Truth behind the claim of hom os exuality
Part 2

Let us briefly investigate a few medical reports in this regard:

Larry Houston has gathered writings from different scientists in a collection called: "Behavior, and Not a Person" and has shown that those who claim to be hom os exuals are actually people who “choose” to do this abnormal act. Based on scientific studies he has concluded that hom os exuality is not a biological and genetic phenomenon and that those who call themselves hom os exuals are not a so called another gender next to males and females.

 In a thought-provoking statement he has said:
… Hom os exuality as a “Sin”; as a “Crime”; as a “Disease” and now today as a “Political Identity”. Emphasizing that over time how hom os exuality is viewed has changed. Significant is the fact, that historically though hom os exuality has enjoyed somewhat varying degrees of tolerance, all cultures and societies have never accepted hom os exuality.

Houston draws attentions to a study that was published in 1994 the National Health and Social Life Survey (NHSLS). The results of this study are in a book by Laumann, et al., The Social Organization of S ex: S exual Practices in the United States. This study reported that only about 2 percent of the male and only about 1% of the female population identify themselves as doers of such acts.

In a legal brief filed in a June 2003 Supreme Court case in the United States, some of the biggest and most famous pro-hom os exual activists groups used the 2 and 1 percent figures. Houston states that the admission of these figures by these groups in their legal brief is in stark contrast to what has been historically cited in the popular myth that 10% of the population is hom os exual.

The American writer Camille Paglia, in V amps and T ramps, p. 74 states that “The 10 percent figure, servilely repeated by the media, was pure propaganda, and it made me, as a scholar despise g ay activists for their unscrupulous disregard for the truth.” Paglia states that the activists’ fibs and fabrications continue now about a genetic link to hom os exuality …

Here is a thought-provoking HIV/AIDS information:
Overall, CDC’s (Centers for Disease Control) new incidence estimates continue to show that G ay and bis exual men remain the population most heavily affected by HIV in the United States. CDC estimates MSM represent approximately 2% of the US population, but accounted for more than 50% of all new HIV infections annually from 2006 to 2009–56% in 2006 (27,000), 58% in 2007 (32,300), 56% in 2008 (26,900) and 61% (29,300) in 2009 … In 2009, white MSM continued to account for the largest number of new HIV infections of any group in the U.S. … HIV/AIDS information has been updated for the years from 2008 to 2011. One transmission category has continued to increase, male to male se xual contact, while all other transmission categories decreased …

Many scholars believe that this few percent so called hom os exuals are attracted to such abnormal behavior under psychological, social, financial and … pressures and propaganda. They insist that such abnormal behavior- in contrast to what the media propagate and a few mostly so called hom os exual scholars claim- has no genetic and alike causes.

Kinsey, Pomeroy, & Martin, in Se xual Behavior in the Human Male, p. 639 insist: “Males do not represent two discrete populations, heteros exual and hom os exual.” And in page 647 they state: “The characterization of the hom os exual as a third s ex fails to describe any actuality.”

Robert Knight in "Science Does Not Support the Claim That Hom os exuality Is Genetic" states:
"Beginning in the early 1990s, activists began arguing that scientific research has proven that hom os exuality has a genetic or hormonal cause. A handful of studies, none of them replicated and all exposed as methodologically unsound or misrepresented, have linked s exual orientation to everything from differences in portions of the brain, to genes, and …”

Meanwhile, Columbia University Professor of Psychiatry Dr. Robert Spitzer, wrote a study published in the October 2003 Archives of S exual Behavior. He contended that people can change their so called “s exual orientation” from hom os exual to heteros exual. Spitzer interviewed more than 200 people, most of whom claimed that through reparative therapy counseling, their desires for same-s ex partners changed … Emphasizing on A considerable body of previous literature about change from hom os exuality to heteros exuality which has been compiled, he gave a warning to media and researchers not to proceed with the “born g ay” theory and declare that science has “proved” that hom os exuality is genetic.

Washington Post reporter Laura Sessions Stepp writes that recent studies among women suggest that female hom os exuality may be grounded more in social interaction which may present itself as an emotional attraction … She cites one such study by Lisa M. Diamond, assistant professor of psychology and gender studies at the University of Utah, who in 1994 began studying a group of females aged 16 to 23 who were attracted to other females. Over the course of the study, most of them have changed labels.

In May 2000, the American Psychiatric Association issued a Fact Sheet, which includes this statement: “Currently, there is a renewed interest in searching for biological etiologies for hom os exuality. However, to date there are no replicated scientific studies supporting any specific biological etiology for hom os exuality.”

In his book Hom os exuality and the Politics of Truth, Dr. Jeffrey Satinover writes: We will see later the falsity of activists’ repeated assertions that hom os exuality is immutable. They seek to create the impression that science has settled these questions, but it most certainly has not. Instead, the changes that have occurred in both public and professional opinion have resulted from politics, pressure, and public relations.

