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is it nature or nurture that cause us to be LGBT

Discussion in 'Chit Chat' started by GayJay, Jun 26, 2013.

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Is it nature or nurtue that leads to someone being LGBT

  1. Nature

    41 vote(s)
    56.9%
  2. Nurture

    4 vote(s)
    5.6%
  3. Both

    27 vote(s)
    37.5%
  1. GayJay

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    So is it nature, something that was in us from birth and not matter what you were gonna be LGBT and nothing could change that
    Or nurture, and its a matter of influence from our childhood and the impact of the people and surroundings?

    Personally, and most will probably disagree I think its nurture
    Not in a sense anyone is to 'blame' but I do think who you were raised play more impact on nature and genes ect..
    Like for me, my dad beating my mum and everything made me have to be there a lot for my family, I had to cover for my mum a lot, and probably grow up quicker than I should have, I never saw a TV or anything like that when I was a kid cause he trashed the house all the time. So I was always a little tougher and rougher than the other kids and I always felt so bad that my little baby brother didn't have a male role model. For this I adapted to being his 'big bro' from around the age of 4 because I wanted him to look up to me and copy me and I wanted to protect him from everything. He's 13 now and nothings changed, he knows nothing of what went on and I'm still his big brother :slight_smile:

    So what do you guys think?
     
  2. King

    King Guest

    I fight pretty adamantly for the Nature case.

    I don't see how I could be raised to get a boner for men. That's ridiculous.
     
  3. biggayguy

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    I think nurture can be an influence to bring out your genetic attraction. I don't think nurture is the deciding factor.
     
  4. Tetraquark

    Tetraquark Guest

    I think it's a mixture of both. As I've stated elsewhere before, almost every other aspect of who we are has components that are inborn and components that are added after birth. For example, my tendencies toward logic, rationality, and independence have been with me for as long as I can remember and are likely influenced by a genetic component. However, these thing didn't predestine me to become a programmer or scientist. Given different circumstances I could easily have seen myself becoming a science fiction or fantasy writer, or even a musician. In other words, I was born with a certain set of traits, but the exact way in which these manifested depended upon my environment.

    How does this relate to sexuality and gender? I think they work basically the same way. Genes, pre-natal hormones, and other such factors set a few base traits and a range within which they can vary. Exactly where a given person ends up, however, depends on what they are exposed to after birth.
     
  5. Night Rain

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    But the best you can prove is it is so in your case. You can't say for everyone.

    Personally, I think nurture could be a factor too. Obviously it doesn't apply to everyone, but you sure see a lot of people here having a dysfunctional family. Before anyone jumps and argues that not everyone who has a dysfunctional family ends up being LGBT, or that they have perfect family, and still are LGBT, I'm not saying that this is impossible.

    There's also the case of identical twins having different sexual orientations. There may be some other parts of nature we don't understand (I remember reading about overexposure to estrogen in the womb or something), or it could be that nurture plays a role, too.
     
  6. Just Jess

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    I think there's some of both going on.

    I don't think either sexual orientation or gender identity can be changed after a certain point. There's been a lot of studies of people with some intersex conditions or who have had their genitals surgically altered at birth, and they usually end up claiming their true gender later on in life. The easiest to find studies cover people that were born male, had their boy parts removed at birth, were raised as girls, and ended up with male gender identities. Here's one of those studies, Johns Hopkins Gender Study

    The same thing goes with sexual orientation. People have tried for decades to "cure" gayness with everything from hormones to every therapy in the book. People are gay even in places where there's a lot of hostility toward gay people. A lot gay people come from good homes. Gay people are attractive and successful, could find a member of the opposite gender and form a family easily, and often don't want to be gay. Many people cave into the pressure and never come out, and the fact that they are gay survives all that.

    I really feel like a lot of this stuff is like baby sea turtles knowing to crawl across the land and get into the water as soon as they hatch so they don't get eaten stuff. I mean, just like how straight people have urges to find people and start families with them, well, so do gay people.

    But at the same time, sure I think nurture plays a role. Especially when you're really young and figuring the world out. I think the brain keeps developing even after you're born for a long time. But some of this stuff, I really think it's like a DVD when you're that young; once you write something to the brain, it's there forever, and it can't be changed.

    And I think if you had a sexuality or gender identity that was a little more flexible especially, what happens in your life even older could really affect that. Like there are a lot of us trans folk that, as soon as we have a chance to experience our true sex, our orientation drifts. I think a lot of the time, the person was bisexual to begin with, but couldn't picture themselves as members of their true sex when they think about other people. Or I guess a less confusing way to put that would be, there's a difference between being a gay man and a straight woman (or gay woman vs straight man). And I think a lot of people are scared to question and experiment.

    And really I think that's the place where nurture can really change things. I mean a lot of people don't question at all. Some people will just have miserable love lives and never figure out that they're gay. But you know, if the right person comes along and causes you to start questioning, well there you go.

    I think nurture can reenforce things too. I basically grew up in a female caregiver role in my house, because my parents weren't very responsible people. I think that happened partly because I'm trans, but I also think that it reenforced the trans the more I did it.
     
  7. Dan82

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    Given that sexuality varies considerably across cultures I think nurture plays a very strong role, that’s not to say that genetics play no role genetics play some role in almost everything.
     
  8. Hefiel

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    If I were to say, I'd say it's either 100% nature, or 80% nature/20% nurture.

    For one, there are studies that shows the brain in homosexuals are closer to that of the opposite sex, meaning that there's definitively a genetic (or epigenetics, etc) component to it which can't be influenced by nurture. There are also studies that shows that the more boys a mother has, the higher the chances that the youngest boy be gay. There are also studies regarding Identical Twins where if one of the twin is gay, the other has 50% chance of being gay, the percentage drops to 25% in Fraternal Twins.

