Is Homosexuality Genetic Or Learned
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Is homosexuality genetic or learned? Ever since the gay rights movement started in the 1970's, the world of science started looking for answers to this question. There are two distinct schools of thought on this issue. One states that homosexuality is genetic and believes in the gay gene. Another group of scientists state that it is a learned behavior that develops consciously or subconsciously as a sexual preference, just like heterosexuality.
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Several studies have been conducted around the gay gene concept to prove that homosexuality has a hormonal and genetic basis. This has been supported by gay rights activists who believe that "people are born gay and cannot be changed". In 2003, researchers in University of East London carried out a study on several men and women (a mixed group on both homosexual and heterosexual) in which they learned that the Xq28 region of the X chromosome to be the cause of homosexuality and that it is genetic and not learned. However, most of these studies have been declared as methodically uneven and have been rejected by the scientific and the psychiatric world. On the other hand, there have also been numerous studies carried out to prove that homosexuality is not a genetic, but a learned behavior, and that people are not "born" gay. In 2003, Dr. Robert Spitzer from Columbia University published a study called Archives of Sexual Behavior. Dr. Spitzer had been one of the main driving forces in eliminating homosexuality from the American Psychiatric Association's list of mental disorders in 1973. In his study, he stated that people can get transformed from homosexuality to heterosexuality through therapy and counseling. In spite of multiple studies and research performed, the battle of two groups is still raging and no definitive answer of the learned versus genetic debate has been found yet.
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Is Homosexuality Genetic Or Learned