Are Men and Women Born Gay

Homosexual Activity as a Function of Biochemistry
Introduction
Homosexuality is one of the most controversial topics among people today precisely because so few actually understand it and what prompts some to pursue a homosexual lifestyle. Some view it as sinful, others are very accepting of it because they view it as natural even if it deviates from traditional sexual norms. There are various reasons for why individuals engage in homosexual activity and many of them are personal or environmental, though some are distinctly biological. In fact, while not everyone may be born gay and may come to adopting a homosexual lifestyle as a result of some experience in their younger life (such as rape or negative experiences with the opposite sex), researchers like Dr. Wesley Muhammad, Dr. Marc Breedlove and Dr. Gunter Dorner have shown that the biology of homosexuality is in fact established during fetal development. Thus, in some cases, people actually are born gay. This paper will show that people can be born gay, not because of God or genetics, but that they can also engage in a homosexual lifestyle by choice.
Personal Experience and Environment
Coming from a position of personal experience, which many people can attest to no matter what sort of background they have, one is likely to be able to identify numerous acquaintances, friends, or family members who have “become” gay by choice or by some environmental or experiential impact that has shaped their sexual orientation. For example, I have people in my family who were raped and are currently gay. A coworker of mine once told me how his older brother started raping him when he was 7 and that lasted for three whole years until it finally stopped and he told me he’s gay today because of what his brother did to him. These kinds of situations are environmental issues that impact the individual experientially and end up orienting the individual’s sexuality in a way that might not have occurred had the environment or experiences been different. Many readers are likely to confirm that this type of behavior occurs: some people were raped and molested as children and that lead to them living a homosexual lifestyle.
Some people have become gay just from propaganda and its normalization in recent years. I have heard girls in high school and even from my family members who once dated men say things such as, “It’s just easier being with a woman,” or, “Men are no good,” thus indicating that homosexual activity can stem from an individual making a choice to try something different. This choice is made easier in today’s day and age because homosexuality is promoted in the mainstream media and by celebrities as being a positive experience and part of the natural course and function of human sexuality (Ayoub & Garretson, 2017; Halperin, 2003; Seidman, Meeks & Traschen, 1999).
Environment plays a huge role in how one’s sexuality is shaped. For example, heterosexual men in prison may engage in homosexual behavior, but that does not mean that they are homosexual because, given a choice, they would choose to have sexual relations with the opposite sex. Given their circumstances, however, they are limited in terms of choosing a partner: their environment places a restriction on their choice, and thus they engage in homosexual activity because there is no other viable option with respect to having sexual intercourse (Ruggero, 2016).
Whether one is moved to engage in homosexual activity as a result of prior past experiences or environment, the common feature of this engagement is that the individual had no prior inclination towards homosexuality. In other words, for these individuals, homosexual orientation was not a feature that they acknowledged within themselves from birth or from an early age. It was something that developed within them as a result of their environment or personal experience. For other people, homosexual orientation is something that they identify within themselves as being there from the very beginning of their lives.
Born Gay
Some individuals are in fact born gay—not because of genetics (scientists have known since the 1970s that there is no gay gene) or because God made them that way (Conrad, 2016). On the contrary, individuals who are born gay simply develop their sexual inclinations and orientation as a result of hormonal stimulants during their growth stages in their mother’s womb (Gavrilets, Friberg & Rice, 2018). A person’s sexual orientation is initially programmed in them during the fetal stage: a male fetus is subjected to two surges or bursts of testosterone during this period. These surges are independent of each other and happen at two different times (Buoli & Croci, 2015). During this developmental stage, testosterone levels can alter the brain of the fetus, which can also impact the way in which the individual views sexuality later in life. Hormones create stimuli and triggers—chemical signals in the blood—that also orient the person sexually, so to speak (Hines, Constantinescu & Spencer, 2015). Male hormones and female hormones (androgens and estrogens, respectively) shape the fetus from this early stage and, thus, when a baby is born, it may be more sexually stimulated to respond in a sexual way towards individuals of the same sex than of the opposite sex, according to what researchers have found (Hines et al., 2015). In other words, testosterone levels actually do have an impact on sexual orientation during the fetal stage of development, which means some homosexual individuals are born that way.
What this means is that homosexuality can be a function of biochemistry (i.e., of the hormones produced during fetal development). If, for instance, an androgen deficiency occurs, the male can lack testosterone and other male sex hormones that cause his sexual orientation to be more like that of a female. Brain development and the development of the testes can be impacted this biochemical makeup. A male fetus may thus have more in common with a female fetus, biochemically speaking, even though it is still a male that is developing.
