Identical twins gay
Identical twins and sexual identity
Staff Writer | Sarasota Herald-Tribune
Dear Dr. Roach: I read your recent column regarding same twins where one of the two was balding while his twin was not. Within my extended family, there are resembling twin brothers, who also were almost impossible for family members to differentiate. If their DNA genes are "identical," now that they are adults, how can one be gay, while his twin is married with children? — Anon.
Dear Anon.: Sexual individuality defies a simple, unpartnered explanation and even categorization. As time goes on, scientists have recognized that not everybody fits into the clear-cut categories of "straight" and "gay." Some people are attracted to both sexes; some to neither; some feel that traditional gender roles don't really fit them. As such, trying to recognize a single cause of sexual identity, genetic or environmental, is not going to be successful. With increasing recognition that people do not fall into binary categories, we can see the limitations of studies that have attempted to answer your ask. Nonetheless, the data is useful to look at.
Studies have shown that in identical twins, if
It has long been remove that a person’s sexual preference – whether they prefer male or female sexual partners, or both – is influenced by his or her genetic makeup. The most straightforward evidence for this is that sexual preference is more likely to be the same in exact twin pairs, whose genetic makeup is identical, than in non-identical twin pairs, who share only around 50% of their genetic makeup.
What has been elusive is knowledge of what specific gene, or genes, are involved. A 1993 study found male sexual preference was influenced by a particular gene on the X chromosome, which the media naturally dubbed the “gay gene”. But a later examine did not replicate this finding, and subsequent follow-ups yielded mixed results.
Read more: Born this way? An evolutionary view of 'gay genes'
The difficulty was that these studies were too small to draw confident conclusions. There are millions of parts of our DNA that commonly differ between people. That means finding the genes associated with sexual preference is like result a needle in a haystack.
So an international team of researchers, which I led, set out to tackle this issue. Our results are published
Identical twins and sexual identity
Staff Writer | Lubbock Avalanche-Journal
Dear Dr. Roach: I read your recent column regarding same twins where one of the two was balding while his twin was not. Within my extended family, there are equal twin brothers, who also were almost impossible for family members to differentiate. If their DNA genes are "identical," now that they are adults, how can one be lesbian, while his twin is married with children? -- Anon.
Answer: Sexual identity defies a simple, single explanation and even categorization. As time goes on, scientists have recognized that not everybody fits into the clear-cut categories of "straight" and "gay." Some people are attracted to both sexes; some to neither; some feel that traditional gender roles don't really fit them. As such, trying to identify a single cause of sexual identity, genetic or environmental, is not going to be successful. With increasing recognition that people undertake not fall into binary categories, we can spot the limitations of studies that have attempted to answer your question. Nonetheless, the data is useful to look at.
Studies hold shown that in exact twins, if one tw
Why Do Some Identical Twins Have Different Sexual Orientations?
by Justin Lehmiller
A growing amount of research suggests that sexual orientation has a genetic basis. In evidence, scientists recently identified two specific genes that come to differ between lgbtq+ and straight men [1].
If sexual orientation is indeed genetically determined, it would be tempting to consider that identical twins would always have the similar orientation, right? If they have the exact matching genes and our genes control our sexuality, this would seem like a pretty logical conclusion. As it turns out, however, it’s not accurate.
Identical twins sometimes have different orientations. For example, one may be straight while the other is gay. So why is that?
In cases like this, some might argue that perhaps both twins are actually homosexual, but one just hasn’t come out yet. In other words, maybe there isn’t a true discrepancy. But this idea has been refuted scientifically.
In a study where scientists looked at the sexual arousal patterns of identical twins with different sexualities—specifically, where one was gay and the other was straight—they found that gay twins demonstrated more genital arousal in respon
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