Study Purports To Have Identified The Genetic Differences Between Gay Men And Straight Men
A new study out of UCLA claims to have located the parts of the male genetic code that indicate whether a person is heterosexual or homosexual.
There is, of course, a caveat: the study's lead researchers admit that there is evidence that environment also plays a role in a man's sexual orientation by altering the activity of certain genes.
During the annual meeting of the American Society of Human Genetics, the study's lead researchers, Dr. Tuck Ngun, revealed that he and his team studied the genetic material of 47 pairs of male identical twins. From that, they were able to identify 9 "epigenetic marks" (a set of chemical marks that lie between human genes and turns them on or off in response to certain stimuli).
Ngun and his team claim that by studying the molecular data of these epigenetic marks, they were able to determine with 70% accuracy whether a twin pair was heterosexual or homosexual.
Of those 47 sets of twin, 37 were found to have one homosexual twin and another heterosexual. In the other 10 sets, both twins were homosexual.
"To our knowledge, this is the first example of a predictive model for sexual orientation based on molecular markers," Ngun told the conference, according to Sky News. "Sexual attraction is such a fundamental part of life, but it's not something we know a lot about at the genetic and molecular level. I hope that this research helps us understand ourselves better and why we are the way we are."
However, many within the field are skeptical of the validity of Ngun's study.
"I wait with bated breath for a full peer-reviewed article," Darren Griffin, professor of genetics at the University of Kent said. "While there is strong evidence in general for a biological basis for homosexuality my personal impression has always been one of a multiple contributory factors, including life experiences."
