Trauma

I personally believe that your sexuality comes from a combination of genetics and environmental factors. For example let's say there is a gene that causes its bearer to be more likely to develop an alternative sexuality which I'll call X. X is dormant until specific factors in your environment, from pollution to hormonal imbalance from parents and possibly even abuse, occur in early childhood. This all just a theory, so I could be (probably am) wrong. But this is what I believe, so yes, childhood trauma could theoretically determine someone's sexuality, but not necessarily change someone's sexuality per se.

 

The documentary I saw on TLC said that in gay men, when you're first conceived, while you have the XY chromosome which makes you male, you initially have a female "body" for lack of a better term. At a certain point in pregnancy, the mother's body releases testosterone if the fetus is male in order to make the fetus male, i.e. the genitalia, and to masculinize the fetus' brain. If the mother's body doesn't release enough testosterone to reach the brain, the result is a male with a female brain, making him gay. (MY OPINION: I think we may have just found the cause of gender dysphoria, not homosexuality.)

A different medical opinion I've read is that when a woman is pregnant with a boy, her body develops antibodies against the male fetus to try and feminize the fetus. The more boys a woman has, the more her body becomes accustomed to doing this, and that with each successive boy a woman has, the higher chance he has of being gay. I'm the firstborn, so I think that might explain why I'm gay but masculine, and my brother is incredibly feminine (Though I don't know if he even has a sexuality), because my mom's body was already cranking out the estrogen to make me into a girl, it thought it would finish the job with the next one.

 

I'm not really sure of the true answer here, but I do believe that for myself, childhood trauma played a big part in forming my sexuality.

 

Possibly if anything I would figuire that my childhood trauma would make me hate girls more seeing as my abuser was a female, but it seems to have the opposite effect and I'm more afraid of males, it's really weird........

 

I don't think at all that environmental factors or childhood traumas play a role in sexual orientation. I just think how can two people, who literally have nothing in common from the way they were brought up to their views on life, both be gay if environmental factors played a role in sexuality. Similarly how could you have two people who have almost identical upbringings have a different sexual orientation? Also if someone can be made gay by any sort of environmental factors, surely that would make them being gay all in their head, with that being said surely it would be reversible and they could actually be turned straight, but this isn't that case as we know you can't just make yourself straight no matter how hard you try.

I have always thought that it is all down to genetics and there is a scientific explanation to it, but we just don't know it yet maybe we know parts just not the whole thing.

 

Trauma/abuse can lead to all kinds of psychological issues, but to actually change one's sexuality, no I don't think so.

 

In my own life, I feel there is a link but in the opposite order.

My confusion over sexuality led me to a fairly prolonged period of psychological trauma.
I think it's very clearly had an effect on my own self esteem and ability to come out, as well as the way I view older males.

However, it didn't lead me to identify as gay and I don't believe there is any universal link between childhood trauma and sexuality.

 

From what I've studied, this is pretty close to it. One thing to remember is that different amounts of different hormones are released and that brain structure runs more on a slider than just male and female. Certain parts of the brain do different things so in gay men the sexual attraction bits are more like a female brain and in gay women that part is more like a female brain. We could theorise that flamboyant men, whether straight or gay have certain parts of their brain on the female side and vice verse for women. The whole transgender thing is when the brain in its entirety is more female for trans women and more male for trans men.

I don't buy into the environmental thing much. I think perhaps in some situations trauma can bring up the subject and cause someone to make some conclusions, but I don't think it can influence/change someone's sexual orientation or gender identity. There have been situations in which people have gone from straight to gay or vice versa after brain aneurysms. This supports the idea of it being an inherent trait as it could just be the part of the brain that deals with sexual attraction that was changed in the process. I don't think an aneurysm could change someone's gender identity as that would require the whole brain to change which I don't even know if its possible and furthermore if its possible whilst staying alive.

My final point is the fact that the percentage of transgender people with rarer sexual orientations is higher than in cisgender people. I'd guess that this is because the brain is already in a state of flux so variations on the different parts of the brain are more common.