Male and female brains are different, though that might not be politically correct to say so. Experience tells us that men and women think, react, and feel differently. However, if the biochemical development of the fetus deviates from the norm in that a male fetus is feminized as a result of an androgen deficiency, the brain may develop feminine characteristics. The boy may demonstrate higher sensitivity or a tendency to react emotionally rather than logically to certain stimuli. That part of the brain called the hypothalamus essentially dictates our sexual tastes—and if it is not exposed to a great deal of testosterone during fetal development, the baby will be more likely to demonstrate homosexual inclinations.
The Counter-Argument
Some might argue that a few studies by researchers may not be the end all be all of the argument—that even though a fetus in development may lack certain chemicals normally attributed to heterosexuality does not mean that the child is a homosexual by birth. True, there is really no way to test this theory or to verify it scientifically or empirically, as sexual feelings and arousal are not evident until the onset of puberty, and myriad other factors (particularly environment and experience) may also play a part in stimulating the sexual orientation of the individual. And it is, admittedly, difficult to discern just when or in what way or to what extent homosexual feelings begin to be shown or felt or acted upon. It is also arguable that the evidence supporting the idea of biochemical origination of sexuality may be overstated. Those who refuse to accept the idea that men and women might be born gay typically approach the argument from a biblical or religious standpoint. They have a preconceived notion of the purpose and function of human sexuality and in that notion, homosexuality does not fit the paradigm and is thus viewed as an abnormality. For that reason, there is no justifying it and any science that attempts to do so is merely cherry-picking the results in order to show evidence that supports that theory that homosexuality can be determined from birth.
Rebuttal
While the scientific evidence, as of now, is only indicative that biochemistry during fetal development dictates who is born gay and who is born straight, there are other studies that have been corroborate what these researchers have indicated. The more that all the pieces of evidence link up and fit together, the harder it is to argue that the signs are not there. What are these signs? To start with, there are signs and pieces of evidence that suggest this biochemical development is indeed a game changer for at least some individuals. How? The evidence has been published by National Geographic News, which has shown that gay men and straight women tend to have similar cognitive processes—i.e., they have similar brains (Baer, 2017). This means that if the brains of homosexual men and straight women are similar in the adult stage, the brains must have been similar in the childhood stage as well.
Looking more closely at what researchers have found, it is helpful to point out the physical characteristics of the brains that are similar between gay men and straight women. The structure, size and neural connections are all alike—and gay men and straight women also have more of these neural connections than straight heterosexual men do (Baer, 2017). How could these be unless the biochemistry from birth arranged it so during the fetal stage of development when the brain is formed?
So if these physical differences do happen and are triggered during the fetal development, what does the triggering? Those opposed to homosexuality cannot say that God makes them this way, since God would not approve of homosexuality—but there is no need to make this argument anyway. There is a perfectly rational explanation for what triggers this difference, which typically is a result of androgen deficiency. The most common trigger is some sort of genetic or hormonal imbalance in the mother.
A woman who is on birth control, or who is taken certain drugs or exposing herself to chemicals or a particular type of diet, may induce this trigger during fetal development. Again, these are environmental factors that trigger a biochemical reaction in the fetus during the most important stage of development in so far as sexual orientation is concerned. And this development impacts the physical characteristics of the brain and the sex organs, which means that the brain and the sex organs are linked. What stimulates an individual male, sexually, who has developed with androgen deficiency is more likely to be similar to what stimulates a heterosexual female—and the findings of what their respective brains look like bears this out.
In short, biology has a say in our sexual orientation. Our biological development is at its most crucial stage in the womb. Yes, we can be impacted by our environment and by our experiences as we age. People have testified to me and undoubtedly to you as well that this is so. Maybe you have even experienced it in your own life. However, some people have testified that they were always prone to homosexuality—that their biology made them that way. The scientists who have researched the way in which the hypothalamus is developed have shown that the surges of testosterone during those two separate stages of development of the fetus in the womb do make a huge difference in the biochemical makeup of heterosexuals versus homosexuals.
Conclusion
We all know someone who is gay. Their stories are all unique. Their experiences are all different. Some of them indicate that they consciously chose to be gay, that they were frustrated with the opposite sex, or that they developed homosexual inclinations because of experiences that they endured during their childhood. Others indicate that they never really made a conscious choice about it, that their biology simply oriented them that way—that they were in fact born that way. These individuals’ stories appear to be supported by what researchers have found regarding the fetal development process. Individuals who do not receive the normal biochemical compounds that are consistent with heterosexuality will likely be oriented towards homosexuality from birth. It really all depends upon the mother giving the right amount of hormones to the fetus in the womb. This amount will play a part in the formation of the brain and the sexual organs in terms of what stimulates them. Gay men and straight women, for instance, have been shown to have similar brain structures, with straight men having much fewer neural connections than those found in the brains of gay men and straight women. This should show that biochemistry does matter when it comes to determining someone’s sexual orientation.
References
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