The Liabilities of Homosexuality as a Genetic Trait

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Recommended: Biological perspectives on sexual orientation

10.7 million Americans consider themselves Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, or Transgender, which is about 3.4% of our population. How does homosexuality occur? Is a man gay because of a missing father and an overbearing mother? Is a woman gay because of her desire to please her father by showing that she is worthy of the love she cannot seem to receive from him? Recently, most studies on the genetic liabilities of homosexuality have focused on men, but it is believed that the observations from these experiments also apply to women. Homosexuality is not strictly genetic, but epigenetic, and has characteristics of a hereditary trait. Before one can delve into the emotional and scientific rabbit hole that is human sexuality, one must understand that a person's biological sex is not the only contributing factor in sexual orientation and sexual behavior. Each person has hundreds of characteristics that affect what we call sexual orientation, but most of them fit into about 6 different categories. The first is biological sex, which is inscribed into the DNA. That is what a person is born with, and most likely the label doctors give at birth. Next is gender identity, which is what gender a person identifies with. Regardless of parts one is born with, this is the trait that describes whether a person feels like a man, or a woman, or something in between, or nothing at all. This is why sex is an incorrect determination for the pronoun used to describe a person because it assumes their gender identity to be the same as their biological sex, and that is not always the case. If a person's gender identity is unknown or different from their biological sex, one should use the pronoun gender to describe him, her, or it. Next is one's symbolic heart, whi... ... middle of paper ... ...bios. Retrieved November 16, 2013, from http://www.nimbios.org/press/FS_homosexuality Fate, F. (2013, January 16). Identical twins: The truth behind their similarity. The Frozen Fate Reproductive Medicine Ethics. Retrieved November 16, 2013, from http://thefrozenfate.wordpress.com/2013/01/16/identical-twins-the-truth-behind-their-similarity/ Green, Hank. "Human Sexuality is Complicated...." YouTube. YouTube, 12 Oct. 2012. Web. 16 Nov. 2013. . Is Homosexuality a Choice?. (2008, March 28). YouTube. Retrieved November 20, 2013, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYMjXucTFaM Koebler, J. (2012, December 11). Scientists May Have Finally Unlocked Puzzle of Why People Are Gay. US News. Retrieved November 16, 2013, from http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2012/12/11/scientists-may-have-finally-unlocked-puzzle-of-why-people-are-gay

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