Despite critical examination, as well as comments by the studies’ own authors that the “g ay” research has been distorted or exaggerated, some of the studies are often cited as “proof” that “g ays are born that way.” A few other studies have arisen in more recent years with as many flaws or have been misreported in similar fashion. Here is a brief overview of some of the studies:

UCLA’s Study on Genes and Mice Brains In October 2003, the journal Molecular Brain Research published a study by UCLA researchers indicating that s exual identity is genetic. Reuters reported it this way: “S exual identity is wired into the genes, which discounts the concept that hom os exuality and trans genders exuality are a choice, California researchers reported.” A number of other media outlets picked up on this theme, creating the impression that this study was yet one more piece of evidence for a genetic theory of hom os exuality. The trouble is, the study doesn’t say anything about hom os exuality. All it does is support a widely accepted theory about hormones and gender. Here is Princeton Professor Dr. Jeffrey Satinover’s assessment: The research is a decent piece of basic science and confirms what geneticists have long known must be the case: That the hormonal milieu that causes s exual differentiation between males and females is itself determined by genes, in mice as in men. This comes as no surprise. But this research says absolutely nothing about hom os exuality or transs exualism and any who claim it does are either ill-informed about genetics, or if not, are deliberately abusing their scientific knowledge and or credentials in the service of politics – in precisely the same way that Soviet-era geneticists such as Lysenko did – either in the naïve hope that distortion of the truth can produce a better society or out of fear for their career prospects. In either case they should be roundly rebuked for doing so.

The first widely publicized claim for a “g ay gene” came in 1991 when Salk Institute researcher Dr. Simon LeVay published a study in the journal Science noting a difference in a brain structure called the hypothalamus when evaluating 35 men – 19 hom os exuals and 16 heteros exuals. LeVay found that the hypothalamus was generally larger in heteros exual men than in hom os exual men. He concluded that the findings “suggest that s exual orientation has a biologic substrate.” The media splashed the study on front pages and TV and radio broadcasts from coast to coast, despite the fact that LeVay himself cautioned: “It’s important to stress what I didn’t find. I did not prove that hom os exuality is genetic, or find a genetic cause for being g ay. I didn’t show that g ay men are born that way, the most common mistake people make in interpreting my work. Nor did I locate a g ay center in the brain. …Since I looked at adult brains, we don’t know if the differences I found were there at birth, or if they appeared later.”

The study also had major problems, which LeVay himself readily admits. First, all 19 of his Hom os exual subjects died of complications associated with AIDS. The difference in the hypothalamus might have been caused by chemical changes in the brain as a response to AIDS.

Dr. Byne argued in Scientific American that “[LeVay’s] inclusion of a few brains from heteros exual men with AIDS did not adequately address the fact that at the time of death virtually all men with AIDS have decreased testosterone levels as the result of the disease itself or the side effects of particular treatments. … Thus it is possible that the effects on the size of the INAH3 [hypothalamus] that he attributed to s exual orientation were actually caused by the hormonal abnormalities associated with AIDS.”

In addition, six of the “heteros exual” men died of AIDS. LeVay admitted later that he didn’t actually know whether the subjects in his heteros exual sample were, indeed, heteros exual; all of these subjects were simply “presumed heteros exual.” Given that very few straight men in San Francisco were contracting AIDS at the time (and still aren’t), this was a wildly unscientific assumption.

LeVay is an open hom os exual, and some comments he made to Newsweek suggest he had an agenda from the outset of the research. He said he believes that America must be convinced that hom os exuality is biologically determined [whether it is scientifically proven or not!]. “It’s important to educate society,” he said. “I think this issue does affect religious and legal attitudes.”

University of California at Berkeley psychologist Marc Breedlove released a study that showed that s exual activities of rats actually changed structural aspects of the brain at the base of the spinal chord. Breedlove said: These findings give us proof for what we theoretically know to be the case—that s exual experience can alter the structure of the brain, just as genes can alter it. You can’t assume that because you find a structural difference in the brain, that it was caused by genes. You don’t know how it got there.

LET US KEEP THIS IN MIND THAT IN ADDITION TO GENES, “S EXUAL ACTIVITIES”, AND ALSO AS MENTIONED BEFORE, MANY OTHER FACTORS SUCH AS DRUGS AND OTHER TREATMENTS CAN CHANGE THE STRUCTURE OF BRAIN AND THE STRUCTURE OF OTHER BODY PARTS FOR THAT MATTER, AND EVEN CHANGE THE HORMONES WHICH IN TURN CAN AFFECT THE FUNCTIONS OF ORGANS AND TISSUES, AND …; THEREFORE SCIENTISTS EMPHASISE ON THE FACT THAT CHANGES DO NOT NECESSARILY STEM FROM GENES.

To be continued …