. My homophobic father wouldn't tell me even he knew of a gay distant relative.

    So there are lesbian genes in my family at least. I wonder if gayness and lesbianism come from the same gene or if there are different genes. If it's the same gene maybe I got my gayness from my mother's side.

    Of course this all assumes homosexuality is determined by genetics. I know one of the hypotheses about male homosexuality is that the mother's body sees the male fetus as a foreign body and develops female antibodies that feminize the unborn male's brain. Then there's the epigenetic hypothesis, that epigenetic traits passed along from the parents affect the way the fetus reacts to testosterone.

    But it is interesting to observe how gayness runs in families. Are there any actual cases of someone being the only LGBTQ person in an entire extended family?
     
  3. Sarcastic Luck

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    Ahahaha. Hahaa. No.

    Women do it just as much as men do. I've sat in chats filed with women and it'll eventually devolve into talking about hot guys.
     
  4. Rakkaus

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    This is based on my own experience, and I'm not talking about groups of girls, I'm talking about mothers and sisters which is what the OP was referring to. A mother doesn't go around making comments about men the way a father will frequently make comments about women.
     
  5. Sarcastic Luck

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    My step-sister was obsessed with the lead singer from Green Day and he's all she talked about. My mom will comment about male actors and how attractive they are. Hell. She once told me about a game character "He's pretty hot for a dead guy".
     
  6. ChromeNerd

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    I don't know much about my dad's family, but my mom told me that she doesn't think men are that hot. She's still straight. She also told me that my aunt didn't like boys until she was eighteen.

    I think there's epigenetics for an attraction to guys and an attraction to girls. This obviously makes evolutionary sense. Some girls are boy crazy and some boys are girl crazy. This would make sense as well because they would spread their genes more than other people. One side effect of this would be that it might cause some people to be gay.

    If in one family there is genes for boy craziness it might also spread to the boys and make them like boys as well. This works the other way as well.
     
  7. Rakkaus

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    Haha I like the way you describe genes by their scientific names: the "boy-crazy gene" and the "girl-crazy gene". :roflmao:

    I definitely got the boy-crazy gene! :grin:

    But I mean, I'm pretty sure I'm more boy-crazy and obsessed with boys than either my straight mother or straight sister. I have a freakin' Tom Daley calendar hanging in my room (he's shirtless for the May pic:eusa_clap), I spend so much time thinking about guys and so much time trying to find guys to date.

    My sister hardly ever talks about boys, she is focused much more on studies and singing and other activities, she's in college now and has never had a boyfriend. I've secretly suspected she is lesbian based on how her past 'relationships' have turned out, her whole life she went out with only 2 boys, and both ended up the same way, one she went to the prom with, the other was a friend of a friend, she would go out with them a few times but then become crazy obsessed with trying to get rid of them, fighting with my mother and everything about how to make them go away and stop texting her or wanting to see her.

    But I'll assume she is straight unless she ever actually comes out. Though it would be pretty funny for my viciously homophobic father to have only two children: a gay boy and a lesbian girl. :lol:
     
  8. Julieno

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    Epigenetics is still a poorly understood field of research. We know like.... the basic things.

    I have read quite a few scientific papers about the topic and If I had to bet I would say that I would bet for the epigenetics.

    To put it on very basic terms, everyone has the genes that determine what you are attracted to. The genes produce the proteins that trigger the attraction. Who you are attracted to depends on the balance between the proteins produced by different genes (this is still poorly understood).

    Now, epigenetics is a mechanism that our body has to adapt to the environment. Basically, modifications can be made in you genome that allow you to change the level of expression of your genes. This modifications are passed from parents to siblings (lets say you get a preliminary set of modifications the were useful for your parents survival) but can be acquired or change depending on "environmenta"l factors.

    THat is a huge over-simplification but hopefully it is more or less accurate. It makes sense to me anyway since it explains nicely the genetics + environment theory.
     
  9. blueberrymuffin

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    Genetic factor for certain but the "environment" component is likely hormone blasts in the womb. It almost certainly cannot be a postnatal factor, because the gay population seems basically equally spread out across time/culture and it's definitely not a 'choice' or changeable, so it would have to be triggered before age 4 or so.

    So i'm guessing some hormone like more estrogen than normal, since that's feminizing and gay guys are often effeminate. So combine that with whatever genes that seem to run in families and the result is a gay dude.
     
  10. chrisyboy

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    I'm the only gay in the family (yet - I suspect my brother is going that way and my Sister too)
     
  11. GArchi1992

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    My family is filled with gay people! Three of my cousins are gay, and my nephew seems like he's heading that way and then theres me :slight_smile: We only have a small family as well.
     
  12. Weekender

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    I have a very large family (about 10 uncles and 30-something cousins on my mom's side), and I don't know of any openly LGBT relatives. Maybe we're just all in the closet.
     
  13. Beetle

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    I'm the only gay person in my family that I know of, besides my great aunt's son. I have another great aunt who is a trans woman, though.
     
  14. DeliriousMess

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    I don't know of any other gay or bi people in my family. If there are, they are mostly likely in the closet knowing my family's stance on the whole issue. Not to mention the country where my fam is from still has laws in place against "buggery".
     
  15. ChromeNerd

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    Even though there isn't much known about epigenetics, it could explain why some people have a fluid sexuality and why some gays aren't feminized.
     
  16. Brandiac

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    All the lab coat wearing scientists can keep giving me lectures about how it's because of my genes. Yes it's partly that, but I think the effects the outside world has on you once you're born also contribute to this. I don't think I would've come to terms with myself at the same time and the same way if I hadn't grown up with no friends.
     
  17. Young Blood

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    Yeah I have read that researchers have found a gene called Xq28 on the tip of the X chromosone in gay twins/siblings, but their findings are very weak.
     
  18. Iowan1976

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    I think I have had several people in my family's history that were gay. Many people who never dated anyone and never got married. I know that does not mean that they are gay, or were gay for the ones who have passed, but I have my suspicions.
     
  19. Sarcastic Luck

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    In regards to my own family, according to my mom, my dad is bisexual with a preference for women. My cousin on my mom's side is either bisexual or a lesbian, I'm not sure which. That's really all I know about. My family is pretty small and for the most part, no one speaks to each other.