Hlootoo's Art

matt-ruins-your-shit:

Like all sensitive topics I must reluctantly provide a disclaimer
ahead of my arguments. This is to avoid being straw-manned and to try to
preemptively sift past the whiny bullshit and get to the real issues. This post
is not meant in any way to be a moral commentary on homosexuality at all. It
has nothing to do with opposition to gay rights in any fashion.

This article will challenge the idea that people can be born
with a sexual preference and will look at some of the evidence that indicates
that a biological cause for sexuality (particularly homosexuality) is absurd,
unscientific and counter-intuitive. I’ll go through my reasoning point by
point.

1.) The Impact Of
Socialization

The first bit of evidence that suggests that homosexuality
is not biological can be found by simply looking at the current social state of
affairs. We live in a time where acceptance for homosexuality has sky-rocketed.
In my lifetime it has gone from taboo to discuss homosexuality right to taboo
to not be in complete support of homosexuals and their rights. Even the gay
rights lobby expresses acknowledgment that our society has come a long way in a
short time. What we are seeing alongside of this growing acceptance…is growing
rates of homosexuality. If there is no social impact on the creation or
fostering of homosexuality why is it that greater societal acceptance has lead
to greater incidents of homosexuality?

New research is starting to suggest that homosexuality is
not as prevalent in society as was first touted by gay rights activists. They
claimed homosexuals made up 10-25% of the population. This perspective came out
of studies by Alfred Kinsey from the 1980’s that have since been discredited as
being unrepresentative. New research suggests the prevalence has historically
been more around 1-2% of the population. In recent years however the rate in
North America has increased to about 5% according to studies conducted in both
the United States and Canada (National Post, 2012). It then stands to reason
that greater societal acceptance of a behaviour that precedes an increase in
that behaviour is evidence that the behaviour in question is not caused by
biology; but is in fact influenced by socialization.

2.) Twin Studies

Twin studies are the single most illuminating type of
research when it comes to investigating a biological link to a specific
behaviour or personality trait. They are the go to for scientists, and the
evidence from their research into homosexuality does not support the idea that
a person can be born gay. I decided to look into this research myself after
meeting a gay man with an identical twin sibling who was completely
heterosexual.

Research showed that in cases where a genetic twin was gay
only 7.7% of men and 5.3% of women had a twin sibling who was also gay. This is
astoundingly low, even considering the role of socialization you would expect
that number to be significantly higher. If homosexuality were caused by biology
that number should much closer to 100%. It’s not even close to being half of
the time. If gayness is genetic why are there so few twin siblings of
homosexuals that are also homosexual themselves. Concordance rates that low
make it absurd to claim a genetic cause for homosexuality independent of social
influence. If homosexuality is biological then someone who shares your
biological makeup should also share your sexual orientation (Bearman and
Brückner, 2002).

3.) Inconsistency 

Ask yourself this question. Why is homosexuality the one
behaviour that the scientific and psychological community claims is completely
genetic? Why is it the only subset of sexual preferences that we consider to
have a biological cause?

The current general psychological agreement on the causes of
behaviour is that people and all our behaviour are the result of genetic
predisposition and the influence of socialization and the environment. We are a
combination of nature and nurture so intertwined that it’s generally considered
passé to suggest a completely genetic or completely social cause for human
behaviour…except when it comes to homosexuality. Why the exception? Why are
people born with a same sex preference but not a hair colour preference, or a
body size preference? Why don’t psychologists claim some people are born liking
skinny blondes and some people are born liking tall brunettes? It is because
those are illogical assertions. It makes no sense given our current
understanding of human behaviour. It makes no sense that one specific type of
sexual preference would be biological and all the rest of the multitudes of
preferences are not.

4.) There Is No Gay Gene

With the amount of pressure and the absolute clamoring to
prove that homosexuality is biological why have we not yet discovered the gay
gene? Why are we so sure it exists when there has been no evidence of it in a
time where we can isolate and identify genes very easily. We’re on the cusp of
designing our children like we are about to play an RPG and yet we can’t find
the gay gene, it’s almost like it doesn’t exist. Grand claims require grand
evidence. Scientists claimed baldness was genetic and they backed it up by
finding the bald gene. So far the claim that gayness is genetic has not been
backed up. The burden of proof has not been lifted.

5.) The Current Theories On Genetic Homosexuality Are Unbearably Ridiculous

The current theory on the genetic cause of homosexuality is
so unbelievably absurd all I have to do is explain it to you in order to
discredit it. In fact many homosexuals will probably find it offensive.

This is the theory explained to me in a university lecture
hall of over 500 psychology students. It was explained to us as the promiscuous
twin sister theory. Basically all homosexuals were originally twins in the womb
who absorbed an opposite sex sibling who would have turned out to be an overly
promiscuous sibling. The overactive sexuality of the twin sibling makes it a
dominant trait in the sibling who absorbed their twin in the womb. Which is meant to explain why a man can be attracted to a man…because he was born with the sexuality of the twin sister he absorbed in the womb. This is also
meant to account for the higher rates of promiscuity in the homosexual
population, after all why wouldn’t gays be more promiscuous if they contain within them the combined sexuality of two people.

Convinced? Me neither, if that’s the best explanation for a
genetic cause that scientists can come up with no wonder they’ve been keeping
it under their hats. If they actually came out and told us what they were thinking…a
lot less people would accept the notion that homosexuality is genetic. 

