you know, i don't know how they're managing to derp out of environmental causes. if there's strong evidence that it runs in a family, yet specific genes have all but been ruled out, is this not an argument for environment?

i don't want to argue against this directly. it makes sense in terms of it's core findings. i just have a hard time drawing a connection between mismatched androgen levels and orientation. it makes a little sense if the topic is transsexuality, but how does this propose to explain the gay butch or the lipstick lesbian? it seems starkly incomplete, at best - and borderline ridiculous at worst. i mean, confusing orientation with gender is a basic error. gay people exist across the gender spectrum...

try as you may, you won't find any conclusive science on the topic. my perspective is that this push for a genetic cause is ideologically driven. i think it's worthwhile to explore it as rigorously as possible - in order to rule it out! but i'm incredibly skeptical...

i just can't make sense of the idea that this could be innate. forget the evidence, it just strikes me as wholly irrational. the only way i can make sense of anybody even beginning to think this is if they're beginning with a creationist perspective. "born this way" only makes any sense at all if it means "god made me like this". now, supposing it were true, imagine a christian trying to argue against gay rights, based on that premise. it's not really possible. it would require rejecting the perfection of creation.

i don't think it's thought through, though. i mean, you're also asking that christian to reject the bible. a more likely result is eugenics policies. this is why i push back against this. the idea that we're genetic defects is actually a powerful argument in the hands of the far right.

http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/668167

i'm not going to go so far as to argue it's necessarily a conscious choice. i think it very well can be. what's to stop a straight person from waking up and deciding to be gay? and who is to question their sincerity?

i'm more likely to lean towards subtle psychological causes. i think we're born bisexual and end up one way or the other based on extremely complicated psychological development, much of it at a subconscious level. freud is more useful here than mendel.

i mean, it's not hard to find some gay dudes that would laugh at the idea that they're low in testosterone...

i'm a little less hostile to the idea of genetics + environment, which is closer to the consensus than a lot of popular media will suggest. again, i don't know why there's this push in liberal media for the hard-wired argument. it's a creationist argument...a liberal argument is that people have the right to live the lives that they want to....

in general, though, i realize that the nurture v nature thing is mostly put aside as too restrictive. a little bit of both. that's the view for pretty much everything. and these dichotomies of all types are mostly rejected. complex phenomena generally have complex (and multiple) causes.

but i just can't fathom how anybody could honestly argue that genetics overpower environment in this case, because we're talking about *behaviour*. we're not robots. i see no reason why we couldn't choose to be gay, even if the genes are not there - and i see no reason why we couldn't choose to not be gay, even if the genes are there. so, even if they are there i can't think of them as absolute, defining things. in the case that such a genetic cause is eventually shown (and again i doubt one ever will be), that's still at best an incomplete answer that could only be applied in limited circumstances. in the end, there's a choice, whether some people like it or not.

i think an overlooked question is how much of it is sexual in the first place. i'm going to use my aunt as an example. she's been married twice in her life - first to a male, and then to a female. i haven't really prodded, but my perception is that the second marriage wasn't really about sex at all but about companionship. she seems to have grown into somebody that would prefer the company of another woman over the company of a male.

i can relate to that. i find myself more physically attracted to men, but more emotionally attracted to women. my emotional needs overpower my physical ones. so, how does that make sense in terms of androgens or genes? it's entirely a psychological issue.

there's far too much evidence that orientation is malleable with circumstance, experience and age to take this wiring idea seriously. at best, it's about "genetic predisposition", whatever that means, in context.