Homosexuality

Homosexuality: nature or nurture?

Yes; both of them.

Why do we need to know what causes homosexuality? It matters because prevailing beliefs affect our lives. People who believe that homosexuality is not a choice are more likely to enact laws to protect gays’ civil rights. People who believe that homosexuality is chosen tend to favor criminal penalties and conversion therapy.

I believe gayness is a naturally occurring biological variation. This is backed up by research finding that same-sex pairings occur in similar amounts in all societies and all times. And they’re not limited to humans. Same-sex couplings have been observed throughout the animal kingdom: there are gay rams and lesbian monkeys.

I think gayness is like handedness. Both account for a small percentage of the population and run in families. You’re more likely to be left-handed if your parents were left-handed, but heredity does not explain everything. Both my parents were lefties, yet my brother and I are right-handed. This may be in part because we were mostly raised by a right-handed couple. My brother was a year and a half older when we came to live with them, so his right-handedness is more shallowly rooted than mine. He had trouble identifying his right hand as a child.

As to our sexuality. We may learn how to interact as a couple from our parents, but their example doesn’t seem to determine whom we as adults find attractive. Straight parents have gay kids and vice versa. Our father was gay, despite his marriage to our mother. My brother is straight, and I am gay. But any influence our father had on our sexuality must have been genetic; we never knew him to be gay while he was alive and we never lived with any gay couple.

Some researchers have thought that hormonal and other factors during gestation can affect one’s sexual orientation. For example, there’s a theory that a boy’s chance of being homosexual increases with each older brother he has. (See The Atlantic, How Older Brothers Influence Homosexuality, Olga Khazan, April 27, 2016) But that research is not very convincing, and has nothing to say about lesbians.

As to whether homosexuality is a choice. In a very few cases, maybe. Especially when there is no one of the opposite sex available or a person has been damaged by interactions with them. But in a culture where heterosexual bliss is held up as the supreme happiness, why would anyone choose to be part of a misunderstood and oppressed minority? And we have it really good in the United States. Gays are still likely to be beaten up, imprisoned, or killed in much of the world.

Having crushes on girls seemed natural when I was a girl. Falling into bed with my college roommate also felt right. When I converted to Christianity, though, their unwavering disapproval drove me away from her and into trying to be what the church expected of me. That didn’t work. So when I finally met gay Christians and other religious folk, I heaved a sigh of relief and gave up trying to be straight. I am proud to know who I am and I no longer try to be anything else.