6.) The Role Of Abuse

A common theme among studies on abuse and homosexuality is
a significantly higher rate of incidents of childhood sexual abuse among
homosexuals. I’ve seen numbers upwards of 80% but for the purposes of avoiding
bias I’ll only use data from studies not investigating a link between
homosexuality and abuse. So no study cited here was attempting to display a
causal link between the two, meaning these statistics will be fairly conservative estimates.

According to one study

–       35%
of gay men were sexually abused as young children

–       37.1
% were abused between 13 and 16

–       62.9%
were abused before age 13 

–       Gay
men have significantly higher rates of childhood molestation than do
heterosexual men approximately 40% higher.

–      
62% of abused lesbians report being molested
before identifying as lesbian

–      
68% of abused gay men report being molested
before identifying as gay 

(Tomeo, M. E., Templer, D. L., Anderson, S., & Kotler, D. (2001)

Timothy J. Dailey, PhD, Senior Research Fellow at the Center
for Marriage and Family Studies of the Family Research Council, had this to say
in his article “Homosexuality and Child Sexual Abuse.”

“Men who sexually molest boys all too often lead their
victims into homosexuality and pedophilia. The evidence indicates that a high
percentage of homosexuals and pedophiles were themselves sexually abused as
children…”

Now to be
clear this does not mean that homosexuals and pedophiles are the same thing or
that their behaviours are even comparable sexual acts. It just means that abuse
has been discovered to play a role in the development of both behaviours. It is
not the only factor and we should all be aware that correlation does not equal
causation. However we would be unwise to ignore the evidence because some might
try to use it to attack the gay community and compare homosexuals to
pedophiles. Social agendas must not dictate what research is deemed valid, and
evidence that is potentially upsetting and challenging to our world-view must
not be ignored.

7.) Fabricating The Myth Made sense

One of the main reasons to be skeptical of the “born that
way” myth is that the creation of the myth made perfect sense and served an
important function for the gay rights movement. One of the main reasons
acceptance for homosexuality has been able to increase so much, so quickly in
recent years is that people have come to accept that homosexuality is
biological.

In our minds it is unreasonable to be against something that
someone has no control over, and nothing says no control over it more than it
being caused by biology. So at the time it would have made sense for the gay
rights community to decide that it was in their best interest to promote the
idea that they have no control over their sexual preference.

It is also in line with one of the mental health
communities’ best-kept secrets…the fact that they actively use stigmatization
and propaganda to achieve macro level mental health goals. Evidence and truth
is not always the most important thing in the minds of mental health
organizations dedicated to improving societies as a whole.  As long as it achieves positive results
for them they do not care how it is done or what lies they have to tell. The
ends justify the means in their eyes. To show this is not just some conspiracy
theory I’ll explain another time in our societies history this has been
done…anti-smoking campaigns. 

I took a class on community mental health where they
explained to us the practice of what they call “macro level solutions.” They
identify a problem (in this case smoking). They decided that they needed to
decrease the amount of people who smoke because this would be a benefit to
society at large. So they launched campaigns decades long with the express
purpose of stigmatizing smoking and smokers. They decided they wanted people to
believe not only that it is unhealthy, but also that it is a disgusting and
deplorable habit. Look around, it worked, smoking has plummeted and public
opinion on smoking has completely changed. 

These are the same tactics they took with the gay community.
They identified a problem, which is that society did not readily accept
homosexuality and it was leading to mental health problems for the gay
community. Their goal of reducing things like suicide and bullying in the gay community
is a noble cause… but in their good intentions they spread lies, misinformation and propaganda to achieve their goals, and we are starting to see the
consequences of that decision.

8.) The Consequences And The Slippery Slope That Is Coming To Pass

Since the inception of the gay rights movement pedophiles
have been trying to horn in on their action and gain the same rights and
acceptance that homosexuals are fighting for. In the early days this hurt the
gay rights movement and they had to make a distinct effort to distance
homosexuality from pedophilia.

Gay rights opponents have been claiming for decades that if
we accept homosexuality as a normal non-paraphiliac behaviour then one day we
will be asked to accept other more harmful forms of sexual expression as normal…such
as pedophilia. At the time this argument was a slippery slope fallacy and went
largely ignored. Yet if you have been paying attention you will find that
within the psychological and social justice communities there is a growing push
towards the normalization of pedophilia. And the arguments that they are using
are the exact same ones used to normalize homosexuality. They are already
claiming they were simply born that way and it is not right to discriminate
against their legitimate sexual orientation.

The arguments used to foster acceptance for homosexuality
are now being used to attempt to justify the sexual abuse of children, if this
trend is not stopped soon the anti-gay rights crowd is going to have the right
to a big collective (we told you so). Again to be clear for those prepping to make a slippery slope accusation, my argument is not that homosexuality will lead to pedophilia.

The evidence just does not support the idea that sexuality
is biological and if we do not put an end to the myth soon…there is no telling
where else it will take us. To be clear my conclusion is not that biology plays absolutely no role or that homosexuality is a choice. However we cannot claim that the cause is biological based on the evidence. The actual cause will be nearly impossible to pinpoint like all behaviour, and it will be a mixture of predisposition and the influence of the social environment, especially during childhood. It is neither a choice or something you are born with. Suggesting it is either a choice or something you are born with is a false dichotomy. People are more complicated than that.