    Suffice to say, none of these can be influenced by nurture. However there is no conclusive evidence that nurture cannot influence someone's sexual orientation, thus why I wrote the 80% nature/20% nurture. I think there's probably some degree of nurture that may influence certain behaviors, however I don't know what those may be.

    For example, and I've briefly written about this here already, but when I was 5-6 years old I did a few things with a boy of the same age that would probably be considered foreplay if done today at my age (22). That event is by no mean a source of "shame" for me, but I've always wondered if that event may have been a factor that may have influenced my attraction towards males as it certainly did influence me in some other ways as well.
     
  9. Dan82

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    Since modern western society equates homosexuality with gender nonconformity (there have been many societies that haven’t) you’d expect this if cultural influences are the primary cause as well.
     
  10. StefaniW

    StefaniW Guest

    I believe totally and completely that transsexualism is innate and inborn and many studies show this is very likely true, and it is very likely caused by natal hormone exposure.

    I have felt and identified as totally and completely female since my earliest memory (approx age 4) and I think the whole nurture theory is insulting and degrading. Like I am just some freak who is the product of bad parenting (as if there would have been time for my parents to influence my gender identity in 4 years) :dry:
     
  11. srslywtf

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    Well, there's certainly no evolutionary reason for gay people. at least no obvious one. Possibly a reaction to overpopulation of a species? who knows. I guess plenty of lgbt people have had children of their own. Maybe there is even a link between anxiety of coming out/living your dream and genetic predisposition to LGBT. I guess that doesnt apply to the BT part really.

    Anyhow, I say both. I imagine hormone levels play a pretty big role in at least some lgbt's orientation/gender. Likewise some people would genetically have much stronger hetero drive than others.

    By both, I dont mean both played a part in everyone's story, just that both can lead to the situation.

    It would be interesting if there was a genetic predisposition - eg if someone has x genes, and then are raised in a gay friendly environment, there is Y probability of them turning out gay.

    I dont really care why I'm this way... I guess I havent got to that part yet.
    I think People can fall into a trap of thinking its not OK to just decide to be this way or be this way because of upbringing.. we need to be careful of it being justified/reported as a purely genetic thing because then it could be treated as a chance mutation/aberration/illness rather than a perfectly reasonable choice. I like to think society is beyond that, but I look at things like the 'war on drugs' and realise we're still actually living in the dark ages.
     
  12. TJ

    TJ
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    I should have selected both, I accidentally chose nurture.

    I think plenty of straight people have gay feelings, so something is initially different with LGBT folks, but whether or not they act on their feelings depends on their environment.

    So, openly gay people have been affected both by nature + nurture.
    Closeted = nature.
     
  13. john1b1

    john1b1 Guest

    I haven't really gotten into many of the most interesting studies on this subject, but from what I have read, the answer is none of the above. I recall one study that demonstrated that the part of a homosexual's brain that deals with reproduction/romance is similar to that of a heterosexual of the opposite sex.

    There isn't an apparent genetic or hereditary cause for this, but that doesn't rule out nature. Homosexuality seems to be related to the balance of hormones in the womb. It's possible (in fact likely) that hormones in the womb affect the development of the brain in the womb, resulting in gayer structures. This theory is supported by statistical evidence that indicates likelihood of homosexuality in a child is increased by factors such as the age of the mother or the amount of previous births by the mother, which may have an effect on hormones in the womb.

    Now, if we can agree that being gay has to do with the development of the brain instead of its genes, we open an interesting question: at what point is our sexual orientation locked in? Can orientation be influenced after birth? In a three year old? Perhaps even until puberty?

    These are interesting questions that I don't have answers to. Someone else might, but I don't.
     
  14. Candace

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    I think nature is the deciding factor in someone's sexuality. I do think however that nuture can lead one to show their tendencies, so to speak, through the approval of people, and to hide them and "act straight" from disapprove of people.
     
  15. NEWFrontiers22

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    I'm going to go with nature since there been studies about hormones affecting baby's in the womb. The rest was all me. ;D

    ---------- Post added 26th Jun 2013 at 10:29 PM ----------

    Yes, I personally think it can be influenced, to what degree though is anyone's guess. You could certain kinds of technology to alter the structure of the brain, but what's currently available is woefully far from adequate. There probably are some psychological ways to do it, but whether or not that's ethical is another question entirely. I think there definitely needs to be more research into this though.
     
  16. 2112

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    This is exactly what I've always thought.

    My mom doesn't think it's a choice, but when I said I think it's probably genetic she said she doesn't believe that. Not because she hasn't seen any evidence, she just doesn't believe it. Kind of like how my dad says evolution is wrong because of the bible. They are very liberal and not even very religious, so I don't get it.

    Wow, that got really off topic...
     
  17. Hexagon

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    Mostly nature. Possibly completely so.
     
  18. lawRAWR

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    For me, I think it was 'nurture'. I'm from a broken home, my Dad left my Mum when I was younger, he verbally abused my Mum. My Mum now has a boyfriend, but he is just... unloving. :icon_sad:

    I basically think it's my lack of male role models in my life (even so I feel that I can't trust men. Terrible, I know) that has contributed to me being closer to women emotionally. :confused:
     
  19. Hexagon

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    I know many, many heterosexual girls with that story. I also don't see why negative influences rather than positive ones should be more likely to cause homosexuality.
     
  20. Night Rain

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    That doesn't invalidate what she said. When someone says nurture possibly caused them to be gay, it doesn't mean everyone who is nurtured that way will turn out gay. So the fact that there are many heterosexual girls who have had a bad family doesn't mean anything in this context, really. As far as we know, people have different reactions to things, so a different turnout doesn't invalidate the other.