Sunday, May 27, 2007

¿GAY TIL PROVEN STRAIGHT?

TALK ABOUT THE GENETICS OF SEX AND GENDER IDENTITY…BUT WHO ARE WE REALLY? AND PLEASE TELL IF A SAME-SEX-PRONE INDIVIDUAL IS STRAIGHT UNTIL PROVEN GAY? OR ARE YOU GAY FROM BIRTH? SO DOES THIS MEAN THAT HETEROSEXUALITY IS A DEFAULT & HOMOSEXUALITY IS AN INNATE FEELING THAT ONE IS BORN WITH? I SAY YES! Homosexuality and homosexual behavior has existed for thousands and thousands of years, probably even before the times of homo-sapiens. However, up until a few years ago, the issue was discussed mostly by people in the social sciences. Psychologists, such as Freud, studied homosexuals extensively in hopes of coming up with an explanation for their "abnormal" behavior. All of the explanations that these people created linked homosexuality to experiences that homosexuals have while growing up. Generally speaking, people in the world of psychology believed that homosexuality could be explained by a person's environment. However, in the past four or five years, the subject of homosexuality has been creeping into the world of biology. Studies have been done recently that attempt to look at homosexuality in a scientific light in hopes of coming up with a genetic explanation for sexual preference. One of the first successful scientific studies that were done on homosexuality was reported on in 1993. The purpose of this study was to look at families in which there was an abnormally high occurrence of homosexuality. By extensively studying the family histories of these families, researchers hoped to find some clues pointing towards the genetic factors that affect homosexuality. That is exactly what happened. By looking at the family trees of gay males it seemed that the majority of homosexual occurrences were on the maternal side of the tree. From this information, researchers concluded that if in fact there was a "homosexual gene", it appeared to be passed down from mother to son. This means that heterosexual females are carriers of this gene, and when it is passed down to a male child, there is a chance that the child will be a homosexual. While this study did not come up with any hard core facts about the genetics of homosexuality, it showed that a connection very well could exist. Since this study did determine that the gene influencing homosexuality was carried by the mother, researchers participating in further studies knew that they could limit their search to the X chromosome, and that is exactly what they did. Perhaps this suggests that if genetics are responsible for homosexuality, we have a long way to go before we completely understand the gene loci that determine sexuality. However the information that is being discovered has been used by people in both positive and negative ways. On the one hand, there are members of the gay community who are very excited to find that the life-style they live is not entirely a choice that they made, as homophobic people often like to believe. Some homosexuals feel that if the world realizes that homosexuality is something people are born with, just like the color of your skin or your eyes, then people will begin to be more accepting of the homosexual life-style. However, on the other hand, there is also a group a people who believe that if homosexuality is in fact genetically linked, then there should be a way to genetically alter homosexuals in order to make them "normal". There is this overwhelming belief that God-ordained roles of men and women elicited the ire of one biologist who claimed that homosexuality is biologically and scientifically natural. But isn’t the concept of 'manliness' and 'womanliness' vague and shady notions that are largely created by the culture in which we live?" I am aware that science cannot explain everything. Science cannot explain purpose in life, and it cannot explain purpose in manhood or womanhood. The best proof the scientists give for such a diversity of sexual orientations and gender identities is that animals may behave like animals. That assumes, of course, that we, too, are mere animals. What if we have souls? The scientists will never prove that we do, so they must assume that we do not. When a man accepts the notion that he may be an animal instead of a man, or a woman instead of a man, he is emasculated. He surrenders his soul to gain the whole confusion. I will not bother myself to explain on scientific grounds what it means to be a man; for one thing, I am not a scientist, and for another thing, I doubt that I understand manliness beyond elementary grounds. After all, there are few standing untouched by the enervating fogs of our age, and I would not claim to be a lone man in an age without men. Manliness is a study. It is learned through initiation, through example, through the school of failure. If we are men in the end, it is because we have resisted the comfortable spa of apathy to take the bold personal effort to leave it and enter a battlefield.

No comments:

Post a Comment

TODAY IS SUMMER LEISURE DAY!