Born Gay?
Gay Gene Discussion
By Frolic Tan Lopez

SEARCHING FOR AN ANSWER? The search for the gay gene continues, though the bigger question may be why such an interest in finding what makes every one different from each other?

In Cebu City years and years ago, when Nemecio Dioso Jr., 43, decided to start calling himself as Joanne as soon as he turned five, he recalls his mother saying in Cebuano: “Unsa man ang atong mahimo, ana na giyud na siya (What ever can we do, he’s really like that).”  “She knew there was not much she can do, had she wanted to do something – any thing.  Naa pa ko sa sulod niya, nag-make-up na tingali ko (When I was still in her womb, I may have already been putting on make-up),” Dioso says.  “Maayong dawaton na lang na ani giyud ko gi-anak (It’s better to just accept I was born this way).”

The idea that he was born gay is, even now, why “I know there was no way I could have been any different, even if I wanted to be different (i.e. non-homosexual),” Dioso says.  “It’s not like I’m the first to be gay in my family – I have uncles who are gay, aunties who are lesbians, and nephews and nieces who, as young as five, are acting gay and lesbian already.  It runs in the family, this being gay.  It’s in the gene.”

This belief – that there may be a gay gene – continues to be a pervasive reasoning for both acceptance (that homosexuals can’t help being homosexuals) and non-acceptance (that finding the gay gene means it can be removed, thus remove homosexuality) of homosexuality.

The nagging question that begs to be answered, however, is if there is a gay gene, in the first place.

X’S AND Y’S

From the start, when chemist Linus Pauling and a colleague traced sickle-cell anemia to a single "point mutation" on a gene in the 1940s, thereby spearheading genetic studies, the promises held by the genes have been sources of constant wonder.  After all, if all traits can be linked to specific genes, then these traits can be removed, or at least switched off, if needed, if they are unnecessary to individuals.

On 15 July 1993, research journal Science published a study of geneticist Dean Hamer whose report, while working for the National Cancer Institute (NCI), suggested that there might be a gene for homosexuality – if proven correct, would mean that “homosexuality is innate, genetic, and is, therefore, an unchangeable normal variant of human nature.”

Hamer, who worked with colleagues, performed a behavioral genetics investigation called the "linkage study," wherein researchers identify a behavioral trait that runs in a family, and then “look for a chromosomal variant in the genetic material of that family, and determine whether that variant is more frequent in family members who share the particular trait.” 

Specifically, the study used DNA from 40 pairs of homosexual brothers and their pedigrees.  It was ascertained that homosexuality “seemed to be maternally linked,” with 33 of the 40 pairs sharing a set of five markers on the long arm of the X chromosome, specifically on the Xq28 stretch.  This linkage, Hamer reported, translated to a “99.5% certainty that there is a gene (or genes) in this area of the X chromosome that predisposes a male to become a heterosexual.”

In fact, Hamer’s initiative wasn’t the first done to ascertain the genetic predisposition of homosexuality.

In a much-publicized study released in 1991, Simon LeVay, working at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in San Diego, found that there were some differences in the post-mortem brains of heterosexual and homosexual young men.  Specifically, the cluster of neurons known as INAH 3 in the third interstitial nucleus of the anterior hypothalamus was reduced in size in homosexual men (majority of the homosexual men died from AIDS).  This region of the hypothalamus is widely thought of as participating in “the regulation of male-typical sexual behaviour,” according to Le Vay.

Interestingly, both Hamer and LeVay are gay, though how their personal interests in the subject they pursued affected their scientific studies have yet to be determined.

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